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Limbaugh: Mueller Investigation a ‘Cover-Up,’ Meant To ‘Distract Everybody’s Attention’


Reported By Randy DeSoto | Published February 18, 2019 at 11:17am  | Modified February 18, 2019 at 11:20am

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said he believes special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was launched to “cover-up” the misdeeds within the Justice Department, including the FBI’s attempted “coup” against President Donald Trump.

During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Limbaugh was asked to respond to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s account that he was involved with a discussion with Justice Department Deputy Director Rod Rosenstein in May 2017 regarding invoking the 25th Amendment to have Trump removed from office.

Fox News host Chris Wallace asked the commentator why he described this revelation as evidence of a “silent coup.”

“Because these people are unelected,” Limbaugh answered. “They took it upon themselves to overthrow the election results of 2016, ignoring the potential real collusion and conspiracy between Democrats and Russians to undermine the Trump candidacy and the Trump presidency.”

“We’re losing sight of what happened here,” he continued. “People unelected simply because they don’t like the guy’s hairstyle or where he came from decided the American people’s decision was invalid and began a systematic process to get him thrown out of office. This is a silent coup.”

Limbaugh contended that those involved in these discussions are the ones who ought to be under investigation and going to jail.

“The Mueller investigation, I believe, is a cover-up of all of that. It’s to distract everybody’s attention,” he said. “This is one of the greatest political hoaxes that has ever be perpetrated on the people of this country.”

The conservative icon said the prosecution of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and others affiliated with the campaign for process crimes is all “designed to make it look like there was some kind of collusion between Trump and Russia.”

Limbaugh noted that no one has been prosecuted to date for the stated purpose of Mueller’s probe, which was to examine Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election, including whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow. Many political observers, including Fox News host Sean Hannity, have pointed to the special counsel’s apparent lack of interest in investigating the origin and use of the so-called Trump Russia dossier as proof that Mueller is overseeing a one-side, agenda-driven probe.

The dossier, which was funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, was reportedly used to help obtain FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

Limbaugh said that a primary goal of Mueller’s investigation was to be the vehicle used to justify impeaching Trump, but now it is aimed toward the 2020 election and driving down the president’s approval numbers.

Trump tweeted on Monday, “Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.”

He added in a second tweet, “There is a lot of explaining to do to the millions of people who had just elected a president who they really like and who has done a great job for them with the Military, Vets, Economy and so much more. This was the illegal and treasonous ‘insurance policy’ in full action!”

The Department of Justice’s inspector general released a report last April concluding that McCabe “lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions in connection with describing his role in connection with a disclosure to the (Wall Street Journal)” in violation of FBI policy, and that his “disclosure of the existence of an ongoing investigation in the manner described in this report violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct.”

The OIG made a criminal referral to the DOJ regarding McCabe’s alleged lies to federal investigators.

In March 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe based on the OIG’s findings two days before he was slated to retire.

McCabe came under increased scrutiny following the release of text messages by the inspector general in December 2017 between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

In the texts, Strzok described Trump during the 2016 campaign as a “loathsome human” and an “idiot,” and found the prospect of him being president “terrifying.”

Page, who was having an affair with Strzok, texted him, “There is no way (Trump) gets elected.”

Strzok then replied, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office … that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk.

“It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

“Andy” apparently referred to McCabe.

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Randy DeSoto
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Randy DeSoto is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” and screenwriter of the political documentary “I Want Your Money.”

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Joy Villa Issues Fiery Response After Being Attacked over Pro-Trump Grammys Wardrobe


Reported By Bryan Chai | Published February 11, 2019 at 2:53pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/joy-villa-issues-fiery-response-attacked-pro-trump-grammys-wardrobe/

Joy Villa

Singer Joy Villa arrives for the 61st Annual Grammy Awards on February 10, 2019, in Los Angeles. Joy Villa made sensation with a dress carrying the pro Trump slogan ‘Build the Wall’ and a bag saying ‘Make America Great Again.’ (Valerie Macon / AFP / Getty Images)

If there has ever been a more blatant example of the left’s hypocrisy and self-righteousness, look no further than the 2019 Grammys.

Singer Joy Villa showed up to the 2019 Grammys sporting a powerful political message through her attire, doing exactly what Joy Behar wants her musicians to be doing during award shows. Only, something tells me that the notoriously leftist loon Behar probably didn’t like the message Villa was pushing.

Wearing a long dress made to look like a wall, with the words “Build The Wall” scrawled on the back and holding a “Make America Great Again” purse, Villa made it pretty clear where she stood on President Donald Trump.

Naturally, since Villa was not conforming to the leftist ideals Behar and other liberals so desperately push, she was immediately vilified online and subjected to disgusting treatment.

To her credit, Villa didn’t take any of the criticisms laying down. She fired back in a very powerful and public manner.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks,” Villa bluntly said, before citing some statistics about drugs, sexual assault and child trafficking that the left will surely turn a blind eye toward.

But more importantly than defending herself, Villa also celebrated how her wardrobe choice was making more and more artists in the music industry comfortable to tout their conservative or Republican roots.

“I’m SO glad other artists are coming out,” Villa posted on Twitter. “It’s time. It’s been dominated for years by liberals.”

The most powerful and most fiery line of Villa’s tweets?

“Conservative culture is taking over.”

And just to be clear, Villa is not some flash in the pan crying for attention. She has consistently and proudly shown off her conservative beliefs. In fact, at the 2017 Grammys, Villa proudly wore a red, white and blue “Make America Great Again” dress.

She obviously had to deal with leftist backlash for that too, despite the fact that an immigrant actually made that dress for her.

In 2018, Villa donned a decidedly pro-life dress.

Perhaps if these award shows were less of a self-congratulatory exhibition for smug Hollywood elitists, and actually featured more authentic people with varying ideological viewpoints like Joy Villa, their ratings wouldn’t be so bad.

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Bryan Chai
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Bryan Chai has been a writer for The Western Journal for over two years and has written more than 1,300 stories for Conservative Tribune and The Wildcard. He specializes in sports and politics.

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Police Report Is Game-Changer in Case of Gay, Black Actor Attacked by ‘Trump Supporters’


Reported By C. Douglas Golden | January 30, 2019 at 9:29am

When gay black actor Jussie Smollett said he was attacked by white men who yelled some stuff about “MAGA,” it didn’t take long for the liberal rage machine to mobilize.

“The star of the tv show ‘Empire,’ Jussie Smollett, was attacked by two assailants early Monday morning in Downtown Chicago according to Chicago Police Department Spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi,” CNN reported.

“Smollett, 36, was walking on the 300 block of E. North Lower Water Street when two men approached him and ‘gained his attention by yelling out racial and homophobic slurs towards him,’ Guglielmi says in a statement.

“Two unknown offenders — it is unknown if they were male or female — then attacked Smollett, hitting him in the face and then poured an unknown chemical substance on him.

“At some point during the scuffle, one of the offenders wrapped a rope around the victim’s neck and then both offenders fled the scene, the statement reads.”

Smollett took himself to Northwestern Hospital, where the incident was reported to police, according to CBS Chicago.

There was plenty of condemnation to go around, particularly after TMZ reported that the attackers had shouted “this is MAGA country.” Two of the outraged included black Democratic senators, who just by chance, happen to either be running for president or widely expected to be running for president.

There was one problem with this “modern-day lynching” narrative: None of that “MAGA country” stuff was originally mentioned to police and they’re having trouble corroborating the fact that the attack even happened.

“According to the victim, the offenders’ faces were concealed,” a police spokesman said, according to Reason. “We have no record indicating that (they shouted ‘MAGA’), we only have record of them shouting racial and homophobic slurs at him.”

A statement from Chicago Police confirmed that, Reason reported.

“We have no record of the ‘MAGA Country’ comment,” the statement said, according to Reason. “We have racial and homophobic comments documented.”

CNN reported that when police heard about the accusation and called the actor, he “relayed it to detectives in a supplemental interview.”

But then again, there’s some doubt as to whether the attack even happened.

In an area that has a “very high density” of surveillance cameras, according to the police spokesman’s statement, there is not a single image of an attack like the one Smollett described.

“A Chicago police spokesperson tells CNN that investigators canvassed the neighborhood where the reported attack occurred on actor Jussie Smollett and have found no still images or video from security cameras of the incident,” CNN reported.

“The only image of Smollett police obtained from security cameras was inside Subway Sandwich shop near the location of the reported crime, the actor was standing alone.”

For all I know, Smollett really was attacked by bigots who shouted the phrase “MAGA country,” and ambitious, Democratic politicians who are calling this a “a modern-day lynching” are absolutely justified. But here’s the thing — I’m going to wait to see whether or not that’s the case, as everyone else should have.

It hasn’t even been a fortnight since the Covington Catholic incident, and the lesson we were should have taken away from that “teachable moment” — be careful dealing with stories that confirm your cultural narrative — has been lost.

No fewer than two senators with eyes on the 2020 Democratic nomination have taken this accusation as gospel because they can use it as an illustration of supposed Trump-fueled hate coursing through the country, even though no arrests have been made and the evidence is scanty. If this turns out to be a hoax, Sens. Booker and Harris own this, as do the legion of liberals who tweeted this out without waiting for a fuller investigation.

Even if this turns out to be true, what they did was supremely irresponsible. That these two individuals are in the Senate is bad enough. Just imagine one of them in the White House, backed by a legion of people who think Donald Trump supporters are irresponsible bigots, but are willing to blame white Donald Trump supporters for a hate crime without any charges or even direct physical evidence. It will make the Obama years look like pure reason.

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C. Douglas Golden
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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between America and Southeast Asia and believes in free speech and the Second Amendment.

 

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Bombshell: WaPo Issues Nathan Phillips Correction, Says Never Served in Vietnam


Reported By Ben Marquis | January 22, 2019 at 5:13pm

After an incident involving Covington Catholic High School students following Friday’s March for Life in Washington D.C., an Native American activist and black supremacist protesters became emblematic of “fake news” complaints that have been lodged against the establishment media for decades.

Starting with a short snippet of video featuring the Native American activist — identified as Omaha tribe elder and Marine Corps veteran Nathan Phillips — banging a drum and chanting while locked in a standoff with a smiling young teen wearing a red MAGA hat, the media ran wild with accusations of racism and harassment against the elder by the students who had purportedly approached and surrounded him in an intimidating display of white privilege and social oppression.

Except, having rushed to judgment without waiting for all of the facts, much of the media was forced to walk back their initial reports by Sunday after other, longer videos emerged that painted an entirely different picture. It was the boys who had been harassed by the black supremacists and approached by Phillips, not the other way around, as had been implied at first.

The media had sought to demonize the students and portray Phillips as a victim, and countless outlets — including The Washington Post — reported that the abuse from the boys was extra terrible in light of the fact that Phillips was a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.  Except, the media has had to walk back that claim as well, as it has now been revealed that Phillips never served in Vietnam, though it is still maintained that he served as a Marine during the same time period.

The Washington Post issued a correction on Tuesday about Phillips to the hit piece against the MAGA hat-wearing boys that was first posted on Sunday morning. That correction reads: “Earlier versions of this story incorrectly said that Native American activist Nathan Phillips fought in the Vietnam War. Phillips served in the U.S. Marines from 1972 to 1976 but was never deployed to Vietnam.”

This is yet another huge factual error within the larger array of mistakes in the story that the media got wrong at first glance. It doesn’t appear that Phillips ever specifically described himself as a combat veteran — though he certainly remains fair game for criticism for his distorted version of events in several interviews following the incident. Yet, despite Phillips having never specifically said he was a combat veteran of the Vietnam era, that was most definitely insinuated — both implicitly and explicitly by some — in countless reports and tweets from media outlets and reporters.

CNN transcripts from their interview with Nathan Phillips say that he said he was a Vietnam War veteran, but the video interview shows him saying he is a “Vietnam times veteran.”

The folks over at a veteran-focused blog known as This Ain’t Hell took a closer look at the circumstances surrounding the media’s portrayal of the self-described “Vietnam times veteran.”

Without Phillips’ military service records to verify — that have been requested — the blog nevertheless proceeded to display several screenshots of media chyrons and tweets announcing Phillips as a war vet, again clearly implying that he had served in the conflict.

The blog further dug into several interviews of Phillips and even looked into old media accounts of Phillips from prior incidents over the years and found no evidence that he had ever described himself as a combat veteran, but did find several instances where potentially “over-zealous” reporters had assigned that specific honor to him.

On top of that, the blog also looked closely at his age — reported to be 64 — and compared that to the actual timeline of the Vietnam War. Phillips would have turned 18 right around the tail-end of the war in 1972/73, so there is only an exceptionally small window with little margin for error to account for his having graduated from high school, enlisting in the Marines, as well as graduating from basic training and additional training schools prior to being immediately shipped off to the war zone, were he to have actually served in the war.

Again, without his actual service records to provide verification, there is really no way to know for sure, but odds are Phillips served in the Marines during what is called the Vietnam era — which officially ended in 1975 — without having served in the combat zone.

To be sure, we here at Conservative Tribune are not knocking Phillips for his military service. Indeed, we commend him for his service and sacrifice to the nation, regardless of whether he served overseas or at home, during a time of war or peace.

Instead, we are throwing a sharp elbow in the direction of the mainstream media — especially The Washington Post — and all of the reporters who perpetuated the implication that he was a Vietnam War veteran who had actually fought in the war, which appears to have not been the case at all.

This was a story made huge by the media in large part because it was deceptively framed to fit the preconceived notions of liberals by portraying a Native American activist as an oppressed victim and a bunch of white, MAGA hat-wearing Catholic school boys as privileged aggressors, which was pretty much the opposite of what actually happened. The media should be ashamed of themselves, and minor corrections and half-hearted apologies aren’t going to cut it in making things right this time.

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Ben Marquis
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All It Took Was 1 Border Photo and Trump Has Leftists Triggered


Reported By C. Douglas Golden | January 12, 2019 at 11:04am

There’s nothing quite like the Trump tweet. It’s not just a matter of owning the libs, as they say. In fact, the tweets often aren’t perfect from a policy and/or public relations standpoint. There’s definitely been some problematic stuff in the presidential feed from time to time.

Nevertheless, therein lies the fun. However much you might think that the president has done harm to his cause in 280 characters or less, his enemies tend to do way more damage to theirs.

Take, for instance, a tweet that should have been entirely unproblematic. After all, it was confrontational, but decidedly true. It involved a section of new fencing being put up along the border:

Now, there wasn’t a whole lot of context here regarding funding, where this was being built or whether or not it was replacing an old barrier. The point was, however, a new border wall was indeed being built — at least according to the tweet.

And thusly did the left half of political Twitter lose their minds.

Dr. Eugene Gu, a surgeon who has become a liberal political hashtag activist because a) he does transplants using tissue from aborted fetuses and b) why the heck not, was definitely triggered by the post.

Yeah, stopping people from entering the United States illegally makes you “like the worst, evil cartoon character villain.” Also, a “Game of Thrones” reference. Yet more proof Trump does triggering better than anyone else. Also, he does “Game of Thrones” references better, too.

Oh, and one of the Brothers Krassenstein commented on it, because of course they did. They didn’t seem to understand the whole mechanics of wall funding or the fact that there are still numerous areas along our southern border that are unsecured:

Someone please remind me why these guys are beloved social media stars.

There was also a tweet from a mental health counselor and author which we can’t show here that basically said, in vulgar terms, that Trump’s “imaginary wall is a metaphor” for his reproductive parts and that he’s building it because there are, ahem, medical issues with said parts. You can see the original tweet here. Again, published mental health counselor.

There are plenty of other tweets in this vein, although these are the most famous lib trolls that seem to have been trolled and don’t seem to get either the purpose of the wall or how it’s funded.

This is the state of the left today. Even the mere mention of the wall sends them into a tizzy. “This was already planned!” “It’s a fence, not a wall!” “You’re a barbarian!” Etc., etc.

And the media says someone in the White House should take away Donald Trump’s Twitter. Not when it creates reactions like this, they shouldn’t.


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C. Douglas Golden
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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between America and Southeast Asia and believes in free speech and the Second Amendment.

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Seventeen Burned Bodies Appear Near Border as Democrats Say We Don’t Need a Wall


Reported By Ben Marquis | January 10, 2019 at 4:25pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/seventeen-burned-bodies-appear-near-border-democrats-say-dont-need-wall/

Burned Car | Ilya Andriyanov / Shutterstock(Ilya Andriyanov / Shutterstock)

President Donald Trump delivered his first primetime Oval Office address on Tuesday night, where he explained how the situation on the porous southern border of the U.S. had reached a “crisis” level in terms of humanitarian and national security needs, a crisis which necessitates the construction of a border wall in some areas as part of increased border security overall.

Democrats and the media immediately set about disputing Trump’s labeling of the border situation as a “crisis,” part of their overtly biased effort to instantly “fact-check” every word or statistic uttered by the president in the brief speech, and — coincidentally? — all seemed to arrive at the same conclusion: There is no real crisis at the border, only a “manufactured crisis” brought about purposefully by Trump’s actions, or some such nonsense like that.

Of course, to follow along with the media’s bouncing ball on this one, everyone must ignore the fact that the same liberal media loudly trumpeted the “crisis” at the border in 2013 and 2014 — when they were supporting comprehensive immigration reform and amnesty for illegal immigrants — or their hollering about a “crisis” on the border through much of 2017 and 2018 when Trump began to crack down on illegal border crossings and deportations ticked up.

In truth, however, the only thing “manufactured” about all of this is the Democrats ‘obstinate opposition to the president and their refusal to acknowledge the basic and undeniable facts of what is occurring on and around the porous and lightly defended southern border.

Case in point, Reuters reported on Thursday that at least 20 dead bodies — 17 of which had been badly burned — were discovered on Wednesday in the Mexican city of Ciudad Miguel Aleman, which is located a mere 56 miles across the Rio Grande River from the U.S. border city of McAllen, Texas, where President Trump visited with U.S. Border Patrol agents and other officials on Thursday.

Mexican authorities are reportedly investigating what has all the appearances of a deadly battle between members of two rival gangs in the area, gangs that routinely play in a role in the illicit cross-border excursions that bring illegal aliens, criminals, drugs, weapons and even terrorists into this nation.

The suspected gang-related massacre even drew a mention from Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at his daily news conference on Thursday, and though he didn’t offer up much in the way of specifics, he did say that security officials would provide more information at a later date or time.

Reuters noted that according to one Mexican security official, five burned-out vehicles were also discovered along with the 20 dead bodies, though the outlet noted that a separate Mexican security official had reportedly counted as many as 21 dead bodies at the scene. The grisly scene was located in the Tamaulipas region of Mexico, one of the more violent states in that nation that has been controlled by dangerous criminal cartels and gangs for years. Those groups exert a great deal of control over drug and human trafficking across the border in that region, and are well-known for running extortion rackets on local residents and exploiting migrants passing through the area for whatever can be gained.

When not engaged in those border-related crimes, the cartels and gangs are fighting violently among each other or waging war against Mexican security forces, violence that has claimed tens of thousands of lives — some innocent, some not so much — over the years.

Obviously, incidents like this one — and this bloody incident is far from an isolated occurrence — are what President Trump is referencing when he speaks of the “crisis” at the border while demanding Congress appropriate the necessary funds to construct a border wall where needed and to increase border security measures in other ways.

Yet, based solely on their reflexive opposition to all things Trump, many talking heads in the liberal media staunchly refuse to acknowledge as a “crisis” what their own colleagues are quietly reporting on a near-daily basis.

Indeed, some in the media have even adopted a sort of “Don’t believe your lying eyes” attitude when it comes to their anti-Trump reporting on the border, as evidenced by a ridiculous tweet from CNN’s Jim Acosta that actually seemed to prove the president’s point about how necessary and effective a border wall truly is.

In several other tweets after that, Acosta hyped up how safe the border town of McAllen is — while studiously ignoring the obvious fact that McAllen is safe because it has a border wall and other barriers obstructing those who would illicitly cross over.

Unfortunately, the wall and other barriers along the border in the McAllen region that keep it so safe only extend for so long, and eventually give way to mere chain-link fencing or nothing at all, meaning those who wish to cross the border illegally need only walk around the end to do so. Anyone with common sense and intellectual honesty can plainly see that and realize Trump is absolutely correct to want to address this security crisis post haste.

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Ben Marquis
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Writer and researcher. Constitutional conservatarian with a strong focus on protecting the Second and First Amendments.

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Trump Paid Stormy Himself. Congress Paid Its Victims $17 Million out of Treasury. Who’re the Real Criminals?



Reported By Cillian Zeal | December 10, 2018 at 12:16pm

The one person who seemed to sum up the Democrats’ reaction to Michael Cohen’s guilty plea — and subsequent allegations against President Donald Trump — was Rep. Jerry Nadler. There’s long been speculation that the New York Democrat is considering impeachment hearings against Trump and anyone around him regardless of what the evidence might entail. A report from the day after the midterms had the powerful ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee ranting on a train about impeaching Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He also talked about going “all in” on Russia.

Well, Russia might not work out, but how about Cohen? On TV this weekend, Nadler talked in grave terms about Cohen’s claim that Trump directed him to pay Stormy Daniels as part of a non-disclosure agreement and paid him back. This would, according to Nadler, be a sufficient reason to remove Trump from office.

“They would be impeachable offenses. Whether they’re important enough to justify an impeachment is a different question,” Nadler said in an appearance on CNN.

“Certainly, they’re impeachable offenses, because, even though they were committed before the president became president, they were committed in the service of fraudulently obtaining the office.”

This is hardly a surprise; from Day One, Nadler has called Trump “not legitimate” as a president. But the media is lapping it up. They seem to forget two things.

One, campaign finance issues — and it’s questionable as to whether this falls under the aegis of campaign finance — are generally settled without impeachment proceedings, mostly because they aren’t important enough to justify an impeachment.

The second is, well, how does Congress have any room to talk?

Yes, $17 million of taxpayer money has been spent on settling, among other things, sexual harassment claims in Congress, and we pretty much don’t know anything about the cases. As CNN noted, the names of those involved are withheld not only from the public but also from party leadership.

“A source in House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office told CNN that Ryan is not made aware of the details of harassment settlements. That source also said that the top Democrat and Republican on the House administration committee review proposed settlements and both must approve the payments,” the network  reported in November 2017.

“Similarly, a source in Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office told CNN that Pelosi also is not made aware of those details, and that they are confined to the parties of the settlement and the leaders of the administration committee.”

This is essentially the cozy system that the establishment has set up so that it doesn’t have to face repercussions from sexual harassment lawsuits, discrimination suits and the like. There are also other rebarbative elements of how the system is set up, too long to detail here but enraging in their own right.

But this is perfectly legal.

Trump, meanwhile, paid a much smaller sum to women who allege he had consensual sex with him in order to obtain an NDA. Because of the methodology of obtaining it and the question of whether or not it should have been included in campaign finance reports, we’re now talking impeachment. Apparently, Nadler isn’t going all-in on Russia, he’s going all-in on Stormy. I guess it’s easier.

So, yes, Nadler can continue to claim that “the president was at the center of a massive fraud — several massive frauds against the American people.” That doesn’t actually mean anything. If we scrutinized the campaign ledgers of everyone in high office for any sort of problem, we’d probably have to extirpate at least half of them from their position.

Now, here’s the thing: I haven’t seen the Mueller report. Neither has Nadler. For all I know, Trump is implicated in a panoply of heinous crimes and his ties with Russia were way more extensive than we thought. Or it could be a very big nothingburger, albeit a nothingburger dressed up like a very appetizing somethingburger and advertised incessantly in the media like it was the Arch Deluxe circa 1992.

I still have my money on the latter, and I think Nadler does too. He heavily qualified whether the alleged campaign finance violations rose to the level of impeachability.

“You don’t necessarily launch an impeachment against the president because he committed an impeachable offense,” he said. “There are several things you have to look at.”

“One, were impeachable offenses committed, how many, et cetera. Secondly, how important were they? Do they rise to the gravity where you should undertake an impeachment? An impeachment is an attempt to effect or overturn the result of the last election and should do it only for very serious situations. That’s the question.”

My guess is that Nadler finds they were very important, committed with great frequency and rise to the gravity where one should undertake an impeachment — an impeachment which would overturn the result of the last election, which elected a president Nadler has already declared as “not legitimate.”

The rest of us might look at the report and realize this has nothing on what Congress has been doing for years. Whether that makes it right is an entirely different question, but the contrast will still make a huge difference in terms of how Americans view any attempts at impeachment.

After all, Trump used his own money to pay for an NDA through a liaison, which would generally garner a minor fine at most if you even concede it was a campaign-related expense. Congress used $17 million of your money to pay for its mistakes, some of which involved sexual harassment. They took every possible step to make sure you didn’t know about it. And they made it all perfectly legal.

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Cillian Zeal
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Writing under a pseudonym, Cillian Zeal is a conservative writer who is currently living abroad in a country that doesn’t value free speech. Exercising it there under his given name could put him in danger.

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Jerome Corsi Files Criminal Complaint Against Mueller Team


Reported By Randy DeSoto | December 3, 2018 at 12:00pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/jerome-corsi-files-criminal-complaint-mueller-team/Jerome Corsi

In this Oct. 7, 2008, file photo, Jerome Corsi, right, arrives at the immigration department in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP Photo)

Conservative author Jerome Corsi filed a “criminal and ethics” complaint against special counsel Robert Mueller on Monday, alleging his team threatened prosecution if Corsi refused to provide false testimony against Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Fox News reported the 78-page complaint, filed with the Department of Justice and the DOJ’s inspector general, stated “Dr. Corsi has been criminally threatened and coerced to tell a lie and call it the truth.”

The filing also calls for the removal of Mueller and his prosecutors for their misconduct.

“Special Counsel Mueller and his prosecutorial staff should respectfully be removed from his office and their practice of the law and a new Special Counsel appointed who respects and will obey common and accepted norms of professional ethics and the law and who will promptly conclude the so-called Russian collusion investigation which had been illegally and criminally spinning out of control,” the document reads.

According to his complaint, Mueller’s team wanted Corsi to testify to acting as a liaison between Trump campaign associate Roger Stone and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange regarding the release of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee. The filing reads that Mueller’s office “knowingly and deceitfully threatening to charge Dr. Corsi with an alleged false statement,” unless he gives them “false testimony” against Trump and others.

Corsi announced last week on multiple media outlets that he would not sign Mueller’s agreement calling for him to plead guilty to one count of perjury.

“They can put me in prison the rest of my life. I am not going to sign a lie,” the 72-year-old told CNN.

According to a court filing by Mueller’s team, Corsi wrote in a short email to Stone in July 2016, “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.”

“Time to let more than (Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta) to be exposed as in bed w enemy if they are not ready to drop HRC (Hillary Rodham Clinton),” “The Obama Nation” author added. “That appears to be the game hackers are now about.”

Corsi explained to Fox News host Tucker Carlson last week that he had fully cooperated with Mueller’s investigators, turning over his computer and cellphone, but he initially forgot about the email, until it was brought to his attention. He amended his statement to Mueller’s team in September, which they accepted without complaint, but prosecutors changed their tune after they determined, he “could not give them what they wanted,” according to Corsi.

“They do this what I call a perjury trap,” Corsi told Carlson. “They ask you a question. They have material they won’t show you. You’ve forgotten about. They say, ‘You’ve just lied,’ because this email you’ve forgotten about 2016 proves your current memory is wrong. It’s a memory test.”

In a statement on Monday, his attorney Larry Klayman charged Mueller with “effectively seeking to overthrow a duly elected president” through coercing false testimony.

“This rogue government tyranny perpetrated by a Special Counsel and his prosecutorial staff, which is designed to effectively overthrow a duly elected president by coercing and extorting false testimony from Dr. Corsi and others, cannot be permitted in a civilized society,” he said.

Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz argued last week that Mueller’s probe is creating crimes rather than uncovering past ones, and that the “devastating” report against Trump he will write will be based on people “who have lied.”

“Virtually all of his indictments and pleas come from people who he got to lie in front of investigators by setting perjury traps for them,” Dershowitz told Fox News host Sean Hannity. He added, “(A)nd the other ones have to do with financial dealings unrelated to the president. Where’s the beef? Where’s the crime?”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Randy DeSoto
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Randy DeSoto is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” and screenwriter of the political documentary “I Want Your Money.”

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Trump’s list: 289 accomplishments in just 20 months, ‘relentless’ promise-keeping



Reported by Paul Bedard  | October 12, 2018 08:43 AM

The Trump administration’s often overlooked list of achievements has surpassed those of former President Ronald Reagan at this time and more than doubled since the last tally of accomplishments after his first year in office, giving President Trump a solid platform to run for re-election on.

As Trump nears the two-year mark of his historic election and conducts political rallies around the country, during which he talks up his wins in hopes it will energize Republican voters, the administration has counted up 289 accomplishments in 18 categories, capped by the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

They include 173 major wins, such as adding more than 4 million jobs, and another 116 smaller victories, some with outsize importance, such as the 83 percent one-year increase in arrests of MS-13 gang members.

“Trump’s successes in reducing the cost of taxes and regulations, rebuilding our military, avoiding wars of choice and changing the courts rival those of all previous Republican presidents,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

“Trump has an advantage over Ronald Reagan: He has a Reagan Republican House and Senate while Reagan had a [Democratic Speaker] Tip O’Neill House and a pre-Reagan Republican Senate. Reagan and [former GOP Speaker] Newt Gingrich were the ice breakers that allowed Trump’s victories to grow in number and significance,”he added.

Unlike the Year One list which included many proposals and orders still to be acted on, the new collection includes dozens of actions already in place, signed legislation, and enforced executive orders.

For example, while the Year One list bragged about the administration’s efforts to rewrite the much-maligned NAFTA trade deal with Canada and Mexico, the Year Two list said: “Negotiated an historic U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement to replace NAFTA.”

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In December, Secrets reported on the first list of White House accomplishments.

And shockingly the NAFTA achievement is presented as a sidebar to the larger achievement that reads, “President Trump is negotiating and renegotiating better trade deals, achieving free, fair, and reciprocal trade for the United States.”Under that umbrella are eight trade deals cut with Japan, South Korea, Europe and China.

“President Trump is a truly unique leader in American history. He’s a kid from Queens who became an international business leader and made billions by getting things when no one said he could,” said Trump’s 2016 campaign pollster John McLaughlin.

“They told him he couldn’t be president and beat the establishment and he did. For two years the establishment is telling him he can’t do things in Washington and he’s succeeding in spite of them. He never retreats. He doesn’t back up. He’s relentless. He just wins,”he added.

Comparing the two years shows that the latest has an expanded group of economic achievements while the pro-life category was folded into the health care section.  Along the way, there have been some disappointments, such as failing to replace Obamacare, fund a big infrastructure plan, and build the border wall.

But the White House believes that despite a lack of media coverage of his accomplishments, supporters know about them and will head to the voting polls to help the GOP maintain control of the House and keep the president on what CNN dubbed a “winning streak.”

In the Washington Post Friday, former Bush speechwriter and columnist Marc Thiessen agreed and said that Trump has proven to be successful at keeping his campaign promises. He wrote, “The fact is, in his first two years, Trump has compiled a remarkable record of presidential promise-keeping.”

The list:

Economic Growth

  • 4.2 percent growth in the second quarter of 2018.
  • For the first time in more than a decade, growth is projected to exceed 3 percent over the calendar year.

Jobs

  • 4 million new jobs have been created since the election, and more than 3.5 million since Trump took office.
  • More Americans are employed now than ever before in our history.
  • Jobless claims at lowest level in nearly five decades.
  • The economy has achieved the longest positive job-growth streak on record.
  • Job openings are at an all-time high and outnumber job seekers for the first time on record.
  • Unemployment claims at 50 year low
  • African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American unemployment rates have all recently reached record lows.
    • African-American unemployment hit a record low of 5.9 percent in May 2018.
    • Hispanic unemployment at 4.5 percent.
    • Asian-American unemployment at record low of 2 percent.
  • Women’s unemployment recently at lowest rate in nearly 65 years.
    • Female unemployment dropped to 3.6 percent in May 2018, the lowest since October 1953.
  • Youth unemployment recently reached its lowest level in more than 50 years.
    • July 2018’s youth unemployment rate of 9.2 percent was the lowest since July 1966.
  • Veterans’ unemployment recently hit its lowest level in nearly two decades.
    • July 2018’s veterans’ unemployment rate of 3.0 percent matched the lowest rate since May 2001.
  • Unemployment rate for Americans without a high school diploma recently reached a record low.
  • Rate for disabled Americans recently hit a record low.
  • Blue-collar jobs recently grew at the fastest rate in more than three decades.
  • Poll found that 85 percent of blue-collar workers believe their lives are headed “in the right direction.”
    • 68 percent reported receiving a pay increase in the past year.
  • Last year, job satisfaction among American workers hit its highest level since 2005.
  • Nearly two-thirds of Americans rate now as a good time to find a quality job.
    • Optimism about the availability of good jobs has grown by 25 percent.
  • Added more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since the election.
    • Manufacturing employment is growing at its fastest pace in more than two decades.
  • 100,000 new jobs supporting the production & transport of oil & natural gas.

American Income

  • Median household income rose to $61,372 in 2017, a post-recession high.
  • Wages up in August by their fastest rate since June 2009.
  • Paychecks rose by 3.3 percent between 2016 and 2017, the most in a decade.
  • Council of Economic Advisers found that real wage compensation has grown by 1.4 percent over the past year.
  • Some 3.9 million Americans off food stamps since the election.
  • Median income for Hispanic-Americans rose by 3.7 percent and surpassed $50,000 for the first time ever in history.
    • Home-ownership among Hispanics is at the highest rate in nearly a decade.
  • Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels ever recorded.

American Optimism

  • Small business optimism has hit historic highs.
    • NFIB’s small business optimism index broke a 35 year-old record in August.
    • SurveyMonkey/CNBC’s small business confidence survey for Q3 of 2018 matched its all-time high.
  • Manufacturers are more confident than ever.
    • 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future, the highest ever.
  • Consumer confidence is at an 18-year high.
  • 12 percent of Americans rate the economy as the most significant problem facing our country, the lowest level on record.
  • Confidence in the economy is near a two-decade high, with 51 percent rating the economy as good or excellent.

American Business

  • Investment is flooding back into the United States due to the tax cuts.
    • Over $450 billion dollars has already poured back into the U.S., including more than $300 billion in the first quarter of 2018.
  • Retail sales have surged. Commerce Department figures from August show that retail sales increased 0.5 percent in July 2018, an increase of 6.4 percent from July 2017.
  • ISM’s index of manufacturing scored its highest reading in 14 years.
  • Worker productivity is the highest it has been in more than three years.
  • Steel and aluminum producers are re-opening.
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and NASDAQ have all notched record highs.
    • Dow hit record highs 70 times in 2017 alone, the most ever recorded in one year.

Deregulation

  • Achieved massive deregulation at a rapid pace, completing 22 deregulatory actions to every one regulatory action during his first year in office.
  • Signed legislation to roll back costly and harmful provisions of Dodd-Frank, providing relief to credit unions, and community and regional banks.
  • Federal agencies achieved more than $8 billion in lifetime net regulatory cost savings.
  • Rolled back Obama’s burdensome Waters of the U.S. rule.
  • Used the Congressional Review Act to repeal regulations more times than in history.

Tax Cuts

  • Biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history by signing the Tax Cuts and Jobs act into law
    • Provided more than $5.5 trillion in gross tax cuts, nearly 60 percent of which will go to families.
    • Increased the exemption for the death tax to help save Family Farms & Small Business.
    • Nearly doubled the standard deduction for individuals and families.
    • Enabled vast majority of American families will be able to file their taxes on a single page by claiming the standard deduction.
    • Doubled the child tax credit to help lessen the financial burden of raising a family.
    • Lowered America’s corporate tax rate from the highest in the developed world to allow American businesses to compete and win.
    • Small businesses can now deduct 20 percent of their business income.
    • Cut dozens of special interest tax breaks and closed loopholes for the wealthy.
  • 9 in 10 American workers are expected see an increase in their paychecks thanks to the tax cuts, according to the Treasury Department.
  • More than 6 million of American workers have received wage increases, bonuses, and increased benefits thanks to tax cuts.
  • Over 100 utility companies have lowered electric, gas, or water rates thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
  • Ernst & Young found 89 percent of companies planned to increase worker compensation thanks to the Trump tax cuts.
  • Established opportunity zones to spur investment in left behind communities.

Worker Development

  • Established a National Council for the American Worker to develop a national strategy for training and retraining America’s workers for high-demand industries.
  • Employers have signed Trump’s “Pledge to America’s Workers,” committing to train or retrain more than 4.2 million workers and students.
  • Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorization since 2006, authorizing more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.
  • Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.

Domestic Infrastructure

  • Proposed infrastructure plan would utilize $200 billion in Federal funds to spur at least $1.5 trillion in infrastructure investment across the country.
  • Executive order expediting environmental reviews and approvals for high priority infrastructure projects.
  • Federal agencies have signed the One Federal Decision Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) streamlining the federal permitting process for infrastructure projects.
  • Rural prosperity task force and signed an executive order to help expand broadband access in rural areas.

Health Care

  • Signed an executive order to help minimize the financial burden felt by American households Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.
  • Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.
  • Signed Right-to-Try legislation, expanding health care options for terminally ill patients.
  • Enacted changes to the Medicare 340B program, saving seniors an estimated $320 million on drugs in 2018 alone.
  • FDA set a new record for generic drug approvals in 2017, saving consumers nearly $9 billion.
  • Released a blueprint to drive down drug prices for American patients, leading multiple major drug companies to announce they will freeze or reverse price increases.
  • Expanded short-term, limited-duration health plans.
  • Let more employers to form Association Health Plans, enabling more small businesses to join together and affordably provide health insurance to their employees.
  • Cut Obamacare’s burdensome individual mandate penalty.
  • Signed legislation repealing Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, also known as the “death panels.”
  • USDA invested more than $1 billion in rural health care in 2017, improving access to health care for 2.5 million people in rural communities across 41 states
  • Proposed Title X rule to help ensure taxpayers do not fund the abortion industry in violation of the law.
  • Reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy to keep foreign aid from supporting the global abortion industry.
  • HHS formed a new division over protecting the rights of conscience and religious freedom.
  • Overturned Obama administration’s midnight regulation prohibiting states from defunding certain abortion facilities.
  • Signed executive order to help ensure that religious organizations are not forced to choose between violating their religious beliefs by complying with Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate or shutting their doors.

Combating Opioids

  • Chaired meeting the 73rd General Session of the United Nations discussing the worldwide drug problem with international leaders.
  • Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand, introducing new measures to keep dangerous drugs out of our communities.
  • $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.
  • DEA conducted a surge in April 2018 that arrested 28 medical professions and revoked 147 registrations for prescribing too many opioids.
  • Brought the “Prescribed to Death” memorial to President’s Park near the White House, helping raise awareness about the human toll of the opioid crisis.
  • Helped reduce high-dose opioid prescriptions by 16 percent in 2017.
  • Opioid Summit on the administration-wide efforts to combat the opioid crisis.
  • Launched a national public awareness campaign about the dangers of opioid addiction.
  • Created a Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis which recommended a number of pathways to tackle the opioid crisis.
  • Led two National Prescription Drug Take Back Days in 2017 and 2018, collecting a record number of expired and unneeded prescription drugs each time.
  • $485 million targeted grants in FY 2017 to help areas hit hardest by the opioid crisis.
  • Signed INTERDICT Act, strengthening efforts to detect and intercept synthetic opioids before they reach our communities.
  • DOJ secured its first-ever indictments against Chinese fentanyl manufacturers.
  • Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement (J-CODE) team, aimed at disrupting online illicit opioid sales.
  • Declared the opioid crisis a Nationwide Public Health Emergency in October 2017.

Law and Order

  • More U.S. Circuit Court judges confirmed in the first year in office than ever.
  • Confirmed more than two dozen U. S. Circuit Court judges.
  • Followed through on the promise to nominate judges to the Supreme Court who will adhere to the Constitution
    • Nominated and confirmed Justice Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
  • Signed an executive order directing the Attorney General to develop a strategy to more effectively prosecute people who commit crimes against law enforcement officers.
  • Launched an evaluation of grant programs to make sure they prioritize the protection and safety of law enforcement officers.
  • Established a task force to reduce crime and restore public safety in communities across Signed an executive order to focus more federal resources on dismantling transnational criminal organizations such as drug cartels.
  • Signed an executive order to focus more federal resources on dismantling transnational criminal organizations such as drug cartels.
  • Violent crime decreased in 2017 according to FBI statistics.
  • $137 million in grants through the COPS Hiring Program to preserve jobs, increase community policing capacities, and support crime prevention efforts.
  • Enhanced and updated the Project Safe Neighborhoods to help reduce violent crime.
  • Signed legislation making it easier to target websites that enable sex trafficking and strengthened penalties for people who promote or facilitate prostitution.
  • Created an interagency task force working around the clock to prosecute traffickers, protect victims, and prevent human trafficking.
  • Conducted Operation Cross Country XI to combat human trafficking, rescuing 84 children and arresting 120 human traffickers.
  • Encouraged federal prosecutors to use the death penalty when possible in the fight against the trafficking of deadly drugs.
  • New rule effectively banning bump stock sales in the United States.

Border Security and Immigration

  • Secured $1.6 billion for border wall construction in the March 2018 omnibus bill.
  • Construction of a 14-mile section of border wall began near San Diego.
  • Worked to protect American communities from the threat posed by the vile MS-13 gang.
    • ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division arrested 796 MS-13 members and associates in FY 2017, an 83 percent increase from the prior year.
    • Justice worked with partners in Central America to secure criminal charges against more than 4,000 MS-13 members.
    • Border Patrol agents arrested 228 illegal aliens affiliated with MS-13 in FY 2017.
  • Fighting to stop the scourge of illegal drugs at our border.
    • ICE HSI seized more than 980,000 pounds of narcotics in FY 2017, including 2,370 pounds of fentanyl and 6,967 pounds of heroin.
    • ICE HSI dedicated nearly 630,000 investigative hours towards halting the illegal import of fentanyl.
    • ICE HSI made 11,691 narcotics-related arrests in FY 2017.
    • Stop Opioid Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand introduced new measures to keep dangerous drugs out the United States.
    • Signed the INTERDICT Act into law, enhancing efforts to detect and intercept synthetic opioids.
    • DOJ secured its first-ever indictments against Chinese fentanyl manufacturers.
    • DOJ launched their Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement (J-CODE) team, aimed at disrupting online illicit opioid sales.
  • Released an immigration framework that includes the resources required to secure our borders and close legal loopholes, and repeatedly called on Congress to fix our broken immigration laws.
  • Authorized the deployment of the National Guard to help secure the border.
  • Enhanced vetting of individuals entering the U.S. from countries that don’t meet security standards, helping to ensure individuals who pose a threat to our country are identified before they enter.
    • These procedures were upheld in a June 2018 Supreme Court hearing.
  • ICE removed over 226,000 illegal aliens from the United States in 2017.
    • ICE rescued or identified over 500 human trafficking victims and over 900 child exploitation victims in 2017 alone.
  • In 2017, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arrested more than 127,000 aliens with criminal convictions or charges, responsible for
    • Over 76,000 with dangerous drug offenses.
    • More than 48,000 with assault offenses.
    • More than 11,000 with weapons offenses.
    • More than 5,000 with sexual assault offenses.
    • More than 2,000 with kidnapping offenses.
    • Over 1,800 with homicide offenses.
  • Created the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office in order to support the victims and families affected by illegal alien crime.
  • More than doubled the number of counties participating in the 287(g) program, which allows jails to detain criminal aliens until they are transferred to ICE custody.

Trade

  • Negotiating and renegotiating better trade deals, achieving free, fair, and reciprocal trade for the United States.
    • Agreed to work with the European Union towards zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, and zero subsides.
    • Deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.
    • Litigated multiple WTO disputes targeting unfair trade practices and upholding our right to enact fair trade laws.
    • Finalized a revised trade agreement with South Korea, which includes provisions to increase American automobile exports.
    • Negotiated an historic U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement to replace NAFTA.
    • Agreement to begin trade negotiations for a U.S.-Japan trade agreement.
    • Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.
    • Established a Trade and Investment Working Group with the United Kingdom, laying the groundwork for post-Brexit trade.
  • Enacted steel and aluminum tariffs to protect our vital steel and aluminum producers and strengthen our national security.
  • Conducted 82 anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations in 2017 alone.
  • Confronting China’s unfair trade practices after years of Washington looking the other way.
    • 25 percent tariff on $50 billion of goods imported from China and later imposed an additional 10% tariff on $200 billion of Chinese goods.
    • Conducted an investigation into Chinese forced technology transfers, unfair licensing practices, and intellectual property theft.
    • Imposed safeguard tariffs to protect domestic washing machines and solar products manufacturers hurt by China’s trade policies
  • Withdrew from the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
  • Secured access to new markets for America’s farmers.
    • Recent deal with Mexico included new improvements enabling food and agriculture to trade more fairly.
    • Recent agreement with the E.U. will reduce barriers and increase trade of American soybeans to Europe.
    • Won a WTO dispute regarding Indonesia’s unfair restriction of U.S. agricultural exports.
    • Defended American Tuna fisherman and packagers before the WTO
    • Opened up Argentina to American pork experts for the first time in a quarter-century
    • American beef exports have returned to china for the first time in more than a decade
  • OK’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.

Energy

  • Presidential Memorandum to clear roadblocks to construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
  • Presidential Memorandum declaring that the Dakota Access Pipeline serves the national interest and initiating the process to complete construction.
  • Opened up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to energy exploration.
  • Coal exports up over 60 percent in 2017.
  • Rolled back the “stream protection rule” to prevent it from harming America’s coal industry.
  • Cancelled Obama’s anti-coal Clean Power Plan and proposed the Affordable Clean Energy Rule as a replacement.
  • Withdrew from the job-killing Paris climate agreement, which would have cost the U.S. nearly $3 trillion and led to 6.5 million fewer industrial sector jobs by 2040.
  • U.S. oil production has achieved its highest level in American history
  • United States is now the largest crude oil producer in the world.
  • U.S. has become a net natural gas exporter for the first time in six decades.
  • Action to expedite the identification and extraction of critical minerals that are vital to the nation’s security and economic prosperity.
  • Took action to reform National Ambient Air Quality Standards, benefitting American manufacturers.
  • Rescinded Obama’s hydraulic fracturing rule, which was expected to cost the industry $32 million per year.
  • Proposed an expansion of offshore drilling as part of an all-of-the above energy strategy
    • Held a lease sale for offshore oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico in August 2018.
  • Got EU to increase its imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States.
  • Issued permits for the New Burgos Pipeline that will cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

Foreign Policy

  • Moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
  • Withdrew from Iran deal and immediately began the process of re-imposing sanctions that had been lifted or waived.
    • Treasury has issued sanctions targeting Iranian activities and entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force
    • Since enacting sanctions, Iran’s crude exports have fallen off, the value of Iran’s currency has plummeted, and international companies have pulled out of the country.
    • All nuclear-related sanctions will be back in full force by early November 2018.
  • Historic summit with North Korean President Kim Jong-Un, bringing beginnings of peace and denuclearization to the Korean Peninsula.
    • The two leaders have exchanged letters and high-level officials from both sides have met resulting in tremendous progress.
    • North Korea has halted nuclear and missile tests.
    • Negotiated the return of the remains of missing-in-action soldiers from the Korean War.
  • Imposed strong sanctions on Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro and his inner circle.
  • Executive order preventing those in the U.S. from carrying out certain transactions with the Venezuelan regime, including prohibiting the purchase of the regime’s debt.
  • Responded to the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime.
    • Rolled out sanctions targeting individuals and entities tied to Syria’s chemical weapons program.
    • Directed strikes in April 2017 against a Syrian airfield used in a chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians.
    • Joined allies in launching airstrikes in April 2018 against targets associated with Syria’s chemical weapons use.
  • New Cuba policy that enhanced compliance with U.S. law and held the Cuban regime accountable for political oppression and human rights abuses.
    • Treasury and State are working to channel economic activity away from the Cuban regime, particularly the military.
  • Changed the rules of engagement, empowering commanders to take the fight to ISIS.
    • ISIS has lost virtually all of its territory, more than half of which has been lost under Trump.
    • ISIS’ self-proclaimed capital city, Raqqah, was liberated in October 2017.
    • All Iraqi territory had been liberated from ISIS.
  • More than a dozen American hostages have been freed from captivity all of the world.
  • Action to combat Russia’s malign activities, including their efforts to undermine the sanctity of United States elections.
    • Expelled dozens of Russian intelligence officers from the United States and ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, WA.
    • Banned the use of Kaspersky Labs software on government computers, due to the company’s ties to Russian intelligence.
    • Imposed sanctions against five Russian entities and three individuals for enabling Russia’s military and intelligence units to increase Russia’s offensive cyber capabilities.
    • Sanctions against seven Russian oligarchs, and 12 companies they own or control, who profit from Russia’s destabilizing activities.
    • Sanctioned 100 targets in response to Russia’s occupation of Crimea and aggression in Eastern Ukraine.
    • Enhanced support for Ukraine’s Armed Forces to help Ukraine better defend itself.
  • Helped win U.S. bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
  • Helped win U.S.-Mexico-Canada’s united bid for 2026 World Cup.

Defense

  • Executive order keeping the detention facilities at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay open.
  • $700 billion in military funding for FY 2018 and $716 billion for FY 2019.
  • Largest military pay raise in nearly a decade.
  • Ordered a Nuclear Posture Review to ensure America’s nuclear forces are up to date and serve as a credible deterrent.
  • Released America’s first fully articulated cyber strategy in 15 years.
  • New strategy on national biodefense, which better prepares the nation to defend against biological threats.
  • Administration has announced that it will use whatever means necessary to protect American citizens and servicemen from unjust prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
  • Released an America first National Security Strategy.
  • Put in motion the launch of a Space Force as a new branch of the military and relaunched the National Space Council.
  • Encouraged North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to increase defense spending to their agree-upon levels.
    • In 2017 alone, there was an increase of more than 4.8 percent in defense spending amongst NATO allies.
    • Every member state has increased defense spending.
    • Eight NATO allies will reach the 2 percent benchmark by the end of 2018 and 15 allies are on trade to do so by 2024.
    • NATO allies spent over $42 billion dollars more on defense since 2016.
  • Executive order to help military spouses find employment as their families deploy domestically and abroad.

Veterans affairs

  • Signed the VA Accountability Act and expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.
  • Delivered more appeals decisions – 81,000 – to veterans in a single year than ever before.
  • Strengthened protections for individuals who come forward and identify programs occurring within the VA.
  • Signed legislation that provided $86.5 billion in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the largest dollar amount in history for the VA.
  • VA MISSION Act, enacting sweeping reform to the VA system that:
    • Consolidated and strengthened VA community care programs.
    • Funding for the Veterans Choice program.
    • Expanded eligibility for the Family Caregivers Program.
    • Gave veterans more access to walk-in care.
    • Strengthened the VA’s ability to recruit and retain quality healthcare professionals.
    • Enabled the VA to modernize its assets and infrastructure.
  • Signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act in 2017, which authorized $2.1 billion in addition funds for the Veterans Choice Program.
  • Worked to shift veterans’ electronic medical records to the same system used by the Department of Defense, a decades old priority.
  • Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.
  • Increased transparency and accountability at the VA by launching an online “Access and Quality Tool,” providing veterans with access to wait time and quality of care data.
  • Signed legislation to modernize the claims and appeal process at the VA.
  • Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, providing enhanced educational benefits to veterans, service members, and their family members.
    • Lifted a 15-year limit on veterans’ access to their educational benefits.
  • Created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.
  • VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.
  • Signed the Veterans Treatment Court Improvement Act, increasing the number of VA employees that can assist justice-involved veterans.

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Today’s THREE poliotically INCORRECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco


A.F. Branco Cartoon – Art of the Meal

A.F. Branco | on

Not only is President Trump good at the “Art of the Deal” he’s pretty good at the art of making a meal of the press, especially Acosta.

Trump ThanksgivingPolitical Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.
More A.F. Branco cartoons at Constitution.com here.

A.F.Branco’s New Coffee Table Book <—- Order

Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News” and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Born To Be Wild

A.F. Branco | on

Some will self-identify as something other than who they are this Thanksgiving, but many will be thankful for what they have and who they are this.

Thanksgiving Day TurkeyPolitical Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.

A.F. Branco Cartoon – A Free Ride

A.F. Branco | on

There is now no doubt that the Caravan is being funded and organized by leftist groups connected to George Soros.

Leftist Sponsored Latin CaravanPolitical cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.

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‘We Don’t Want Them’ – Tijuana Protesters Lash Out Against Migrant Caravan


Reported By AP Reports | November 18, 2018 at 2:48pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/tijuana-protesters-chant-migrants-camped-city/

A demonstrator argues with a woman during a protest against the presence of thousands of Central American migrants in Tijuana, Mexico on Sunday.

A demonstrator argues with a woman during a protest Sunday against the presence of thousands of Central American migrants in Tijuana, Mexico. (Rodrigo Abd / AP)

Hundreds of Tijuana residents congregated around a monument in an affluent section of the city south of California on Sunday to protest the thousands of Central American migrants who have arrived via caravan in hopes of a new life in the U.S. Tensions have built as nearly 3,000 migrants from the caravan poured into Tijuana in recent days after more than a month on the road. The federal government estimates the number of migrants could soon swell to 10,000.

U.S. border inspectors are processing only about 100 asylum claims a day at Tijuana’s main crossing to San Diego. Asylum seekers register their names in a tattered notebook managed by migrants themselves that had more than 3,000 names even before the caravan arrived.

On Sunday, displeased Tijuana residents waved Mexican flags, sang the Mexican national anthem and chanted “Out! Out!” in front of a statue of the Aztec ruler Cuauhtemoc, 1 mile from the U.S.  border. They accused the migrants of being messy, ungrateful and a danger to Tijuana. They also complained about how the caravan forced its way into Mexico, calling it an “invasion.” And they voiced worries that their taxes might be spent to care for the group.

“We don’t want them in Tijuana,” protesters shouted.

Juana Rodriguez, a housewife, said the government needs to conduct background checks on the migrants to make sure they don’t have criminal records.

A woman who gave her name as Paloma lambasted the migrants, who she said came to Mexico in search of handouts. “Let their government take care of them,” she told reporters covering the protest.

Most of the migrants who have reached Tijuana via caravan in recent days set out more than a month ago from Honduras, a country of 9 million people. Dozens of migrants in the caravan who have been interviewed by Associated Press reporters have said they left their country after death threats.

But the journey has been hard, and many have turned around.

Alden Rivera, the Honduran ambassador in Mexico, told the AP on Saturday that 1,800 Hondurans have returned to their country since the caravan first set out on Oct. 13, and that he hopes more will make that decision.

“We want them to return to Honduras,” Rivera said.

Honduras has a murder rate of 43 per 100,000 residents, similar to U.S. cities like New Orleans and Detroit. In addition to violence, migrants in the caravan have mentioned poor economic prospects as a motivator for their departures. Per capita income hovers around $120 a month in Honduras, where the World Bank says two out of three people live in poverty.

The migrants’ expected long stay in Tijuana has raised concerns about the ability of the border city of more than 1.6 million people to handle the influx.

While many in Tijuana are sympathetic to the migrants’ plight and are trying to assist, some locals have shouted insults, hurled rocks and even thrown punches at them. The cold reception contrasts sharply with the warmth that accompanied the migrants in southern Mexico, where residents of small towns greeted them with hot food, campsites and even live music.

Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum has called the migrants’ arrival an “avalanche” that the city is ill-prepared to handle, calculating that they will be in Tijuana for at least six months as they wait to file asylum claims. Gastelum has appealed to the federal government for more assistance to cope with the influx.

Mexico’s Interior Ministry said Saturday that the federal government was flying in food and blankets for the migrants in Tijuana.

Tijuana officials converted a municipal gymnasium and recreational complex into a shelter to keep migrants out of public spaces. The city’s privately run shelters have a maximum capacity of 700. The municipal complex can hold up to 3,000. Some from the caravan have diverted to other border cities, such as Mexicali, a few hours to the east of Tijuana.

Elsewhere on Sunday, a group of 200 migrants headed north from El Salvador, determined to also find safety in numbers to reach the U.S.

President Donald Trump, who sought to make the caravan a campaign issue in the midterm elections, used Twitter on Sunday to voice support for the mayor of Tijuana and try to discourage the migrants from seeking entry to the U.S.

Trump wrote that like Tijuana, “the U.S. is ill-prepared for this invasion, and will not stand for it. They are causing crime and big problems in Mexico. Go home!”

He followed that tweet by writing: “Catch and Release is an obsolete term. It is now Catch and Detain. Illegal Immigrants trying to come into the U.S.A., often proudly flying the flag of their nation as they ask for U.S. Asylum, will be detained or turned away.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

AP Reports
The Associated Press is an independent, not-for-profit news cooperative headquartered in New York City. Their teams in over 100 countries tell the world’s stories, from breaking news to investigative reporting. They provide content and services to help engage audiences worldwide, working with companies of all types, from broadcasters to brands.

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12 Times Florida County’s Elections Supervisor Has Been ‘Incompetent and Possibly Criminal’



Authored By Luke Rosiak | November 9, 2018 at 9:55am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/12-times-florida-countys-elections-supervisor-has-been-incompetent-and-possibly-criminal/

Broward County Elections Supervisor

Dr. Brenda Snipes, Broward County Supervisor of Elections, left, looks on with an unidentified elections official during a canvassing board meeting on November 10, 2018 in Lauderhill, Florida. Three close midtern election races for governor, senator, and agriculture commissioner are expected to be recounted in Florida. (Photo by Joe Skipper / Getty Images)

As both parties scrutinize the vote count in Florida’s Broward County, with the state’s gubernatorial and senatorial races closing in on a tie, Sen. Marco Rubio said the county’s elections office has a history of malfeasance.

“This is at a minimum a pattern of incompetence. Voters deserve better,” the Florida Republican said Thursday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

“This is not even a partisan thing. This is a county that apparently cannot even count votes as well as a county that just got wiped out by a hurricane.”

The state’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott filed a lawsuit Thursday against Broward election supervisor Brenda Snipes for allegedly refusing to tell them about votes she has not yet counted. The vote totals Snipes tabulated two days after the election would have readers believe that more people cast votes for agricultural commissioner than for U.S. Senator.

Additionally, lawyer Marc Elias of Perkins Coie — who hired Fusion GPS for the Democratic National Committee to investigate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election — has been hired to litigate a recount on behalf of Democrats.

The Republican National Committee also pointed out 12 times news stories using its own headlines where Snipes has “been outright incompetent and possibly criminal”:

1 — Illegally destroying ballots (Sun Sentinel, May 14, 2018)

2 — Absentee ballots that never arrived (Miami Herald, November 6, 2018)

3 — Fellow Democrats accused her precinct of individual and systemic breakdowns that made it difficult for voters to cast regular ballots (Miami Herald, November 4, 2014)

4 — Posted election results half an hour before polls closed – a very clear violation of election law. (Miami Herald, November 2, 2018)

5 — Sued for leaving amendments off of ballots (Miami Herald, October 20, 2016)

6 — Claiming to not have the money to notify voters when their absentee ballot expired (Sun Sentinel, November 8, 2018)

7 — Having official staffers campaign on official time (Broward Beat, July 20, 2016)

8 — Problems printing mail ballots (Miami Herald, November 2, 2018)

9 — Accusations of ballot stuffing (Heritage, August 1, 2017)

10 — Voters receiving ballots with duplicate pages (Miami Herald, November 2, 2018)

11 — Slow results and piles of ballots that cropped up way after Election Day (The Capitolist, November 8, 2018)

12 — Opening ballots in private, breaking Florida law (Politico, August 13, 2018)

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

The Daily Caller News Foundation
Founded by Tucker Carlson, a 25-year veteran of print and broadcast media, and Neil Patel, former chief policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, The Daily Caller News Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit providing original investigative reporting from a team of professional reporters that operates for the public benefit.

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Black Leaders Issue Powerful Message to CNN over Don Lemon’s Anti-White Comments


Reported By Chris Agee | November 1, 2018 at 1:04pm

CNN host Don Lemon is facing continued backlash over comments he made earlier this week regarding the threat he claimed one group in particular poses to homeland security. Lemon drew fire specifically for declaring that the “biggest terror threat in this country are white men.”

Among those who have since publicly denounced Lemon’s comments are three co-chairmen of the Project 21 Black Leadership Network, an organization sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank. A statement from Horace Cooper, Bishop Council Nedd II and Stacy Washington called on CNN bosses to take action in light of the on-air proclamation.

“Within a space of five seconds, CNN’s Don Lemon went from saying we shouldn’t demonize people to broadly labeling white men as our nation’s ‘biggest terror threat,’” they wrote. “That’s not responsible journalism. This cannot stand.”

The trio went on to cite the network president’s recent statement denouncing President Donald Trump’s frequent criticism of CNN and the news media in general. Following a bomb scare at CNN’s New York City headquarters last month, Jeff Zucker issued a statement describing a “total and complete lack of understanding at the White House about the seriousness of their continued attacks on the media.”

Zucker called on Trump and White House press secretary Sarah Sanders to “understand their words matter,” and concluded that “they have shown no comprehension of that” so far in the administration’s first term.

Cooper, Nedd and Washington wrote that Zucker should apply his own standard to his network’s hosts.

“CNN President Jeff Zucker recently called out the White House for its criticism of the media, saying President Trump doesn’t comprehend the importance of the words he uses,” the statement concluded. “It’s time for Zucker to put his own house in order — starting with explaining how Don Lemon’s outrageous statement can stand in light of Zucker’s call for civility.”

Lemon addressed the controversy in a segment Wednesday evening, using data from the Government Accountability Office that indicates right-wing extremists have been responsible for more deadly attacks on U.S. soil than left-leaning groups.

“Earlier this week, I made some comments about that in a conversation with Chris (Cuomo),” he said. “I said that the biggest terror threat in this country comes from radicals on the far right, primarily white men. That angered some people. But let’s put emotion aside and look at the cold hard facts. The evidence is overwhelming.”

The information he referenced showed 62 separate attacks staged by terrorists believed to hold radical right-wing views have caused a total of 106 deaths since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. Comparing that to a much lower total assigned to left-wing extremist groups, Lemon declared that there was one deadly leftist attack “for every eight deadly attacks by right-wing extremists.”

Islamist extremists were responsible for a total of 119 terror-related deaths in 23 attacks over the same period, according to the GAO report.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Chris Agee
Contributor, News
Chris Agee is an American journalist with more than 15 years of experience in a wide range of newsrooms.

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Tree of Life Rabbi Says He Was ‘Surprised’ by President Trump’s Behavior During Pittsburgh Visit


Reported By Nick Givas | November 1, 2018 at 6:21am

Tree of Life Synagogue Rabbi Jeffrey Meyers said Thursday on CNN’s “New Day” that he was “pleasantly surprised” by President Donald Trump’s warmth and compassion during his visit to Pittsburgh.

“I was privileged to have a private 15 or 20 minutes with the (Trump) family. The president was very warm, very consoling,” Meyers said.

“He put his hand on my shoulder and the first question he asked me was, ‘Rabbi, tell me how are you doing?’ And I must say throughout the time we spent together I was pleasantly surprised by a warm and personal side to the president that I don’t think America has ever seen,” he added.

Meyers said he told the president about his ordeal and said they discussed the issue of hate speech, along with other personal matters.

“I told my personal story of my experience, which they found quite shocking and upsetting,” he said.

“We talked. I shared the same message that I shared with you throughout the course of the week — that hate speech has no place in our society, that hate speech leads to actions of hate. Hate speech led to the death of seven of my congregants and 11 total in my building.

“And we shared other personal conversation that I’d respectfully like to keep personal.”

Meyers said it was important to walk the president through the memorial so he could know who was taken and fully understand how devastating the shooting was on the community.

“I have been through this a few times. I don’t know how people would react to see that horror. It’s seared in my brain and it’s a sight I’ll never forget the rest of my life,” Meyers said.

“After we lit the 11 memorial candles, I chanted … the memorial prayer in Hebrew and in English. The president then asked me if I would escort he and the first lady to the makeshift memorial … and I gave him a bit of a background story about each person because it was a human being who lived, who was a good, decent person and the president needed to know something about these people because they, too, were his citizens.”

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

The Daily Caller News Foundation
Founded by Tucker Carlson, a 25-year veteran of print and broadcast media, and Neil Patel, former chief policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, The Daily Caller News Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit providing original investigative reporting from a team of professional reporters that operates for the public benefit.

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Authorities Arrest Man in Florida in Connection to Suspicious Packages Sent to Democrats


Reported By Benjamin Arie | October 26, 2018 at 10:25am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/authorities-arrest-man-florida-connection-suspicious-packages-sent-democrats/

A van covered in blue tarp is towed by FBI investigators on Friday in Plantation, Florida, in connection with the 12 suspicious packages mailed to top Democrats.

A van covered in blue tarp is towed by FBI investigators on Friday in Plantation, Florida, in connection with the 12 suspicious packages mailed to top Democrats. (Eric Baradat / Michele Eve Sandberg / AFP / Getty Images)

The string of mail bomb scares that has drawn national attention and sparked security concerns this week may finally be over. Numerous media outlets reported Friday morning that federal authorities have made an arrest in the case, and the American people may be getting answers.

Around noon Eastern time, NBC News and others released the name of the suspect: Cesar Sayoc, a middle-aged man who was taken into custody in Florida. He has an arrest record, but it was not clear what his past offenses are.

“The suspect arrested in connection with the suspicious packages is in his 50s and has a criminal history,” reported CNN’s Evan Perez, citing a law enforcement official.

“While the suspect has an Aventura, Florida, address, he has ties to New York. He was arrested at a business in Plantation, Florida,” the report said.

That arrest came not long after two additional devices were found by authorities. One was addressed to Democrat Sen. Cory Booker, while another was sent to former U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who is now a CNN contributor.

At least 12 suspicious packages thought to be sent from the same offender have been located over the past week. They contained devices that were without a doubt meant to resemble bombs, although investigators found many of the objects were not capable of detonating.

While the suspect was arrested in Florida, there is a good chance that he will be interviewed and later prosecuted outside of that state by federal authorities. The interstate nature and type of crime give the FBI the lead on this case.

“Although no formal charges have been filed yet, two of the law enforcement officials said there was a high likelihood that Mr. Sayoc would be prosecuted at least in part in Federal District Court in Manhattan,” The New York Times reported.

“The F.B.I.’s New York office has been leading the investigation and five of the bombs sent this week fall under the jurisdiction of the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan,” the report said.

NBC News reported that DNA evidence — most likely taken from the packages or the devices — played a role in helping authorities track down the sender.

President Donald Trump indicated that he had been briefed on the updates and addressed the nation from the White House early Friday afternoon.

“These terrorizing acts are despicable and have no place in our country,” Trump said. “We must never allow political violence to take root in America. Cannot let it happen. I’m committed to doing everything in my power as president to stop it. …

“The bottom line is that Americans must unify. We must show the world that we are united together in peace and love and harmony as fellow American citizens.

“There is no country like our country and every day we are showing the world just how truly great we are.”

There no doubt will be endless commentary from the media and other Americans in the wake of this arrest, especially given indications he might have been a Trump supporter. However, as the president said, conservative values are about right ideas and effective policies, not violence and fear; those are the tactics of radicals. True conservatism does not need to create panic in order to win debates.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Benjamin Arie
Contributor, Commentary
Benjamin Arie has been a political junkie since the hotly contested 2000 election. Ben settled on journalism after realizing he could get paid to rant. He cut his teeth on car accidents and house fires as a small-town reporter in Michigan before becoming a full-time political writer.

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New York Times Published Trump Assassination Fantasy Before Mail Bomb Scare


Reported by Justin Caruso | October 25, 2018

(INSET: Author Zoe Sharp) The New York Times building on 8th Avenue is seen August 21, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP) (Photo credit should read DANIEL SLIM/AFP/Getty Images)/DANIEL SLIM/AFP/Getty; Twitter/@authorzoesharp; New York Times

The New York Times published a fictional story Tuesday that fantasized about President Trump’s assassination at the hands of the Secret Service and a Russian operative — one day before the nation was gripped by news of apparent mail bombs sent to prominent Democratic figures.

In an article published in the New York Times‘ Book Review, five writers conjured up fantasy scenarios about President Trump’s future with the Russia investigation.

One writer, Zoe Sharp (pictured), took liberal fantasizing to the next level and wrote a story that ends with President Trump being assassinated by a Russian agent. The Times’ editors illustrate the piece, titled “How It Ends,” with a Russian flag sticking out of a pistol barrel.

In the story, the Russian attempts to shoot the president, but his gun misfires. A Secret Service agent then offers his own pistol to the Russian:

The Russian waited until they were a few steps past before he drew the gun. He sighted on the center of the president’s back, and squeezed the trigger.

The Makarov misfired.

The Secret Service agent at the president’s shoulder heard the click, spun into a crouch. He registered the scene instantly, drawing his own weapon with razor-edge reflexes.

The Russian tasted failure. He closed his eyes and waited to pay the cost.

It did not come.

He opened his eyes. The Secret Service agent stood before him, presenting his Glock, butt first.

“Here,” the agent said politely. “Use mine. …” [emphasis added]

This assassination fantasy was published just one day before the media exploded with criticism for President Trump’s rhetoric after a series of apparent mail bombs sent to many Democrat political figures Wednesday, including one sent to CNN’s New York office.

Media and entertainment figures fantasizing about the assassination of President Trump has become disturbingly common.

Last year, actor Johnny Depp joked, “When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?” He later apologized. Rapper Rick Ross released a song in 2016 with the lyric, “Assassinate Trump like I’m Zimmerman.”

A Julius Caesar play in Central Park featured the assassination of a faux Donald Trump-figure. And pop star Madonna said at the Women’s March that she had fantasized about “blowing up” the White House.

“Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I’m outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House, but I know that this won’t change anything,” she said.

And the left’s violent fantasies are not limited to Trump–anyone they disagree with can be targeted.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who was at the GOP baseball practice when it was targeted by left-wing mass shooter James Hodgkinson, said that Hodgkinson was screaming, “This is for health care!”

“He also had a list of conservative legislators–Republicans–in his pocket, that he was going to kill,” Paul also said.

Corporate media’s role in this downward slide cannot be ignored, either.

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace has repeatedly fantasized about violence toward people she disagrees with, previously talking on air about Sarah Sanders getting choked and Trump getting punched in the face.

Further, CNN has excused and whitewashed the violence of Antifa, time and time and time again.

Finally, as Breitbart News has meticulously chronicled, there are several hundred incidents of Trump supporting Americans being targeted for violence, harassment, and intimidation by the left.

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Steve Schmidt: Trump Stoked ‘Cold Civil War,’ His Rhetoric Makes Violence ‘Inevitable’


Reported by Joshua Caplan | October 25, 2018

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - OCTOBER 09: (L-R) Political Analyst at NBC Steve Schmidt and Elise Jordan speak onstage at Day 1 of the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit 2018 at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on October 9, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty …
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
In the wake of a series of bomb scares targeting prominent Democrat leaders, Steve Schmidt, a former campaign strategist for the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), called President Donald Trump the “greatest demagogue” in U.S. history — who has stoked a “cold civil war.”

“Trump has stoked a cold civil war in this Country. His rallies brim with menace and he has labeled journalists as enemies of the people,” Schmidt began in a series of tweets Wednesday. “That someone would seek to kill their political enemies is not aberrational but rather the inevitable consequence of Trumps [sic] incitement.”

The political strategist turned MSNBC contributor claimed, without evidence, that the intended recipients of the apparent crude mail bombs were linked to President Trump’s spirited rebuke of his Democrat rivals. “The targets are political not coincidental. Trump, the greatest demagogue in American history has celebrated violence over and over again,” Schmidt wrote. “It looks like someone finally took Trump both literally and seriously. The WH will feign outrage when this obvious point is made.”

Schmidt then went on to say members of media should be able to do their jobs without fear of retribution and warned against the damaging effects that “stoking of hatred and sundering” can have an American life.

“No journalist or commentator should be intimidated from making this point,” he continued. “The stoking of hatred and sundering of the American people was always going to lead to terrible consequences. Chief amongst them would be the initiation of partisan or sectarian violence within our country.”


Schmidt’s remarks came amid reports that the U.S. Secret Service had intercepted various explosive devices sent to former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, along with the New York Offices of CNN, which was evacuated after discovering a suspicious package addressed to the political strategist’s MSNBC colleague, former CIA chief John Brennan.

On Monday, progressive billionaire George Soros had an explosive device hand-delivered to his Westchester County compound. In a scathing New York Times opinion-editorial published Wednesday, the hedge fund manager’s son, Alex Soros, blamed the scares on President Trump’s “demonization” of his opponents.

The White House swiftly condemned the attempted attacks and called for those behind “despicable” acts to be brought to justice. “We condemn the attempted violent attacks recently made against President Obama, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and other public figures,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “These terrorizing acts are despicable, and anyone responsible will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

President Donald Trump denounced the targeting’s and called on Americans to “come together.”

“Acts or threats of political violence have no place in the United States,” the president said. “This egregious conduct is abhorrent.”

“We are extremely angry, upset, unhappy about what we witnessed this morning and we will get to the bottom of it,”he added.

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Transgenders in Turmoil as Trump Admin Moves for Huge Change to Definition of the Sexes



Reported By Benjamin Arie October 21, 2018 at 4:53pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/transgenders-turmoil-trump-admin-moves-huge-change-definition-sexes/

A sign on a transgender bathroom

A report citing a government memo suggests the Trump administration is considering strict definitions of what gender a person can claim. (John Arehart / Shutterstock)

The best policies are based on reality, common sense and evidence — a notion that even liberals used to agree with.

Take the global warming debate, for instance. One of the main arguments of the left has been that there’s scientific evidence pointing to man-made climate change, and we would be “science deniers” if we ignored it. It turns out that the global warming proof is more flimsy than they claimed, but at least they wanted leaders to make decisions based on evidence and science, imperfect as it is.

Now, it seems liberals have even thrown science out the window. Rejecting both evidence and common sense in favor of politically motivated pseudoscience, the left has been working overtime to push a different agenda.

No, not in favor of global warming, but rather transgenderism.

This push was especially strong during the last presidency. Even Newsweek recently admitted that President Barack Obama and his administration “worked to loosen the definition of gender,” and adopted an anything-goes approach that encouraged people to self-identify as whatever sex they wanted.

“A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth,” explained The New York Times.

The result? Gender debates became almost comical, with impossible-to-remember abbreviations like “LGBTTTIQ+” and nonsensical gender options such as “pansexual genderfluid nonbinary” being pushed as the new normal.

But the Trump administration may be pushing back.

According to a memo from the Department of Health and Human Services that was obtained by The Times, the administration is seriously considering defining gender in a much more traditional — and common sense — way.

“The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth,” the newspaper reported.

In simple terms, HHS is saying something that conservatives have long insisted: “Transgender” isn’t a definable gender, and you can’t magically switch your sex between male and female, no matter how many pills you take or invasive surgeries you undergo. One of the big problems with the Obama-era guidelines was that definitions were left vague.

“The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined ‘on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable,’” The Times noted.

Biology? Objective? Grounded in science? Gasp — how dare they!

“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the HHS memo states, according to The New York Times, which has not made the full memo public.

“The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence,” the cited memo reportedly says.

In other words, you can’t just change your birth certificate to say whatever you want, or constantly invent new sexual identity terms. Call it common sense.

“The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with,” wrote The Times.

Unsurprisingly, mainstream media outlets rushed to paint the memo — which is still an unapproved proposal — as ominous and terrible for the estimated 0.6 percent of Americans who identify as “transgender.”

“‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration,” the scary-sounding title of The Times piece declared. Left out of that headline was the fact that the people themselves are fine; it’s the definition that is being looked it.

“Trump mulls narrowing transgender rights,” declared another purposely frightening headline from The Washington Examiner.

Further, the ability of a person to personally identify or act a certain way doesn’t disappear. If you go around referring to yourself as “transgender” or “Queen Amidala” or a “trans-species Velociraptor” that’s your own business. You still have rights. Just don’t expect official records — or medical experts — to back you up.

A 20-year-old can go around telling people that he’s 1,000 years old; he just can’t modify his legal birth certificate to say this or use it to go apply for senior citizen benefits. Regardless, he still has the same rights any other 20-year-old has.

The reality is that we don’t need ever-increasing special check boxes to define people if we actually apply legal rights evenhandedly. Your rights as an American citizen and a human being don’t suddenly disappear just because of a memo.

Liberals may be obsessed with special rights, but here’s an idea: Let’s try equal rights instead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Benjamin Arie
Contributor, Commentary
Benjamin Arie has been a political junkie since the hotly contested 2000 election. Ben settled on journalism after realizing he could get paid to rant. He cut his teeth on car accidents and house fires as a small-town reporter in Michigan before becoming a full-time political writer.

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Dick Morris: Trump’s Base Returns in Nick of Time


Opinion By Dick Morris | October 22, 2018 at 10:53am

The voters who elected Donald Trump in 2016 are returning to him just as the midterms approach. With their help, Trump has recorded his highest job approval in the WSJ/NBC poll since he took office — 47 percent.

But the real story is behind the numbers. Trump’s base — white non-college voters (38 percent of the country) is rallying to his candidates just as they did in the closing weeks of 2017. According to a Fox News poll, the only one that measures white non-college voters as a discrete group, Trump’s approval has surged among these folks.

In August 2016, his margin of approval over disapproval was only 11 points (54-43).  By September, it had risen to a 17 point margin (57-40).

In their latest poll, Oct. 13-16, it surged to a 21 point margin (60-39).

These voters are coming home.

This base lives in a place that is a blind spot for the mainstream media. It doesn’t really know that these voters exist. They live away from the West Coast and outside of the Northeast. They haven’t been to college. And they are white. The failure to measure their changing opinions is responsible for the media’s error in predicting a Hillary Clinton victory in 2016 — and they haven’t changed their methodology since.

Trump’s base hides in plain sight during the bulk of the year. Estranged from the political process, they don’t follow it closely except when their man is in danger and summons them forth. That’s why the GOP did not do as well in the special elections of the past two years as Trump had hoped. But when the national fireball rings, they wake up and respond.

The controversy over the Kavanaugh nomination and the phony stories of sexual abuse energized the sleeping giant and motivated the voters to return to the Trump banner. Since, by emphasizing the immigration issue and the caravan arriving from Central America, he has held their attention.

The national polling is slow to pick them up on its radar. While their participation and increasing enthusiasm shows up quickly in the national job approval polling, it is slower to make its impact felt in the less frequent polling of the nation’s Senate races. The House polling, less frequent still, takes even longer to manifest their participation, but they are there, moving the needle.

The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owner of this website.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dick Morris
Dick Morris is a former adviser to President Bill Clinton as well as a political author, pollster and consultant. His most recent book, “Rogue Spooks,” was written with his wife, Eileen McGann.

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Pompeo Smacks Acosta for Having Facts Wrong Then Asking ‘Ludicrous’ Question


Reported By Ben Marquis | September 25, 2018 at

1:46pm

The liberal media was all abuzz recently over an anonymous report published by The New York Times which alleged that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had once suggested to other administration officials — perhaps jokingly — that he “wear a wire” when meeting with President Donald Trump in order to gather evidence of his alleged mental instability to support invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from power.

The Daily Caller reported that this rather ridiculous story was brought up in the form of a question about the alleged 25th Amendment discussions posed to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a news conference at the U.N. on Monday, where Trump was scheduled to address the General Assembly on Tuesday.

The reporter who brought up the story was none other than CNN’s Jim Acosta, and both Haley and Pompeo let him know how “absurd” and “ludicrous” both his question and the allegation in general were, while also calling him out for getting the basic facts and premise of his question wrong.

First addressing Haley, Acosta said, “You are the one person here who has been with this administration from the beginning,” and then mentioned the story about Rosenstein and invoking the 25th Amendment. “Were you ever involved in any of those discussions? Were you aware of any of those discussions?”

“I said yesterday on the Sunday shows that, literally, I have never once been in the White House where that conversation has happened,” Haley replied.

“I’m not aware of any cabinet members that are even talking about that. It is completely and totally absurd. No one is questioning the president at all. If anything, we’re trying to keep up the pace with him, in the fact that he has a lot he wants to accomplish very quickly and we’re going to continue to support him in the way that he does that,” she added.

Acosta then attempted to ask Pompeo a follow-up question regarding North Korea — particularly about not having details of a deal ironed out prior to high-level summit meetings — but the secretary felt the need to first address Acosta’s initial line of questioning, snarkily fact-checking him in the process.

“Two things: Fact check, I’ve been with the administration since the beginning, too. That’s relevant,” said Pompeo, who first served in the administration as CIA director prior to transferring to the State Department.

“I’ll add, no discussion with me about the 25th Amendment in any way either, so you can now report that there are two senior leaders who’ve said that your question was ludicrous,” Pompeo added.

Pompeo attempted to move on to the North Korea part of Acosta’s questions, but the reporter interrupted to apologize for forgetting Pompeo’s role as the former CIA director and to wonder why Rosenstein would be talking behind the scenes about the 25th Amendment, if it were so “ludicrous.”

“I find the question ludicrous,” Pompeo replied. “I’ve been involved, I’ve been at the center of this administration, along with lots of other folks, from virtually Day One — I think it was actually day three or four — I’ve never heard anyone talk about it, whisper about it, joke about it in any way.”

“I’ve been in a lot of meetings with a lot of senior officials from this government,” he added, prior to transitioning to Acosta’s question about North Korea.

In that regard, Pompeo noted that “we went at this the other way for decades,” to no avail, and said “we’re coming at this from a different direction” by bringing together the two most senior leaders from North Korea and the U.S. in an effort to make actual progress toward denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

Acosta, like many other “journalists” in the liberal media, accepted the report from The Times about Rosenstein’s wearing a wire and invoking the 25th Amendment against Trump as if it were the gospel truth, largely because it fit into their preconceived notions and narratives about the mental state of the president.

But Acosta’s “ludicrous” focus on a story that may not even be true, at the expense of more focus on far more pressing international matters, serves to fit snugly with the growing perception that the “fake news” media care only about hurting, smearing and ultimately getting rid of Trump. That’s why it was so it was nice to see Haley and Pompeo verbally smack him back into place.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Ben Marquis
Contributor, Commentary
Writer and researcher. Constitutional conservatarian with a strong focus on protecting the Second and First Amendments.

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Opinion | Trump Shuts Down Assad, Shows Obama How a Real Leader Handles Chemical Warfare


Reported By Jared Harris | September 10, 2018 at

6:57pm

Chemical weapons are some of the nastiest things to come out of war. They can’t tell the difference between a soldier and a child. Depending on the level of exposure, death can come after a few agonizing minutes. Those that do survive often live with neurological, physiological, and mental wounds for the rest of their life.

It’s no wonder this was a “red line” for former President Barack Obama in the Syrian Civil War. When chemical weapons were used, however, the United States of America was nowhere to be found.

Obama’s excuse? Chlorine gas, used in the attack, isn’t a chemical weapon.

“Chlorine itself has not been listed as a chemical weapon,” the former president stated.

Chemical weapon or not, chlorine gas isn’t pretty. I won’t list the effects here, but accounts from the First World War paint a grisly picture of chlorine’s gruesome interaction with human skin, eyes, and organs.

Let’s give Obama a pass and let him play around with semantics. President Donald Trump operates by a different standard.

Syria attempted to test Trump’s red line with chemical weapons, possibly expecting the same response as Obama. Within a week, Trump had U.S. warships parked on the coast. A few missile salvos made his position on the matter painfully clear.

Now, apparently not done with poking the sleeping giant, Syria has doubled down on chemical weapons. Syrian President Bashar Assad has given the green light for use of chlorine in what is expected to be the last true battle of the Syrian Civil War.

Idlib province is the last remaining rebel holdout, and the target of Assad’s chemical ambitions.

The remaining rebels are a motley crew — the survivors include al-Qaeda allies and the Turkistan Islamic Party, an Islamic terrorist group that was founded in China. Unfortunately, the area is also crawling with civilians.

The province of Idlib had a population of 1.5 million in 2011, giving it roughly the same population as modern-day Hawaii. Although international treaties forbid use of force against civilian targets, the Syrian Civil War is already rife with humanitarian crimes.

Trump leveled a stark warning against Assad, telling him to play fair — or else.

“If it’s a slaughter, the world is going to get very, very angry, and the United States is going to get very angry too,” President Trump said.

A new initiative approved by the Commander-in-Chief would see 2,000 U.S. troops stationed in Syria indefinitely. The purpose is to ensure the total eradication of ISIS as well as the return of Iranian forces to their home country.

The Middle East has ultimately been a quagmire for the United States military. Every insurgent force we fight is an expert in asymmetrical warfare, draining our economy while giving us no real gains. We have nothing to show in the almost 17 years we have spent engaged in Afghanistan. Our time in Iraq did unseat a dictator, but our exit gave ISIS a playground full of abandoned U.S. equipment.

This doesn’t mean we should ignore evil in the world. Trump was right to act once his red line had been violated. Assad knows to tread carefully now — the second lesson from the United States is sure to be more painful than the first.

As for the best Syria policy? Donald Trump himself hinted at it in 2013.

If they want a war, we’re always ready to give them one. But let’s hope they don’t.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jared Harris
Editor
Jared is a husband, dad, and aspiring farmer. He was an infantryman in the Arkansas and Georgia National Guard. If he’s not with his wife and son, then he’s either shooting guns or working on his motorcycle.

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COMMENTARY: President Trump Fires Back with His Own Incredible Response After McCain Funeral Turns Political


Commentary By Benjamin Arie | September 3, 2018 at

6:10am

John McCain’s actual election rivals may have been George W. Bush back in 2000 and Barack Obama in 2008, but you’d be forgiven for wondering if they were all on the same team after the late senator’s funeral on Saturday.

“The same team” is even how former President Obama described himself and McCain as he addressed the gathered crowd at the senator’s funeral.

The Arizona lawmaker may have been gone, but the figures he approved to speak at the service definitely seemed to be on the same page when it came to using the memorial service as a platform to join forces against the sitting president of the United States.

Nobody mentioned Donald Trump by name, but as Joseph Curl pointed out at The Daily Wire, it was clear that three of the main speakers — Meghan McCain, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush — were of one mind when it came to backhanding the current president.

“We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness — the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,” McCain’s adult daughter Meghan chastised from the podium.

It was a cheap shot directed, without a doubt, at the billionaire Trump.

“The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,” Meghan McCain continued, obviously hammering at Trump’s famous slogan of “Make America Great Again.”

Remember, this was supposed to be a funeral.

Obama joined in when his time came.

“So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage,” he declared pompously.

“It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear. John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that,” stated the former president who beat the deceased in 2008 aided in large part by a media that slandered McCain constantly.

Then George W. Bush, a man who reportedly refused to vote for Trump against Hillary Clinton, took the stage.

“John was above all a man with a code,” Bush stated.

“He led by a set of public virtues that brought strength and purpose to his life and to his country. He was courageous, with a courage that frightened his captors and inspired his countrymen,” Bush said.

“He was honorable, always recognizing that his opponents were still patriots and human beings,” Bush continued, without clarifying what the definition of a patriot was or if every opponent met the criteria.

“He loved freedom with the passion of a man who knew its absence. He respected the dignity inherent in every life, a dignity that does not stop at borders,” Bush continued, likely taking a swipe at Trump’s push for border security.

One Republican president jabbing at another for daring to enforce the nation’s borders, at a funeral. Welcome to 2018.

In response, Trump could have gone on a rant. He could have pushed back against the almost certain efforts to chide him by establishment politicians who have had power for decades — basically, the very people he was elected to counter.

Instead, Trump posted just four words on Twitter on the evening of McCain’s funeral.

It wasn’t a lot. It didn’t have to be.

For Trump opponents, nothing the president said would have mattered.

For Trump supporters, those four words said it all.

ABOUT THE COMMENTATOR:

Benjamin Arie
Contributor, Commentary
Benjamin Arie has been a political junkie since the hotly contested 2000 election. Ben settled on journalism after realizing he could get paid to rant. He cut his teeth on car accidents and house fires as a small-town reporter in Michigan before becoming a full-time political writer.

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4 Key Points Nobody’s Addressing About Trump’s Federal Pay Decision


Reported By Fred Lucas | September 1, 2018 at

12:52pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/4-key-points-nobodys-addressing-trumps-federal-pay-decision/

President Donald Trump makes his way to board Air Force One before departing from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Thursday.

President Donald Trump makes his way to board Air Force One before departing from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Thursday. (Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images)

President Donald Trump announced he’s not granting the usual 2.1 percent pay hike for federal employees, prompting staunch opposition from many Democratic lawmakers. It’s the latest move by the Trump administration to try to rein in excessive compensation packages for federal employees, after the president signed three executive orders in May.

“Specifically, I have determined that for 2019, both across-the-board pay increases and locality pay increases will be set at zero,” Trump’s letter notifying Congress said Thursday. “These alternative pay plan decisions will not materially affect our ability to attract and retain a well-qualified federal workforce.”

Here’s a look at what the pay freeze could mean.

1. Fiscal Impact

In his letter to Congress Thursday, Trump asserted the pay hikes would not be responsible at this time:

“I view the increases that would otherwise take effect as inappropriate.

“Under current law, locality pay increases averaging 25.70 percent, costing $25 billion, would go into effect in January 2019, in addition to a 2.1 percent across-the-board increase for the base general schedule. We must maintain efforts to put our nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases.”

However, the impact may be negligible, said Rachel Greszler, a research fellow in economics, budget and entitlements with the Heritage Foundation.

“Basically, it’s not the most efficient reduction in spending or excessive pay, but it’s all the administration can do on their own,” Greszler told The Daily Signal. “And pay increases shouldn’t be automatic.”

2. Current Federal Compensation

In recent years, the Congressional Budget Office and conservative think tanks the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute all produced reports finding federal compensation packages far outpace the private sector.

Further, the government watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com found that one in five of employees at the 78 largest federal agencies has a salary that is six figures. Another 30,000 rank-and-file career government employees earn more than any governor.

A 2017 CBO report estimated taxpayers compensate federal workers with 17 percent more than what similar employees – with comparable education, skills and experience – earn in the private sector.

The Office of Management and Budget during the Obama administration estimated the federal government would spend $337 billion in 2017 on the civilian federal workforce.

Also, with seniority comes at least two pay hikes for some years under the current system. All federal employees generally get a cost-of-living adjustment that is not based on performance. Second, federal employees are paid for each “step increase” they move up in the system based on seniority, which provides a 3 percent hike.

Federal employees get a retirement contribution of between 15 and 18 percent of their pay, while private sector employees average 3 to 5 percent, according to a 2016 Heritage Foundation study. Federal employees also contribute significantly less to their retirement, as taxpayers fund the bulk of the pensions.

3. Performance Pay

Greszler co-authored a 2016 Heritage Foundation study that estimated a performance-based system would reduce federal personnel costs by $26.7 billion.

In his letter to Congress on Thursday, Trump made what seemed to be a long-term point.

“In light of our nation’s fiscal situation, federal employee pay must be performance-based, and aligned strategically toward recruiting, retaining, and rewarding high-performing federal employees and those with critical skill sets,” Trump said. “Across-the-board pay increases and locality pay increases, in particular, have long-term fixed costs, yet fail to address existing pay disparities or target mission critical recruitment and retention goals.”

Simply holding off on raises won’t accomplish anything without broader civil service reform, said Robert Moffit, senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation.

“The federal pay system does not effectively reward the most talented and productive because the system is highly standardized,” Moffit told The Daily Signal. “Federal employees in many cases should be paid more and many should be paid less. We need more employees in some areas and less in others.”

4. What Trump Has Done So Far

In keeping with the president’s “drain the swamp” reform efforts, the Trump administration has pushed for civil service reforms in budget proposals to Congress with little action.

However, Congress did pass and the president signed a law to make it easier to fire bad employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs following the VA waiting list scandal in which employees had doctored lists, leaving some veterans to wait excessively long times for care.

Congress has left most of the rest of the federal bureaucracy untouched. However, on May 25, Trump issued an executive order to move the ball on civil service reform.

One order holds nonproductive workers more accountable by speeding up the disciplinary and appeals process. In many cases, it takes more than a year to remove an employee. The order also limits the grace period to shore up their performance from 120 days to 30 days. The order also limits the ability of federal managers from simply moving employees that engaged in poor performance or illegal activity from one agency to another.

Federal agencies would share performance reviews, and also consider performance in making layoff decisions. Previously, layoffs were based on the amount of time employed by an agency.

A separate executive order limits the amount of time a federal employees can spend on union activity during work hours to no more than one-quarter of their workday. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found more than 12,500 federal workers took “official time” to work on union activities in 2017. Of them, 470 worked in the VA.

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast.

A version of this article previously appeared on The Daily Signal website under the headline “4 Key Points to Consider About Trump’s Federal Pay Decision.”

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Root: Trump Just Got Mexico To Pay for the Wall and They Didn’t Even Notice


Reported By Kara Pendleton | August 30, 2018 at

5:26pm

Are you tired of winning yet? Its a common refrain seen on social media every time President Donald Trump keeps a campaign promise. But critics have plagued him with skepticism about being able to keep one of his biggest promises: building the southern border wall, and at Mexico’s expense.

But now it seems said critics may have to eat crow. According to conservative radio talk show host Wayne Allyn Root, Trump just kept that very promise and America is winning, yet again.

“That was all before President Trump announced a United States-Mexico trade agreement. Because Trump talked tough and never gave in, US workers will benefit,” he wrote. “US carmakers will benefit. US manufacturers will benefit. US taxpayers will benefit. Trump did it. He won. We all won.”

“Trump announced he will terminate NAFTA,” he continued. “While we don’t know all the details yet, I guarantee this new trade deal will save us tens of billions, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.”

“Since the wall with Mexico costs about $25 billion, Trump just forced Mexico (whether they know it, or not) to pay for the wall. Once again, Trump accomplished what establishment politicians of both parties said could never be done.”

According to The Hill, during a “meeting with FIFA and U.S. Soccer officials about the 2026 men’s World Cup,” Trump was asked about the border wall. Trump’s response was that “the wall will be paid for very easily by Mexico. It will ultimately be paid for by Mexico.”

Following this statement, the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray Caso took to Twitter to express, again, that Mexico will not pay for the wall.

This, however, does not take into consideration the explanation Root outlined for how they actually will, knowingly or not, pay for the wall, via the trade deal.

The establishment media has been rife headlines proclaiming that, “No, Mexico won’t pay for the wall, no matter what Trump says” rhetoric.

Even on social media, his critics are disputing his claim. But, as with Caso, none have looked at the simple math of the deal the way Root did. Interestingly, on Twitter, Trump has not yet been taking a victory lap regarding the wall. He’s been hit hard for months about the wall promise but his tweets focused on other benefits of the trade deal with Mexico.

He began with high praise for all involved in making the deal happen:

He has also discussed how the deal will benefit our economy. Farmers and jobs have been big topics for Trump, even before this deal:

Root pointed out that Trump is taking a page from Rush Limbaugh’s book with a “Don’t doubt me” standard.

He wrote: “(W)ith Donald J. Trump there are no such words as ‘never’ or ‘impossible.’ Trump has chutzpah. Trump has cajones. Trump aims for the moon. Trump is combative and aggressive. Trump is driven to do what others say cannot be done. Trump is an eternal optimist. He accepts nothing less #WINNING.”

It is this, perhaps, that plays a big role in Trump’s popularity with his supporters and one-time doubters, alike. Not only has he been keeping his promises, but he tirelessly fights the good fight for America, regardless of what his critics say.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kara Pendleton
Contributor, Commentary
Specializing in news, politics and human interest stories, Kara Pendleton has been a professional writer and author since 2002. One of her proudest professional moments was landing an interview that even mainstream media couldn’t get.

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Exclusive: Iran moves missiles to Iraq in warning to enemies


Reported by John Irish, Ahmed Rasheed

URL of the original posting site: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-iraq-missiles-exclusive/exclusive-iran-moves-missiles-to-iraq-in-warning-to-enemies-idUSKCN1LG0WB

PARIS/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iran has given ballistic missiles to Shi’ite proxies in Iraq and is developing the capacity to build more there to deter attacks on its interests in the Middle East and to give it the means to hit regional foes, Iranian, Iraqi and Western sources said.

FILE PHOTO: A display featuring missiles and a portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is seen at Baharestan Square in Tehran, Iran September 27, 2017. Nazanin Tabatabaee Yazdi/TIMA via REUTERS

Any sign that Iran is preparing a more aggressive missile policy in Iraq will exacerbate tensions between Tehran and Washington, already heightened by U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. It would also embarrass France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the three European signatories to the nuclear deal, as they have been trying to salvage the agreement despite new U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

According to three Iranian officials, two Iraqi intelligence sources and two Western intelligence sources, Iran has transferred short-range ballistic missiles to allies in Iraq over the last few months. Five of the officials said it was helping those groups to start making their own.

“The logic was to have a backup plan if Iran was attacked,” one senior Iranian official told Reuters. “The number of missiles is not high, just a couple of dozen, but it can be increased if necessary.”

Iran has previously said its ballistic missile activities are purely defensive in nature. Iranian officials declined to comment when asked about the latest moves.

The Iraqi government and military both declined to comment.

The Zelzal, Fateh-110 and Zolfaqar missiles in question have ranges of about 200 km to 700 km, putting Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh or the Israeli city of Tel Aviv within striking distance if the weapons were deployed in southern or western Iraq.

The Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has bases in both those areas. Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani is overseeing the program, three of the sources said.

Western countries have already accused Iran of transferring missiles and technology to Syria and other allies of Tehran, such as Houthi rebels in Yemen and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Iran’s Sunni Muslim Gulf neighbors and its arch-enemy Israel have expressed concerns about Tehran’s regional activities, seeing it as a threat to their security. Israeli officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the missile transfers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that anybody that threatened to wipe Israel out “would put themselves in a similar danger”.

MISSILE PRODUCTION LINE

The Western source said the number of missiles was in the 10s and that the transfers were designed to send a warning to the United States and Israel, especially after air raids on Iranian troops in Syria. The United States has a significant military presence in Iraq.

“It seems Iran has been turning Iraq into its forward missile base,” the Western source said.

The Iranian sources and one Iraqi intelligence source said a decision was made some 18 months ago to use militias to produce missiles in Iraq, but activity had ramped up in the last few months, including with the arrival of missile launchers.

“We have bases like that in many places and Iraq is one of them. If America attacks us, our friends will attack America’s interests and its allies in the region,” said a senior IRGC commander who served during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

The Western source and the Iraqi source said the factories being used to develop missiles in Iraq were in al-Zafaraniya, east of Baghdad, and Jurf al-Sakhar, north of Kerbala. One Iranian source said there was also a factory in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The areas are controlled by Shi’ite militias, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the closest to Iran. Three sources said Iraqis had been trained in Iran as missile operators. The Iraqi intelligence source said the al-Zafaraniya factory produced warheads and the ceramic of missile moulds under former President Saddam Hussein. It was reactivated by local Shi’ite groups in 2016 with Iranian assistance, the source said. A team of Shi’ite engineers who used to work at the facility under Saddam were brought in, after being screened, to make it operational, the source said. He also said missiles had been tested near Jurf al-Sakhar.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon declined to comment.

One U.S official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Tehran over the last few months has transferred missiles to groups in Iraq but could not confirm that those missiles had any launch capability from their current positions.

Washington has been pushing its allies to adopt a tough anti-Iran policy since it reimposed sanctions this month.

While the European signatories to the nuclear deal have so far balked at U.S. pressure, they have grown increasingly impatient over Iran’s ballistic missile program. France in particular has bemoaned Iranian “frenzy” in developing and propagating missiles and wants Tehran to open negotiations over its ballistic weapons.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday that Iran was arming regional allies with rockets and allowing ballistic proliferation. “Iran needs to avoid the temptation to be the (regional) hegemon,” he said.

In March, the three nations proposed fresh EU sanctions on Iran over its missile activity, although they failed to push them through after opposition from some member states.

“Such a proliferation of Iranian missile capabilities throughout the region is an additional and serious source of concern,” a document from the three European countries said at the time.

MESSAGE TO FOES

A regional intelligence source also said Iran was storing a number of ballistic missiles in areas of Iraq that were under effective Shi’ite control and had the capacity to launch them. The source could not confirm that Iran has a missile production capacity in Iraq.

A second Iraqi intelligence official said Baghdad had been aware of the flow of Iranian missiles to Shi’ite militias to help fight Islamic State militants, but that shipments had continued after the hardline Sunni militant group was defeated.

“It was clear to Iraqi intelligence that such a missile arsenal sent by Iran was not meant to fight Daesh (Islamic State) militants but as a pressure card Iran can use once involved in regional conflict,” the official said.

The Iraqi source said it was difficult for the Iraqi government to stop or persuade the groups to go against Tehran.

“We can’t restrain militias from firing Iranian rockets because simply the firing button is not in our hands, it’s with Iranians who control the push button,” he said.

“Iran will definitely use the missiles it handed over to Iraqi militia it supports to send a strong message to its foes in the region and the United States that it has the ability to use Iraqi territories as a launch pad for its missiles to strike anywhere and anytime it decides,” the Iraqi official said.

Iraq’s parliament passed a law in 2016 to bring an assortment of Shi’ite militia groups known collectively as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) into the state apparatus. The militias report to Iraq’s prime minister, who is a Shi’ite under the country’s unofficial governance system. However, Iran still has a clear hand in coordinating the PMF leadership, which frequently meets and consults with Soleimani.

Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and Jonathan Landay in Washington; editing by David Clarke

Iran moves ballistic missiles to Iraq

Tehran’s move likely to exacerbate tensions with Washington

Published: 16:37 August 31, 2018 Gulf News

Reuters
URL of the original posting site: https://gulfnews.com/news/mena/iraq/iran-moves-ballistic-missiles-to-iraq-1.2273050

Paris/Baghdad

Iran has given ballistic missiles to Shiite proxies in Iraq and is developing the capacity to build more there to deter attacks on its interests in the Middle East and to give it the means to hit regional foes, Iranian, Iraqi and Western sources said.

Any sign that Iran is preparing a more aggressive missile policy in Iraq will exacerbate tensions between Tehran and Washington, already heightened by US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

It would also embarrass France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the three European signatories to the nuclear deal, as they have been trying to salvage the agreement despite new US sanctions against Tehran.

According to three Iranian officials, two Iraqi intelligence sources and two Western intelligence sources, Iran has transferred short-range ballistic missiles to allies in Iraq over the last few months. Five of the officials said it was helping those groups to start making their own.

“The logic was to have a backup plan if Iran was attacked,” one senior Iranian official said. “The number of missiles is not high, just a couple of dozen, but it can be increased if necessary.” Iran has previously said its ballistic missile activities are purely defensive in nature. Iranian officials declined to comment when asked about the latest moves.

The Iraqi government and military both declined to comment.

The Zelzal, Fateh-110 and Zolfaqar missiles in question have ranges of about 200 km to 700 km,.

The Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has bases in both those areas.

Quds Force commander Qassem Sulaimani is overseeing the programme, three of the sources said.

Western countries have already accused Iran of transferring missiles and technology to Syria and other allies of Tehran, such as Al Houthis in Yemen and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Gulf neighbours and its arch-enemy Israel have expressed concerns about Tehran’s regional activities, seeing it as a threat to their security.

The Western source said the number of missiles was in the 10s and that the transfers were designed to send a warning to the United States and Israel, especially after air raids on Iranian troops in Syria. The United States has a significant military presence in Iraq.

“It seems Iran has been turning Iraq into its forward missile base,” the Western source said.

The Iranian sources and one Iraqi intelligence source said a decision was made some 18 months ago to use militias to produce missiles in Iraq, but activity had ramped up in the last few months, including with the arrival of missile launchers.

“We have bases like that in many places and Iraq is one of them. If America attacks us, our friends will attack America’s interests and its allies in the region,” said a senior IRGC commander who served during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

The Western source and the Iraqi source said the factories being used to develop missiles in Iraq were in Al Zafaraniya, east of Baghdad, and Jurf Al Sakhar, north of Karbala. One Iranian source said there was also a factory in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The areas are controlled by Shiite militias, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the closest to Iran. Three sources said Iraqis had been trained in Iran as missile operators.

The Iraqi intelligence source said the Al Zafaraniya factory produced warheads and the ceramic of missile moulds under former president Saddam Hussain. It was reactivated by local Shiite groups in 2016 with Iranian assistance, the source said.

A team of Shiite engineers who used to work at the facility under Saddam were brought in, after being screened, to make it operational, the source said. He also said missiles had been tested near Jurf Al Sakhar.

The US Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon declined to comment.

One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Tehran over the last few months has transferred missiles to groups in Iraq but could not confirm that those missiles had any launch capability from their current positions.

Washington has been pushing its allies to adopt a tough anti-Iran policy since it reimposed sanctions this month.

While the European signatories to the nuclear deal have so far baulked at US pressure, they have grown increasingly impatient over Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

France in particular has bemoaned Iranian “frenzy” in developing and propagating missiles and wants Tehran to open negotiations over its ballistic weapons.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday that Iran was arming regional allies with rockets and allowing ballistic proliferation. “Iran needs to avoid the temptation to be the [regional] hegemon,” he said.

In March, the three nations proposed fresh EU sanctions on Iran over its missile activity, although they failed to push them through after opposition from some member states.

“Such a proliferation of Iranian missile capabilities throughout the region is an additional and serious source of concern,” a document from the three European countries said at the time.

A regional intelligence source also said Iran was storing a number of ballistic missiles in areas of Iraq that were under effective Shiite control and had the capacity to launch them.

The source could not confirm that Iran has a missile production capacity in Iraq.

A second Iraqi intelligence official said Baghdad had been aware of the flow of Iranian missiles to Shiite militias to help fight Daesh militants, but that shipments had continued after the group was defeated.

“It was clear to Iraqi intelligence that such a missile arsenal sent by Iran was not meant to fight Daesh militants but as a pressure card Iran can use once involved in regional conflict,” the official said.

The Iraqi source said it was difficult for the Iraqi government to stop or persuade the groups to go against Tehran.

“We can’t restrain militias from firing Iranian rockets because simply the firing button is not in our hands, it’s with Iranians who control the push button,” he said.

“Iran will definitely use the missiles it handed over to Iraqi militia it supports to send a strong message to its foes in the region and the United States that it has the ability to use Iraqi territories as a launch pad for its missiles to strike anywhere and anytime it decides,” the Iraqi official said.

Iraq’s parliament passed a law in 2016 to bring an assortment of Shiite militia groups known collectively as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) into the state apparatus. The militias report to Iraq’s prime minister, who is a Shiite under the country’s unofficial governance system.

However, Iran still has a clear hand in coordinating the PMF leadership, which frequently meets and consults with Sulaimani.

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International Politics, Islamic News

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North Korea Sends Hostile Letter, Then Mattis Announces New War Games


Reported By Steven Beyer | August 28, 2018 at 1:17pm

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has announced that the United States will ramp up military exercises with South Korea just days after North Korea sent a hostile letter to President Donald Trump. The United States had previously suspended military exercises with South Korea as a good faith measure when North Korea decided to start the denuclearization process.

However, Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon, “We took the step to suspend several of the largest military exercises as a good faith measure. We have no plans to suspend anymore.”

He followed up his comment by saying, “We’ll make decisions on that in consultation with State.”

Mattis also told reporters that he’s working with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and that the diplomatic efforts are all “riding on [Pompeo’s] shoulders.”

In June, Trump announced he was suspending “war games” with South Korea and that when it comes to North Korea and denuclearization, Kim Jong Un “wants to get it done.”

The president also said of Kim, “I do trust him.”

On Twitter, the president said at the time of the decision, “We save a fortune by not doing war games, as long as we are negotiating in good faith — which both sides are.”

Mattis’ announcement comes days after Trump announced that he was canceling Pompeo’s trip to the Korean peninsula.

“I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” the president said via Twitter.

It was later reported by the Washington Post that North Korea had secretly sent what many believe to be a hostile letter to Trump. In addition, North Korea’s state-run newspaper accused Washington on Sunday of plotting to “unleash a war”  with “a smile on it’s face” while denuclearization talks were ongoing.

Moreover, North Korean media accused the United States of sending special forces and a nuclear submarine to the Jinhae Naval Base in South Korea.

However, the New York Times reports that American negotiators have “confronted” the North Koreans over facilities that they believe to be nuclear. North Korea has since called the accusations “fiction” and led to the “derailing dialogue” between the U.S. and North Korea.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Steven Beyer
Steven is a husband, father, and follower of Jesus. You can find him enjoying listening to or playing jazz piano, enjoying the Disney parks, or hiking the Arizona landscape.

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International Politics

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Lindsey Graham Reveals Powerful Message Trump Gave Him After McCain Eulogy


Reported By Randy DeSoto | August 29, 2018 at

12:39pm

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., revealed on Wednesday that President Donald Trump called him after the senator’s tearful tribute speech to the late Sen. John McCain, telling him, “you did right by your friend.”

During an appearance on CNN, anchor Dana Bash asked Graham how he can square his friendship with McCain to being willing to “carry the water” for Trump.

“It’s pretty simple, if you knew anything about me. I want to be relevant,” Graham responded. “I want to make sure this president, Donald Trump, who I didn’t vote for and ran against, is successful.”

He added, “I regret the relationship between the two. John is my dearest friend in the world, and I am going to try to help President Trump, and I will. I think ‘Country First’ means that.”

The South Carolinian went on to say that when Trump speaks poorly of McCain, “it pisses me off.”

“He called yesterday after my speech, and he couldn’t have been nicer,” Graham recounted. “He said, ‘That was very sad. I just want to let you know you did right by your friend.’”

“To those who say the only way you can honor John McCain is to fight Donald Trump and try to kick him out of office, I don’t agree,” the senator said.

Graham and Bash talked about Graham’s emotional tribute from the Senate floor during which he said, “It is going to be a lonely journey for me for a while. I am going to need your help, and the void to be filled by John’s passing is more than I can fill.”

“What hit me was the desk,” he recalled to Bash. “Funerals are for a reason. They’re for the living.”

“They give us a chance to remember what we’ve lost and how we can cope with it. It hit me really hard when I saw the cloth on the desk, because I’ve sat next to that desk by him for years talking about everything under the sun, and that will be an empty desk. My life has changed like everybody who knew John.”

Graham told NBC’s “Today” on Tuesday that Trump had gotten to the right place in terms of honoring McCain’s service to the country while acknowledging the two men often didn’t see eye-to-eye.

“John Kelly, (the White House) chief of staff has been terrific,” the lawmaker said. “The president told Gen. Kelly whatever they need, they get,” referring to the McCain family.

CNN reported that besides his Senate tribute speech, Graham will read a scripture at McCain’s memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Saturday and speak at his burial service on Sunday at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Randy DeSoto
Senior Staff Writer
Randy DeSoto is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” and screenwriter of the political documentary “I Want Your Money.”

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Cohen’s plea deal is prosecutor’s attempt to set up Trump


Reported By Mark Penn, opinion contributor —

08/22/18 07:25 AM EDT

Here we go, from Russia with love, to campaign finance with love.

Why was Michael Cohen investigated? Because the “Steele dossier” had him making secret trips to meet with Russians that never happened, so his business dealings got a thorough scrubbing and, in the process, he fell into the Paul Manafort bin reserved by the special counsel for squeezing until the juice comes out. We are back to 1998 all over again, with presidents and candidates covering up their alleged marital misdeeds and prosecutors trying to turn legal acts into illegal ones by inventing new crimes.

The plot to get President TrumpE out of office thickens, as Cohen obviously was his own mini crime syndicate and decided that his betrayals meant he would be better served turning on his old boss to cut the best deal with prosecutors he could rather than holding out and getting the full Manafort treatment. That was clear the minute he hired attorney Lanny Davis, who does not try cases and did past work for Hillary Clinton. Cohen had recorded his client, trying to entrap him, sold information about Trump to corporations for millions of dollars while acting as his lawyer, and did not pay taxes on millions.

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The sweetener for the prosecutors, of course, was getting Cohen to plead guilty to campaign violations that were not campaign violations. Money paid to people who come out of the woodwork and shake down people under threat of revealing bad sexual stories are not legitimate campaign expenditures. They are personal expenditures. That is true for both candidates we like and candidates we do not. Just imagine if candidates used campaign funds instead of their own money to pay folks like Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about affairs. They would get indicted for misuse of campaign funds for personal purposes and for tax evasion.

There appear to be two payments involved in this unusual agreement. Cohen pleaded guilty to a campaign violation for having “coordinated” the American Media payment to Karen McDougal for her story, not for actually making the payment. He is pleading guilty over a corporate contribution he did not make. Think about this for a minute. Suppose ABC paid Stormy Daniels for her story in coordination with Michael Avenatti or maybe even the law firm of the Democratic National Committee on the eve of the election.

By this reasoning, if the purpose of this money paid, just before the election, would be to hurt Trump and help Clinton win, this payment would be a corporate political contribution. If using it not to get Trump would be a corporate contribution, then using it to get Trump also has to be a corporate contribution. That is why neither are corporate contributions and this is a bogus approach to federal election law. Note that none of the donors in the 2012 John Edwards case faced any legal issues and the Federal Election Commission ruled their payments were not campaign contributions that had to be reported, both facts that prosecutors tried to suppress at trial.

Now, when it comes to Stormy Daniels, Cohen made a payment a few days before the election that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani says was reimbursed. First, given that this payment was in October, it would never have been reported before the election campaign and so, for all intents and purposes, was immaterial as it relates to any effect on the campaign. What is clear in this plea deal is that, in exchange for overall leniency on his massive tax evasion, Cohen is pleading guilty to these other charges as an attempt to give prosecutors what they want, which is a Trump connection.

The usual procedures here would be for the Federal Election Commission to investigate complaints and sort through these murky laws to determine if these kinds of payments are personal in nature or more properly classified as campaign expenditures. On the Stormy Daniels payment that was made and reimbursed by Trump, it is again a question of whether that was made for personal reasons, especially since they have been trying since 2011 to obtain agreement. Just because it would be helpful to the campaign does not convert it to a campaign expenditure. Think of a candidate with bad teeth who had dental work done to look better for the campaign. His campaign still could not pay for it because it is a personal expenditure.

Contrast what is going on here with the treatment of the millions of dollars paid to a Democratic law firm which, in turn, paid out money to political research firm Fusion GPS and British spy Christopher Steele without listing them on any campaign expenditure form, despite crystal clear laws and regulations that the ultimate beneficiaries of the funds must be listed. This rule was even tightened recently. There is no question that hiring spies to do opposition research in Russia is a campaign expenditure, yet no prosecutorial raids have been sprung on the law firm, Fusion GPS or Steele. The reason? It does not “get” Trump.

So, Trump spends $130,000 to keep the lid on a personal story and the full weight of state prosecutors comes down on his lawyer, tossing attorney-client privilege to the wind. Democrats spend potentially millions on secret opposition research and no serious criminal investigation occurs. Remember that the feds tried a similar strategy against Democratic candidate Edwards six years ago and it failed. As Gregory Craig, a lawyer who worked both for President Clinton and Edwards, said, “The government theory is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law. It is novel and untested. There is no civil or criminal precedent for such a prosecution.” Tried it there anyway and it failed.

Let us also not forget that President Clinton was entrapped into lying about his affairs and, although impeached, was acquitted by the Senate. The lesson was clear: We are not going to remove presidents for lying about who they had affairs with, nor even convict politicians on campaign finance violations for these personal payments.

With Cohen pleading guilty, there will be no test of soundness of the prosecution theories here, and it is yet another example of the double standards of justice of one investigation that gave Clinton aides and principals every benefit of the doubt and another investigation that targeted Trump people until they found unrelated crimes to use as leverage. Prosecutors thought nothing of using the Logan Act against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, but they are using obscure and unsettled elements of campaign finance law against Trump lawyer Cohen to manufacture crimes in what is a naked attempt to take Trump down and defeat democracy.

Trump should do a better job of picking aides who pay their taxes, but he is not responsible for their financial problems and crimes. These investigations, essentially based on an opposition dossier, were never anything other than an attempt to push into a corner as many Trump aides and family members as possible and shake them down until they could get close enough to Trump to try to take him down.

That is why so many of his aides, lawyers, and actions in the campaign and in the White House have undergone hour by hour scrutiny to find anything that could be colored into a crime, leaving far behind the original Russia collusion theory as the fake pretext it was. Paying for nondisclosure agreements for perfectly legal activities is not a crime, not a campaign contribution as commonly understood or ruled upon by the Federal Election Commission. Squeezing guilty pleas out of vulnerable witnesses does nothing to change those facts.

Mark Penn is a managing partner of the Stagwell Group, a private equity firm specializing in marketing services companies, as well as chairman of the Harris Poll and author of “Microtrends Squared.” He served as pollster and adviser to President Clinton from 1995 to 2000, including during Clinton’s impeachment. You can follow him on Twitter @Mark_Penn.

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Cohen’s Lawyer Has 1 Shot on Live TV, Accidentally Sends People to Trump’s Website


Reported By Jared Harris | August 22, 2018 at 5:39pm

Editor’s Note: Fox News reported that the website mentioned by Michael Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, directed users to President Donald Trump’s campaign website. However, it now redirects visitors to a GoFundMe page for President Trump’s border wall. 

Lanny Davis is not having a good day.

On top of having to convince people his client Michael Cohen is ‘committed’ to the truth, he was apparently also tasked with raising his own paycheck.

On Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” Lanny preached Cohen’s love of everything true. “He’s committed to telling the truth.”

“We’ve actually set up a website with the name ‘truth’ in it, called michaelcohentruth.com, and he’s looking for help from people who want to give donations to help him uh… tell the truth.”

There’s only one problem. Typing michaelcohentruth.com in your browser takes you to a GoFundMe page for President Donald Trump’s border wall.

Better not cash that paycheck just yet, Lanny.

//video.foxnews.com/v/video-embed.html?video_id=5825364878001&loc=westernjournal.com&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernjournal.com%2Fct%2Fcohens-lawyer-1-shot-live-tv-accidentally-sends-people-trumps-website%2F&_xcf=

Watch the latest video at &amp;lt;a href=”http://www.foxnews.com”&amp;gt;foxnews.com&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt;

Where did it all go so wrong?

Lanny did the math. Fox has a huge number of viewers, so it would be a perfect place to promote the website. With possibly millions watching, what could go wrong?

Lanny gave a typical lawyer interview and was a courteous professional. Everybody wants to donate to those guys.

But despite doing everything right, our lovable lawyer failed to take a crucial step: visiting the website you’re planning to promote.

It’s a deceptively simple concept, one that 7 years at Yale never prepared him for.

Nobody noticed the website despite it being mentioned twice, and it was not corrected in the interview.

Before the questions get a little more aggressive and Lanny gets a little more frustrated, he was able to get one more confusing jab in.

“When Rudy Giuliani says ‘truth isn’t truth,’ you just heard Donald Trump reverse truth and make it into a falsehood.”

“It’s classic,” Lanny said, shaking his head with a chuckle. “Classic.”

You got that one right, Lanny.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 
Jared Harris
Editor
Jared is a husband, dad, and aspiring farmer. He was an infantryman in the Arkansas and Georgia National Guard. If he’s not with his wife and son, then he’s either shooting guns or working on his motorcycle.
Jared is a husband, dad, and aspiring farmer. He was an infantryman in the Arkansas and Georgia National Guard. If he’s not with his wife and son, then he’s either shooting guns or working on his motorcycle.

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Turkey’s Currency Plummets After Trump Sanctions Hit for Jailing American Pastor


Reported By Hanna Bogorowski | August 7, 2018 at 9:37am

Turkish currency, the lira, hit a record low Monday after efforts by the country’s central bank to curb the drop by reducing the amount of foreign currency it holds in its reserves and their efforts to bolster the banking sector failed.

The currency has fallen nearly 30 percent this year already and is currently down 3.8 percent against the U.S. dollar, with $1 buying about 5.277 lira, according to The Wall Street Journal.

After months of decline, the lira fell 2.2 points on Sunday after policymakers in Turkey announced adjustments to the reserve policies of the central bank — CBRT — that were supposed to result in giving the banking sector $2.2 billion in liquidity.

The CBRT claimed it would do this by lowering the “upper limit for the FX maintenance facility within the reserve options mechanism” by 5 percentage points to 40 percent, per a statement on its website.

This helped temporarily, the Financial Times reported, but the lira continued to fall.

Recent actions by the CBRT have alarmed investors who are increasingly concerned by the amount of control Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan holds over monetary policy, The Wall Street Journal said.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office announced Friday that it would be looking into Turkey’s duty-free access to the U.S. market, which came after Turkey hit the U.S. with tariffs on U.S. goods in response to American tariffs on steel and aluminum.

U.S. President Donald Trump also hit Turkey with sanctions on Wednesday over the country’s bogus detainment of an American pastor.

“Pastor Brunson’s unjust detention and continued prosecution by Turkish officials is simply unacceptable,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

“President Trump has made it abundantly clear that the United States expects Turkey to release him immediately,” Mnuchin added.

Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu were the targets of the sanctions because they played a large role in imprisoning Brunson and “serve as leaders of Turkish government organizations responsible for implementing Turkey’s serious human rights abuse,” the statement reads.

Improving relations with the U.S. and raising interest rates, two things Turkey has so far declined to do, would help stabilize the country’s currency, analysts told The Wall Street Journal.

Turkey’s inflation rate also hit a 14-year high in June, reaching 15.39 percent.

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International Politics

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Why didn’t FBI tell court about Christopher Steele bias?


Reported by Byron York  | July 26, 2018 09:49 PM

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., set off the argument last February, with the release of the so-called Nunes memo. In the memo, Nunes wrote, “Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts.”

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In another passage, Isikoff and Corn wrote: “As FBI officials saw it, Steele seemed more interested in getting the story out rather than quietly working with them on the investigation. ‘There was clearly an agenda on his part,’ one senior FBI official later said.”

So to conclude: The FBI based a substantial part of its warrant application on Steele’s work. Steele had a strong and clear anti-Trump bias. The FBI knew about it. The bureau should have informed the court. And it did not.

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Trump Didn’t Ask North Korea’s Permission, Sent Plane Immediately To Save Otto Warmbier


Reported By Rebekah Baker | July 25, 2018 at 12:29pm

Donald Trump serves many roles as president of the United States — chief executive, chief administrator, chief diplomat — but when he learned of the dire medical condition of North Korean prisoner and American college student Otto Warmbier, he adopted the role of a father and fought for Otto like he would for his own son.

According to a recent report from GQ, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy Joseph Yun learned in early June 2017 that Warmbier — who was arrested in January 2016 and sentenced to hard labor in the communist nation — was unconscious.

“I was completely shocked,” Yun said. “I came back immediately, and I told Secretary Tillerson … and we determined at the time that we needed to get him and the other prisoners out as soon as possible, and I should contact Pyongyang and say I wanted to come right away.”

When Trump heard the news, he acted immediately. The “strategic patience” methods implemented under the Obama administration were over.

“When Trump learned of Otto’s condition, he doubled down on the order for Yun to rush to Pyongyang and bring Otto home,” the GQ report states.

And he didn’t ask for North Korea’s permission, either.

“The North Koreans were unilaterally informed that an American plane would soon land in Pyongyang and that United States diplomats and doctors would get off,” the report continues.

According to an anonymous State Department official, Trump sounded more like a dad than the president of a country when he heard the news of Otto’s condition.

“The president was very invested in bringing Otto home,” the official told GQ. “Listening to him deliberate on this, he sounded to me a lot more like a dad.”

“We were very scared,” the official continued, explaining that no one knew what kind of reception they would receive from North Korea when they arrived.

“The North Koreans said we could send a delegation to see Otto, but that we would have to discuss some of the conditions of getting him out once we got there,” he explained.

When Yun and the rest of the rescue team arrived in North Korea and they were finally allowed to see Warmbier, he was beyond recognition.

“In an isolated second-floor ICU room, Flueckiger was presented with a pale, inert man with a feeding tube threaded through his nostrils,” the report continues. “Could this really be Otto? Flueckiger wondered, for the body looked so different from the pictures he had seen of the homecoming king.”

Although the team was able to secure Warmbier’s release, he was barely alive. He was reunited with his family and died that June.

Warmbier’s father Fred Warmbier has publicly criticized the Obama administration for failing to take action to rescue his son.

“When Otto was first taken, we were advised by the past administration to take a low profile while they worked to obtain his release,” Warmbier said.

“We did so without result. Earlier this year, Cindy and I decided the time for strategic patience was over. … It is my understanding that (Special Representative for North Korea Policy Joseph Y. Yun) and his team, at the direction of the president, aggressively pursued resolution of the situation.”

Asked if the Obama administration could have done more to save his son, he replied, “I think the results speak for themselves.”

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Gallup Poll Disaster for Media: Concern Over Russia Ranked 33rd


Reported By Benjamin Arie | July 19, 2018 at 2:07pm

The mainstream media is horribly out of touch with the American people.

That’s the best conclusion that can be drawn after a new poll from the well-respected Gallup organization revealed that despite wall-to-wall coverage and liberal hand-wringing over Trump and Russia, voters just aren’t that bothered.

Over the last week, much ink was spilled over President Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin, the controversial leader of Russia.

Both mainstream and left-leaning outlets — can anybody tell them apart? — tried desperately to paint the diplomatic visit as a blunder for Trump, and tried to tie it to a larger narrative of Russia influencing the 2016 election while controlling Trump.

That claim is not proven, and is flimsy at best. Still, the old guard media flew into a tizzy. Time Magazine morphed the faces of Putin and Trump into one on its latest cover, not-so-subtly implying that the former KGB agent and New York billionaire were one and the same.

Other voices implied that Trump was a traitor who needed to resign or be forcibly removed from office for, er, acting as the chief diplomat and meeting with a powerful country on neutral ground.

The media hysteria over phantom Trump-Russia connections goes back to the 2016 election, but there’s one big problem: Americans just aren’t accepting the narrative.

Despite mainstream outlets hammering the Russia angle almost endlessly, voters have basically shrugged and turned their focus to other things.

A recent Gallup poll tells the story. The research group asked a broad sample of Americans what they thought was the “most important problem” facing America today. To the chagrin of liberals, the results are good for Donald Trump, and appallingly bad for the Russian boogeyman narrative.

As of June 2018, the vast majority of citizens named non-economic problems as the most important issues facing the nation. Of those, “dissatisfaction with government” ranked the highest, while “immigration / illegal aliens” was a close second.

Both of those issues potentially bode well for Trump and conservatives in the 2018 and 2020 elections.

And the Russian narrative? It barely made the list. Less than 0.5 percent of respondents to the Gallup poll named “the situation with Russia” as their top concern. A staggering 32 issues, ranging from unemployment to crime, all ranked higher on the list of concerns than Russia.

Now, it should be noted that the recent meeting between Trump and Putin happened after the latest Gallup results were collected. If the Helsinki summit influenced the public’s concern over Russia, it would be reflected on next month’s polling.

With that said, one look at how Americans viewed the Russian problem over the last seven months reveals that they have been largely apathetic to the media narrative and even hysteria on the issue.

Between December 2017 and June 2018, at no point did “the situation with Russia” rise above one percent of responses for the most important issue. Barring some kind of smoking gun evidence linking Trump to the Putin regime, it’s a safe bet that a diplomatic meeting with the Russian president did not suddenly change the minds of voters.

What this shows is that the mainstream media is living in a bubble, and it seems to be getting further removed from reality every day. While they’re wailing about Russia and openly implying that Trump is a traitor to the nation, heartland Americans are seeing through the façade.

In the end, that could be what drives the leftist media most crazy: They’re just not relevant anymore. The American people are doing something much more powerful than fighting the one-sided media narrative. They’re simply ignoring it.

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Terror Expert on What He Saw Going into Summit: Media Is Completely Off-Base


Reported By Ben Marquis | July 17, 2018 at 12:28pm

There was great consternation and outrage among the media and Democrats — as well as some Republicans — following President Donald Trump’s summit in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. While the harsh criticisms and shouts of “treason” from the hard left and NeverTrump right are more than a little disconcerting, they are not the least bit surprising as that sort of reaction has become rather predictable in this day and age.

Indeed, the stage was set ahead of the summit for just such a reaction by the media and Democrats, who displayed their “glaring hypocrisy” with regard to their coverage of Trump’s diplomatic meeting as opposed to the diplomatic meetings held by former President Barack Obama or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

That was the message delivered on “Fox & Friends” on Sunday morning by former U.S. Army Special Forces member and anti-terrorism expert Jim Hanson, who pointed out the disparate ways in which Trump, Obama and Clinton were treated by the establishment and media following their particular dealings with Russia.

Co-host Pete Hegseth began the segment by recalling Clinton’s embarrassing attempt in 2009 to hit the “reset” button with Russia, using a hokey red plastic button that actually had the wrong Russian word printed on it to symbolize the development in U.S./Russian relations.

“And Hillary walks into that meeting asking for nothing with her giant button that actually said ‘overcharge’ in Russian, and she’s telling them, ‘ok, you can have whatever you want from us,’” Hanson said.

“Even a more glaring example was when President Obama was talking to (then-President) Medvedev of the Russian Republic and tells him, ‘after my next election I’ll have more flexibility,‘” he continued.

“Now that is him admitting that he was lying to the American public during that election cycle, and afterwards he would give Russia what they wanted. But yet, where is the outrage? Where is the press saying we should investigate that?” Hanson asked.

Hegseth asked what sort of “flexibility” Obama was referring to in that particular remark, and if it meant allowing Russia to annex Crimea, invade Ukraine or even meddle in our elections.

“All of it, and that’s the problem Pete,” Hanson replied. “You know the entire focus and entire stature of the Obama foreign policy was cringing capitulation, it was ‘America last’ — ‘what do you guys want, what can we give you’ — and it ended up making the world a much more dangerous place.”

“In that case they were actually talking about missile defense, so the security of the entire free world for any attack by any crazed person with missiles — which could have included the Russians — is being put at risk because Obama was willing to go ahead and bow down,” Hanson said.

“And now, the media at that point in time had nothing to say, now President Trump wants to have a less antagonistic relationship with the Russians, maybe get them to stop hurting us with North Korea, stop hurting us in Syria, and all of the sudden it’s the worst thing that ever happened,” he continued.

“It’s glaring hypocrisy,” Hanson concluded, to which Hegseth could only reply, “Absolutely it is, every single day of the week.”

When Obama and Clinton reached out and tried to make nice with Russia, they were applauded by the liberal media and establishment politicians on both sides of the aisle, even as Putin and Russia took full advantage of the naïve good faith extended by Obama and Clinton.

Now Trump is seeking to tone down the harsh rhetoric and smooth out the rough relationship between the U.S. and Russia and he has been attacked and smeared as some sort of Putin puppet that has sold out his own nation by the same folks who cheered similar efforts by Trump’s predecessors.

If that isn’t glaring hypocrisy, nothing is.

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Nolte: Gory Trump Throat-Cutting Art Decorates Portland Gallery


Posted By John Nolte | July 17, 2018

URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2018/07/17/nolte-graphic-picture-of-trump-throat-cutting-decorates-portland-art-gallery/

trump-throat-cut
Facebook / One Grand Gallery

A gory illustration of someone slitting the throat of President Trump currently decorates the window of an art gallery in Portland, OR, with the caption “FUCK TRUMP.”

This picture taken on the street outside the One Grand Gallery has been making the rounds on Twitter.

Breitbart News was able to verify this is real via the gallery’s Facebook page (archived here). Also, photos of the gallery on its website reveal the windows facing the street are the same. This means that anyone driving or walking by, including small children, will be exposed, not only to a grisly photo depicting the assassination of a sitting president, but the “FUCK TRUMP” caption.

The event surrounding this particular gallery showing opened on July 13 and is called “Fuck you Mr. President.”

In the era of Trump, this kind of wishful thinking surrounding the grisly assassination of the president is nothing new, unfortunately. As Breitbart News has documented, the same establishment media that spent a week hounding a rodeo clown for wearing an Obama mask has devolved into open apologists — if not advocates — for violence against Trump and his supporters.

Last summer, CNN’s parent company, Time-Warner, was a sponsor of a play depicting the bloody assassination of the president. CNN’s Chris Cillizza has tweeted out video of Trump in crosshairs, and in the lead up to Trump’s inauguration, CNN openly fantasized about Trump’s assassination.

If the establishment media are eagerly shattering every norm regarding the safety of the president, we should not be surprised by the appalling behavior of a local art gallery.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

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Mexico Creates ‘Police Force’ to Stop Illegals from Crossing Its Southern Border


Reported By Randy DeSoto | July 9, 2018 at 1:57pm

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is planning on strengthening his nation’s southern border with a new specialized police force in an effort to crack down on drug-related gun violence and illegal crossings. Alfonso Durazo, who has been picked by Obrador to head up the effort, told Bloomberg the new force will be sizable. The force will be deployed to Mexico’s northern border with the U.S., as well.

“We’re going to create a border police force that will be highly specialized,” Durazo said.

“They need to apply the law,” including stopping undocumented migrants and human traffickers from crossing into Mexico.

According to the Associated Press, more than 200,000 have been murdered in Mexico since 2006, and the majority of those have been in drug-related violence. Last year, the murder rate in the nation reached an all-time high with more than 25,000 killed, and this year is on pace to top that number.

By comparison, the total number of murders in the United States in 2016 (the most recent number available) was approximately 17,250, despite the U.S. having a population nearly three times larger than Mexico.

Last month, Obrador responded to the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy on illegal crossings — which resulted in children being separated from their parents — by promising to defend illegal immigrants from Mexico and other countries trying to enter the United States. The then-candidate called the Trump administration’s crackdown “racist” and “inhumane,” El Universal reported. He then urged Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to take the matter up directly with Trump, and also solicit the United Nations commissioner for human rights to intervene.

“Soon, very soon, after the victory of our movement, we will defend migrants all over the American continent and the migrants of the world who, by necessity, must abandon their towns to find life in the United States. It’s a human right we will defend,” Obrador said.


Following Obrador’s victory last week, Trump told reporters the two spoke by phone. “I think he’s going to try and help us with border,” Trump said.

“We have unbelievably bad border laws, immigration laws. The weakest in the world. Laughed at by everybody in the world,”Trump added.

“Mexico has very strong immigrations laws, so they can help us until we straighten out our immigration laws, which have been bad for many, many years — decades. We’re going to have them taken care of,” he stated.

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Emails Shed Light On Peter Strzok’s Role In Carter Page FISA Process


Chuck Ross | Reporter

During a closed-door interview on June 27, former FBI official Peter Strzok downplayed his role in obtaining surveillance warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The Daily Beast reported that Strzok, the former deputy chief of counterintelligence, claimed in the interview that he had no substantive input on drafting or securing Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants used to spy on Page, an energy consultant who left the Trump team in September 2016.

Strzok also denied providing evidence for the FISAs, the first of which was granted on Oct. 21, 2016.

A Republican in the June 27 interview confirmed that Strzok, who oversaw the Russian investigation, denied having a direct role in the FISA process. But the Republican was also incredulous at Strzok’s suggestion that he had little to do with the spy warrants obtained against Page. (RELATED: Goodlatte: FBI Lawyers Instructed Strzok Not To Answer ‘Many, Many’ Questions)

A new report appears to justify the Republican’s skepticism.

The Hill’s John Solomon is reporting that Strzok exchanged emails with FBI attorney Lisa Page regarding the Carter Page surveillance. Strzok and Lisa Page exchanged numerous anti-Trump text messages during their work on the Russia probe, which was codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.” In one Aug. 8, 2016 message, Strzok told Page that “we’ll stop” Trump from becoming president.

Strzok, who was the FBI’s top investigator on Crossfire Hurricane, sent an email with the subject line “Crossfire FISA” to Lisa Page discussing a set of talking points aimed at getting then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to push the Department of Justice (DOJ) to approve a surveillance warrant against Carter Page, according to The Hill.

“At a minimum, that keeps the hurry the F up pressure on him,” Strzok emailed Lisa Page on Oct. 14, 2016, according to The Hill.

Strzok also commented on a letter that Carter Page sent to then-FBI Director Jim Comey offering to meet with the FBI to discuss allegations made against him in a Yahoo! News article published on Sept. 23, 2016.

“At a minimum, the letter provides us a pretext to interview,” Strzok wrote to Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair, on Sept. 26, 2016.

The Yahoo! News article claimed that U.S. government officials were looking into allegations that Carter Page met secretly in Moscow in July 2016 with two sanctioned Kremlin insiders. It would later be learned that the article, written by Michael Isikoff, was based on information from Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier.

The dossier claimed that Page was the Trump campaign’s conduit to the Kremlin for the collusion conspiracy. Page has vehemently denied all of the allegations, and no evidence has emerged to support the Steele dossier’s claims about him.

The FBI and DOJ’s spy warrants relied heavily on the Steele dossier, which remains largely unverified and uncorroborated, in order to convince a federal judge to allow spying against Carter Page. The FISA applications also cited the Isikoff article that relied on the dossier, though without disclosing that the article was derived from Steele.

The applications also did not disclose that the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC had financed the dossier. A law firm for both organizations hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which in turn hired Steele.

Despite Strzok’s suggestion of an interview with Carter Page, the FBI did not meet with him until March 2017, six months after the email and two months after BuzzFeed News published the dossier. Page has questioned why the FBI waited so long to interview him.

The FBI used other methods to keep tabs on the former Trump aide. As The Daily Caller News Foundation first reported, an FBI informant named Stefan Halper made contact with Page during a conference at the University of Cambridge on July 11, 2016, nearly three weeks before the start of Crossfire Hurricane. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Cambridge Prof With CIA, MI6 Ties Kept Tabs On Carter Page During Campaign, Beyond)

Halper, a veteran of three Republican presidential administrations, maintained contact with Page for over a year, until September 2017. That was the same month that the fourth and final FISA warrant against Carter Page expired.

Halper met with two other Trump campaign advisers, Sam Clovis and George Papadopoulos. Halper paid Papadopoulos $3,000 in September 2016 to travel to London under the guise of writing a policy paper and Mediterranean energy issues.

Papadopoulos has told associates that during dinner one night in London, Halper asked him about Russian efforts to steal Hillary Clinton emails.

Strzok’s attorney, Aitan Goelman, did not respond to an email seeking comment for this article.

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Getting Caught Up with A.F. Branco Politically INCORRECT Cartoons


It’s Our Time

A.F. Branco | on
Instead of Time Magazine creating the phony scenario of a crying little girl looking up at Trump on the cover, a Democrat donkey would have been a much better fit.
Trump Time Cover

Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.

To see more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, click here.

A.F.Branco’s New Coffee Table Book <—- Order Here!

Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.

Mad Max

A.F. Branco | on
The face of the Democrat party Maxine Waters suggest the way to resist is to incite mob violence against Trump and his supporters.
Maxine Waters Inciting Mob Violence

Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco 92018.

Beat Down

A.F. Branco | on
SCOTUS delivered some heavy blows against tyranny this past week with its rulings. That may explain why the Democrat’s heads are explaining.
2018 SCOTUS Rulings

Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco.

Human Shield

A.F. Branco | on
Democrats are exploiting children in their war against America, trying to force us to open our borders to ultimately collapse the country.
Democrats Exploit Border Kids

Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.

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Two Politically INCORRECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco for This Independence Day 2018


Moore Tears

A.F. Branco | on

Michael Moore is another crying over the success of America because of President Trump policies.

Michael Moore Crying

Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.

More A.F. Branco cartoons at Constitution.com here.

Well Done Mr. President

A.F. Branco| on

The fake news, Mainstream media continue to attack President Trump and his supporters but Trump knows how to throw it back at them.

Trump the Mainstream Media

Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.

To see more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, click here.

A.F.Branco’s New Coffee Table Book <—- Order Here!

Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.

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Here Are The Photos Of Obama’s Illegal Immigrant Detention Facilities The Media Won’t Show You


Reported by Benny Johnson | Reporter At Large | 9:23 PM

06/19/2018

The media and political class become more and more outraged over the Trump administration’s decision to detain and prosecute immigrants illegally crossing the border. Lost in the debate is any acknowledgment that President Obama’s administration also used detention facilities.

Current U.S. immigration laws, when enforced, have the consequence of temporarily separating adults who arrive with children into separate detention facilities in order to prosecute the adults. The policy of prosecuting immigrants for crossing the border illegally has been in place for multiple administrations. The Obama administration prosecuted half a million illegal immigrants and similarly separated families in the process. So did the Bush administration.

Personal accounts from immigration lawyers tell a tale of Obama being equally concerned about unaccompanied minors traveling to the border and wanting to create a deterrent.

Photos of border detention facilities from the Obama-era, taken during 2014, look nearly identical to the ones taken during the Trump era. You never see them, however. Here they are, taken in 2014 during a media tour of Obama-era detention facilities in Brownsville, Texas, and Nogales, Arizona.

John Moore/Getty Images

John Moore/Getty Images

REUTERS/Eric Gay/Pool

REUTERS/Eric Gay/Pool

Ross D. Franklin-Pool/Getty Images

Ross D. Franklin-Pool/Getty Images

Eric Gay-Pool/Getty Images

Eric Gay-Pool/Getty Images

Photo by Eric Gay-Pool/Getty Images

Eric Gay-Pool/Getty Images

Photo by Eric Gay-Pool/Getty Images

Photo by Eric Gay-Pool/Getty Images

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REUTERS/Ross D. Franklin/Pool/Files

=REUTERS/Ross D. Franklin/Pool

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REUTERS/Ross D. Franklin/Pool

As the Daily Caller previously reported, “Obama administration prosecuted nearly 500,000 illegal immigrants between FY 2010-FY2016. They referred 1/5 of illegals for prosecution, which often resulted in family separations.”

Editor’s Note: Two of the 32 photos originally included in this post were found to be from a CPB press handout June 17, 2018. They have since been removed.

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G7 American Allies Battle


Drawn and Post by Chip Bok | June 8, 2018

URL of the original posting site: http://bokbluster.com/2018/06/08/g7-american-allies/

g7 American allies

There was discord during the buildup to the G7 meetings of rich nations in Quebec. Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau thinks Trump considers Canada a threat to the U.S. And he was insulted.

But President Trump says he had to hit American allies with high tariffs for national security reasons.

G7 American Allies

Then on Thursday, which happened to be the D-Day anniversary, French President Macron took a shot at Trump saying, “No leader is forever.” He also said, “the six G7 countries without the U.S. are bigger than the American market.”

The next day Trump waded into the meetings insisting that Russia be included. He’s apparently unfazed by the Mueller collusion probe.

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Former Trump Enemy Ted Cruz Pushes 7 Major Trump Victories for Faith, Family and Life



Reported By Joshua Gill | June 7, 2018 at 2:42pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/former-trump-enemy-ted-cruz-pushes-7-major-trump-victories-for-faith-family-and-life/

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas praised the Trump administration Thursday for seven major victories he said it accomplished “for faith, for family — for the values that we share.” Cruz made the remarks at the 2018 Road to Majority conference hosted by the Faith & Freedom Coalition.

He lauded the current presidential administration for making significant advances for the protection of religious liberty, individual rights concerning education and family, the defense of the unborn and foreign policy that reversed Obama-era deals.

“Let’s start with number one — judges,” Cruz said. “Principled, constitutionalist judges.”

Cruz mentioned the Trump administration’s victory concerning the nation’s courts with the appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch, as well as the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Colorado bakery case.

“The so-called Colorado Civil Rights Commission demonstrated an antipathy, an animosity to faith that was visceral,” Cruz said. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that “you cannot discriminate against religious faith,” he added, instead of ruling they must be forced to violate their consciences.

“That is not narrow,” Cruz added. “That is a bedrock principle of our First Amendment and of our nation.”

“A second victory concerns life,” Cruz continued, lauding the Trump administration’s “return of the Mexico City rules,” which prevented the U.S. from providing foreign aid to fund abortions in other countries.

Other facets of the administration’s victory for life, according to Cruz, include the new Health and Human Services rules preventing tax funding for health clinics that provide abortions, as well as the dismissal of the litigation against the Little Sisters of the Poor and the repeal of the “abhorrent so-called contraceptive mandate in Obamacare.”

“Here’s a really good rule of thumb,” Cruz said. “If you’re litigating against nuns, you’ve probably done something wrong. It’s a wonderfully reliable checklist.”

The third victory for Cruz was the historic tax cut Congress passed in December, which he said provided more money for the majority of American citizens by “cutting taxes on small businesses, cutting taxes on farmers, cutting taxes on families.”

Cruz then advocated for the implementation of a flat tax and declared Americans “should abolish the IRS.”

The Trump administration scored a fourth victory, according to Cruz, with the repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate. He acknowledged, however, that the repeal of the Affordable Care Act was “the Republican Party’s biggest unkept promise” and urged the party to keep fighting for that outcome.

The final three victories Cruz said the Trump administration achieved for the nation and its values were the passage of “school choice” legislation, Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and Trump’s “right decision to withdraw from the disastrous Obama Iran nuclear deal.”

“Seven victories and more to come,” Cruz said in closing.

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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Andrew McCabe Seeks Immunity For Senate Testimony



disclaimer1:11 AM 06/06/2018 | Chuck Ross | Reporter

Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, is seeking immunity in order to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to documents released Tuesday. “This is a textbook case for granting use immunity,” Michael Bromwich, an attorney for McCabe, wrote Monday in a letter to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the judiciary panel.

“Mr. McCabe is willing to testify, but because of the criminal referral, he must be afforded suitable legal protection,” Bromwich said. “Accordingly, we hereby request that the Judiciary Committee authorize a grant of use immunity to Mr. McCabe.”

Grassley invited McCabe and other FBI officials to a hearing tentatively scheduled for July after the expected release of a Justice Department inspector general’s report on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. (RELATED: Justice Department Watchdog Releases Damning Report On Andrew McCabe)

McCabe was fired in March, two days before his retirement, for a “lack of candor” during interviews with the office of the inspector general (OIG) and the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility about his role in authorizing FBI contacts with the media about the Clinton probe.

Comey has gone on the record disputing McCabe’s claims. Bromwich decried “a stream of leaks” from the Justice Department about McCabe’s case in his letter to Grassley. He said leaks from the agency revealed the OIG made a criminal referral on McCabe to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C.

“Even though Mr. McCabe committed no crime, these leaks have forced us to acknowledge the criminal referral,” said Bromwich, who added that he and McCabe “are outraged by these leaks.”

Bromwich issued the complaint despite the leak allegations against his client. The OIG found McCabe attempted to blame other FBI officials for the very same media contacts that he authorized Page to make with The Wall Street Journal, according to a preliminary report released on April 13. (RELATED: IG Report: McCabe Tried To Blame FBI Officials For His Own Leaks)

Bromwich noted the Senate Judiciary Committee is “eager to hear Mr. McCabe’s testimony” in his immunity pitch.

Immunity is warranted because “Mr. McCabe is eager to give such testimony; he has a legitimate fear of criminal prosecution based on the criminal referral that has already been made, the irregularities in the process by which he was terminated, and the improper command influence that continues to be exercised by the President of the United States.”

Bromwich has accused President Donald Trump of improperly targeting McCabe in a series of tweets about political donations that McCabe’s wife received in 2015 from then–Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a longtime Clinton ally.

Grassley said he plans to consult with California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the judiciary panel, to consider the immunity request.

He noted an immunity order would require a two-thirds majority vote and that “even if that were to occur, the Justice Department would then have a formal opportunity to delay any testimony and attempt to persuade the Committee not to proceed.”

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Eagles Rodman Rocket Man


Drawn and Posted by Chip Bok | June 5, 2018

Maybe President Trump will un-cancel his meeting with the Philadelphia Eagles, like he did his meeting with the Pyongyang Tyrant. It all had something to do with taking a knee during the National Anthem. Even though no Eagles took a knee. Eagles Rodman  Rocket Man Anyway, it turns out Kim’s best buddy, Denis Rodman, likes<!– AddThis Advanced Settings above via filter on wp_trim_excerpt –><!– AddThis Advanced Settings below via filter on wp_trim_excerpt –><!– AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt –><!– AddThis Share Buttons above via filter on wp_trim_excerpt –><!– AddThis Share Buttons below via filter on wp_trim_excerpt –>

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 URL of the original posting site: http://bokbluster.com/2018/06/05/eagles-rodman-rocket-man/


eagles rodman rocket man

Maybe President Trump will un-cancel his meeting with the Philadelphia Eagles, like he did his meeting with the Pyongyang Tyrant. It all had something to do with taking a knee during the National Anthem. Even though no Eagles took a knee.

Eagles Rodman  Rocket Man

Anyway, it turns out Kim’s best buddy, Denis Rodman, likes Trump. So The Worm gave Rocket Man a copy of “The Art of The Deal”.

Can it get any weirder.? Um, yes it can. Rodman will be in Singapore during the summit.

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Maxine Waters Panders To Millennial Voters, Shamed When Only 10 Kids Show Up For Event



disclaimerReported By Ben Marquis | June 4, 2018 at 1:25pm

 

Largely owing to her vehement and vitriolic opposition to President Donald Trump, Democratic California Rep. Maxine “Impeach 45!” Waters has been heralded as something of a leader among liberals these days.

The media has even attempted to portray the 79-year-old Waters as some sort of guiding beacon for liberals of the millennial generation, granting her the nickname “Auntie Maxine” in a bid to further the notion that young people will flock to and follow her experienced wisdom.

But that image of Waters is little more than illusory, as was clearly revealed during a campaign event Sunday which was explicitly targeted toward young millennials but had an exceptionally low turnout among the desired audience, according to The American Mirror. 

Waters promoted the June 3 event on Twitter as a “Meet & Greet Tweet-a-thon” with the elected representative and young supporters.

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The event was intended to teach Waters’ young supporters how to “reclaim our time” and get them “energized and ready” to get out and vote on her behalf.

But judging by the comments on that post, Waters’ support among not just millennials, but voters of all ages in general, was simply not evident, nor was it evident in a short video from the event tweeted out by Waters later in the day. 

Judging by that tweet, not many more than 10-15 actual millennials showed up to meet and greet Waters, a majority of whom ended up uncomfortably arrayed at the front with a microphone shoved in their face to speak about the issues most important to them. They mostly spoke about immigration concerns and their mounting student debt, as well as the increasingly dismal homeless problem in the state.homeless numbers

Waters eventually reclaimed the microphone from her young supporters and delivered a brief campaign-style speech which proclaimed that Democrats would retake control of Congress via an energized “Blue Wave” of liberal and progressive voters in the November midterm elections.

As the camera panned around during her speech, empty tables and chairs sparsely populated by a handful of older and senior supporters were on display. 

At one point near the end of her monologue, Waters shifted her focus toward attacking her chief rival in the upcoming election, Republican candidate Omar Navarro, who she appeared to smear based on his alleged wrong way of thinking as a person of Latino heritage.

“He has a last name that is Latin. He’s Cuban and what a lot of our people don’t understand is, he supports the president building a wall,”  Waters said of her GOP opponent.

“He’s opposed to DACA, he does not support DACA, and in addition to that, he is not worried at all, has not said a word about what is happening at the border,” Waters added, a reference to the separation of families that come across the border illegally, a policy that existed under former President Barack Obama but which has now drawn fire under Trump as it is actually being enforced.

Waters does not represent the next great hope of the Democratic party among young millennial voters, but if the liberal media wants to continue to press that ludicrous narrative in spite of evidence to the contrary, let them have at it.

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Hours After Trudeau Complains About Tariffs, Donald Fires Back



disclaimerReported By Cillian Zeal | June 1, 2018 at 11:11am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/hours-after-trudeau-complains-about-tough-tariffs-trump-delivers-tough-message-on-twitter/

In a tweet Friday morning, President Donald Trump hit back at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s complaints about American tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to the United States from Canada.

In the tweet, Trump noted Canada’s high levels of protectionism on agriculture and said that trade barriers would come down only if Americans got a fair deal out of our neighbors to the north.

On Thursday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said that the 25 percent tariffs on aluminum and 10 percent tariffs on steel would be placed on Canada, Mexico and the European Union at midnight. While those three entities had been given reprieves when the tariffs were first announced, according to CNBC, the exemptions expired Friday and the administration apparently had not gotten the response it wanted from any of the three.

Trump wrote that he supported Ross’ “finding that steel mill articles are being imported into the United States in such quantities and under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security of the United States.”

“The United States has been taken advantage of for many decades on trade,” Trump said Thursday. “Those days are over. Earlier today, this message was conveyed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada: The United States will agree to a fair deal, or there will be no deal at all.”

In response, Prime Minister Trudeau was the same Trudeau we’ve come to know and … well, let’s just leave it at that.

“We have to believe that at some point, common sense will prevail. But we see no sign of that in this action today by the U.S. administration,” Trudeau said in response.

His country also announced retaliatory tariffs aimed at American aluminum, steel and other products.

So, of course, Trump put Trudeau on blast using his favorite medium.

“Canada has treated our Agricultural business and Farmers very poorly for a very long period of time,” Trump tweeted Friday morning. “Highly restrictive on Trade! They must open their markets and take down their trade barriers! They report a really high surplus on trade with us. Do Timber & Lumber in U.S.?” 

While one questions whether a trade war with Canuckistan is really worth the hit to the American economy, it’s worth noting that Trump isn’t without a point here. While Trudeau and his fellow Canadians may talk a good game on free trade, our neighbors to the north have some serious protectionist issues of its own, particularly in the aforementioned arena of agriculture.

One of the biggest areas of contention in NAFTA negotiations, as noted by Maclean’s earlier this year, is Canada’s protectionist regime to help their dairy, milk and egg producers.

“Supply management is a set of government-imposed production quotas and structured prices to limit domestic supply while impeding consumer access to foreign imports through high tariffs,” they reported. “The outcome is reduced choice and higher prices for consumers, and higher revenues for producers.”

This is mostly to protect a group of just over 13,000 agricultural producers in the country, which also hurts Canada’s poor by dramatically raising the prices on basic food items. The Globe and Mail estimated those tariffs at 247 percent on average in spite of the fact that Canada is a net exporter of food. Compare that with 4.1 percent for Australia, New Zealand and Chile — other net food exporters.

We would have to believe that, at some point, common sense would prevail in Canada.

However, we’ve seen consecutive governments formed by Canada’s two major political parties — Conservative and Liberal — continue on the same path. We see no sign of that in any action by any Canadian administration — and that’s what Trump is calling them out on.please likeand share and leave a comment

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Viral Photo of Caged Children Actually from Obama Era, Nothing To Do with Trump



disclaimerReported By Jack Davis | May 28, 2018 at 7:05am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/viral-photo-of-caged-children-actually-from-obama-era-nothing-to-do-with-trump/

Activists attacked the Trump administration Sunday for its treatment of children who were detained at the border, based upon a picture that showed children sleeping in a cage. There was only one flaw in the tweets that called the treatment “inhumane” and laid it at the door of President Donald Trump.

The image was from an Arizona newspaper report from 2014, during the second term of former President Barack Obama, The Daily Caller reported.

Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau began the avalanche of tweets with a since-deleted comment.

“This is happening right now, and the only debate that matters is how we force our government to get these kids back to their families as fast as humanly possible,” Favreau wrote. He added a link to the image, which was part of an Arizona Republic photo gallery from 2014.

A series of tweets followed as many used the outdated image and applied it as though it was current.

“Children of immigrants are being held in cages, like dogs, at ICE detention centers, sleeping on the floor. It’s an abomination,” Shaun King tweeted.

Others followed.

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Context for the picture was provided by Fox News, which noted that the picture was taken at a time when immigration officials had detained more than 1,000 children who illegally crossed America’s Southern Border. Controversy over the image reflects the debate over immigration policy that separates children from their parents.

Trump has called for changing that policy as part of broad-based immigration policy reform.

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Even after the true origin of the picture was revealed, few of those who tweeted it clarified that the picture was from Obama’s days in the White House.

One who did was Jake Silverstein, editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine.

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“Correction: this link, which was going around this morning, is from 2014. Still disturbing, of course, but only indirectly related to current situation. My bad (and a good reminder not to RT things while distracted w family on the weekend),” he tweeted.

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Report: Top Iranian Official, John Kerry Meeting Partner, Caught Chanting ‘Death To America’



disclaimerReported by Peter Hasson | Reporter | 2:19 PM 05/27/2018

 

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif leaves after a meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini at the EU Council in Brussels, Belgium, May 15, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir | Iran FM Javad Zarif: 'Death To America'

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif leaves after a meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini at the EU Council in Brussels, Belgium, May 15, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir | Iran FM Javad Zarif: ‘Death To America’

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, a key architect of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, was caught on camera chanting “Death to America,” “Death to Britain” and “Death to Israel,” Israeli outlet Ynetnews reported on Saturday. 

Zarif participated in the violent chants on Thursday after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered a speech in Tehran, according to Ynetnews.

Zarif’s call for the destruction of America came less than two months after he secretly met with former Secretary of State John Kerry in mid-April to try and save the Iran nuclear deal.

Kerry and Zarif were considered to be among the frontrunners for 2017’s Nobel Peace Prize for their work on the Iran deal. (RELATED: Obama ‘Ripped Apart’ Feds Effort To Take Down Iranian Terrorists)

Follow Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHasson

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Comey Disaster: Agent Who Quit Over Rigged Hillary Investigation Heads to Congress


disclaimerReported By Cillian Zeal | May 25, 2018 at 6:50am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/comey-disaster-agent-who-quit-over-rigged-hillary-investigation-heads-to-congress/

An FBI agent who allegedly quit the bureau over his belief that the Hillary Clinton email investigation was rigged will testify before the House of Representatives, The Hill reported.

The joint investigation between the House Judiciary and the Oversight Committees — led by Republican Reps. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, respectively — has been a source of consternation for Republicans and Democrats alike.

Conservatives have complained about the slow pace of the examination into how the Clinton email investigation was conducted, noting that only two witnesses have appeared before it.

Democrats, of course, have complained that it exists at all, since anything that distracts from the endless investigation into how President Donald Trump is really a Russian plant is simply frivolous — particularly if it implicates former FBI Director James Comey, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or former President Barack Obama in any wrongdoing.

Well, now we’re finally about to see some fireworks. Three top witnesses are going to testify before lawmakers: John Giacalone, who was in charge of the Clinton investigation for the first seven months; Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division; and Michael Steinbach, former head of the FBI’s national security division and the man who succeeded Giacalone.

All three are of particular interest, especially since Priestap was the supervisor of FBI agent Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump text messages have thrown the objectivity of the entire investigation into doubt.

However, the real headliner here may be Giacalone. Shortly after then-FBI Director Comey announced he wouldn’t be pursuing charges against Hillary Clinton for the email server, Fox News pundit Judge Andrew Napolitano wrote a column in which he claimed Giacalone had quit the bureau because he believed the investigation was rigged.

In the Oct. 28, 2016 column, Napolitano claimed at that at the start of the Clinton email investigation, “agents and senior managers gathered in the summer of 2015 to discuss how to proceed. It was obvious to all that a prima-facie case could be made for espionage, theft of government property and obstruction of justice charges. The consensus was to proceed with a formal criminal investigation.” 

“Six months later, the senior FBI agent in charge of that investigation resigned from the case and retired from the FBI because he felt the case was going ‘sideways’; that’s law enforcement jargon for ‘nowhere by design,‘” Napolitano wrote.

“John Giacalone had been the chief of the New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., field offices of the FBI and, at the time of his ‘sideways’ comment, was the chief of the FBI National Security Branch.”

“The reason for the ‘sideways’ comment must have been Giacalone’s realization that DOJ and FBI senior management had decided that the investigation would not work in tandem with a federal grand jury. That is nearly fatal to any government criminal case. In criminal cases, the FBI and the DOJ cannot issue subpoenas for testimony or for tangible things; only grand juries can,” Napolitano continued.

“Giacalone knew that without a grand jury, the FBI would be toothless, as it would have no subpoena power. He also knew that without a grand jury, the FBI would have a hard time persuading any federal judge to issue search warrants.”

Napolitano speculated there were several possible reasons that the case went “sideways.” One was that Obama feared having to testify if Clinton went to trial (he had sent emails to the private server, after all, meaning he was aware of it). There was also the fact that a Clinton indictment could have led to Trump becoming president, and Obama simply couldn’t countenance that. (Less than two weeks after Napolitano’s column was written, it must be noted, that reason became moot.)

Either way, if the investigation had indeed gone “sideways,” it would need to have done so with approval from the highest levels — certainly James Comey and possibly Barack Obama.like i said

Whether or not Giacalone has any concrete evidence of this or not is another issue entirely. My guess would be no, given that we’re going on two years since Comey’s infamous news conference and we still haven’t heard anything to that effect from Giacalone.

However, of all of the congressional testimonies we’ve seen over the past few years, this could be one of the most underreported. John Giacalone may open up a gigantic can of worms for Comey and Clinton — one that drags them back in the spotlight for reasons significantly less pleasant than their book tours.

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Dam’s Breaking: FBI Agent With Inside Knowledge Flips on Comey, Wants to Testify


disclaimerReported By Benjamin Arie | May 24, 2018 at 3:11pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/fbi-agent-flips-on-comey/

The scandal that has been dubbed “Spygate” is currently making headlines, and former FBI Director James Comey is right in the middle of it.

As Spygate — the allegation that the FBI placed “moles” in the Trump campaign to undermine him — unravels, one incident involving Comey has largely faded from memory. That investigation focused on retired Gen. Mike Flynn, and it’s coming back to haunt anti-Trump elitists.

Flynn was an early target of Robert Mueller’s special investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Trump team members. In early 2017, he resigned as national security adviser after facing criticism for improperly communicating with a Russian ambassador during the presidential transition period.

Remember, Flynn’s role as national security adviser made talking with Russian diplomats part of his position, and his resignation and subsequent charge had less to do with job-related phone calls and more to do with alleged dishonesty about what was discussed.

As part of a plea deal with Mueller, the previously respected military leader and intelligence expert pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the FBI.

That was seen as proof positive that the probe into the Trump camp was on the right track, but the investigation soon fizzled after few serious indictments were brought forward. Now, more than a year after Mueller’s probe began, it looks more like an unfocused witch hunt than a serious investigation. 

Fast forward to this month. From an unredacted portion of the House intelligence committee report of James Comey’s testimony, eagle-eyed reporters noticed something odd: It appears that despite having almost no evidence against Flynn during the presidential transition, the Obama-era FBI ran an intelligence operation against him anyway, and used an unofficial and likely illegal media “leak” of Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador to justify digging deeper. This is a bit like the police pulling over a vehicle but finding no reasonable suspicion to carry out a search, only to ransack the car anyway because a passerby repeated a rumor about the driver. 

In other words, it has the hallmarks of a setup or a witch hunt.

It doesn’t look much like the proper and lawful investigation of a suspected crime.

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To add to the growing scandal, Jack Posobiec of One America News reported Wednesday that one of the FBI agents who was in the room when Flynn was interrogated by the bureau believes the disgraced national security adviser was unfairly railroaded — and Comey was behind it.

“FBI Agent Joe Pientka who interviewed General Flynn plans to testify against Comey and McCabe, adds ‘It was all Comey,‘” Posobiec posted on Twitter.

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Posobiec also hinted that the FBI special agent who is ready to flip on Comey was an eyewitness to the actual interview of Flynn, which may have varied drastically from what went into the bureau’s official reports.

There is also evidence that agents, including Pientka, believed Flynn was being entirely honest with them during the investigation, and that he did not try to deceive them at all.

“Pientka knows what was said in the room, before the 302 reports were written by Strzok,” the journalist explained. The “302 reports” refer to summaries of suspect interviews conducted by agents, while Strzok is the agent who held obvious anti-Trump bias, as revealed in countless text messages.

If correct, the fact that an FBI agent who has firsthand knowledge of Flynn’s interview is disgusted by the bureau’s actions and ready to testify against Comey speaks volumes.

That is the same modus operandi now being used by Mueller against Trump and his team: Dig into the lives of political opponents, pushing the boundaries of what is legal and disregarding just cause, in order to overturn every rock and search every closet for skeletons.like i said

This isn’t the way an investigation is supposed to happen, yet elitists within the DOJ don’t seem to care. The American people, however, do — and Mueller, Comey, and their cronies may be in for a surprise as this scandal continues to be exposed.

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