Posts on Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Former Vice President Joe Biden claims to have “the most diverse staff of anybody running” but his campaign won't prove it. Biden made the sweeping assertion in an interview with NPR this week while campaigning in Iowa. But when presented with staff diversity figures from other campaigns, Biden's campaign declined to release its own numbers. (Snip) Pressed on whether he would name a person of color as his running mate, Biden responded in the NPR interview by highlighting what he called the most diverse staff of the field. His most senior Latina staffer, Vanessa Cárdenas, recently left the campaign, as
A small group of House Democrats fearful of their re-election prospects has revived the idea of censuring President Trump instead of impeaching him, according to a report out Tuesday. The Democrats, all repping districts Trump won in 2016, met Monday afternoon to consider their options, no matter how slim, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had already put the kibosh on censure, Politico reported. The lawmakers, about 10, included Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Ben McAdams of Utah and Anthony Brindisi of upstate New York. A poll last week by GOP pollster John McLaughin Associates found
A former minister who was considered an architect of Mexico’s war on drugs has been arrested on charges that he allowed the Sinaloa cartel to operate with impunity in exchange for briefcases stuffed with cash. Genaro García Luna, who oversaw the creation of Mexico’s federal police, was arrested in Texas on Monday. He helped oversee the militarized crackdown on organized crime which was launched in 2006 by the then president, Felipe Calderón, and has continued with slight modifications ever since. But according to the indictment against him unsealed on Tuesday, García Luna “received millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel
London - The battle for control of Libya threatened to escalate further this week as Turkey said it might intervene to stop the Russian-backed forces now closing in on Tripoli, the capital.
In comments to Turkish television networks on Monday night and again on Tuesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pointedly raised the possibility that Turkey might send troops to counter the Russians if the United Nations-recognized government headquartered in Tripoli formally requested it. (Snip) Libya is a strategic prize with vast oil reserves and a long Mediterranean coastline. But eight years after a NATO intervention helped topple Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi during the Arab Spring revolt, the country remains mired in chaos.
A 24-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without parole for running over and killing a sheriff's deputy in southeastern Michigan in 2017, according to a report.
Christopher Berak was convicted last month for first-degree murder and the murder of a police officer, Fox 2 Detroit reported.
(Snip)
Berak was accused of leading Lapeer County deputies on a car chase and deliberately hitting the cop at an intersection.
Deputy Eric Overall, 50, a 22-year veteran of the Oakland County Sheriff's Office, was hit outside his car on Thanksgiving 2017 while deploying "stop sticks" to deflate Berak’s tires. Berak's car rolled over, and he was arrested.
Toledo, OH - An Ohio man accused of plotting with his girlfriend to obtain guns and explosives for a foiled domestic terror attack at a bar was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison.
Vincent Armstrong, 24, of Toledo, pleaded guilty in August to a charge related to conspiring to transport or receive an explosive with intent to harm. He will remain on probation for three years after his release, The Toledo Blade reported.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Freeman said Armstrong’s girlfriend Elizabeth Lecron was the mastermind behind the planned attack and that she introduced him to online communities interested in mass murders.
Bloomberg News hit with FEC complaint
over decision to investigate Trump but
not 2020 Democrats replies
over decision to investigate Trump but
not 2020 Democrats replies
The conservative Media Research Center filed Monday a Federal Election Commission complaint alleging that the policy by Bloomberg News not to investigate 2020 Democratic presidential candidates — but to continue to investigate President Trump — violates campaign-finance laws.
The complaint filed against Bloomberg LP, owner of Bloomberg News, as well as Michael Bloomberg and his 2020 presidential campaign argues that the news outlet’s hands-off policy on Democratic candidates represents “an improper contribution to Bloomberg’s campaign under FEC regulations.”
“Bloomberg News is making a mockery of legitimate journalism,” said MRC President Brent Bozell. “They have consciously chosen to abandon their journalistic responsibilities in favor of what is politically convenient.”
President Donald Trump has paid $2 million in a court-ordered judgment for misusing his charity, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement Tuesday. (Snip) The $2 million will go to eight different charities: Army Emergency Relief, the Children's Aid Society, Citymeals-on-Wheels, Give an Hour, Martha’s Table, the United Negro College Fund, the United Way of National Capital Area, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Trump also agreed to distribute the remaining $1.8 million in the foundation's coffers among those same charities. Each charity will receive a total of $476,140.41. The settlement also called for mandatory training requirements
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi toasted the media after Articles of Impeachment were announced Tuesday, celebrating reporters on Capitol Hill at a special holiday event.
Pelosi raised her glass and toasted the press as the “guardians of democracy” after unveiling the articles of impeachment on Tuesday.
Several reporters in the room shared information about the party on Twitter. (Tweet) Pelosi said that Democrats were scheduled to leave Washington for Christmas the following Friday, reassuring everyone that they would get their work done.
A leading animal-rights group is taking its fight to stop SeaWorld trainers from riding dolphins during shows directly to the company‘s shareholders.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which has long battled SeaWorld over its handling of killer whales, proposed on Tuesday a shareholder vote to ban certain performance stunts, such as balancing on dolphins’ nostrums.
PETA’s proposed non-binding resolution states “in order to address the most pressing issue that SeaWorld faces today — the public’s continued opposition to captive-animal displays — the shareholders urge the board to stop allowing trainers to stand on dolphins’ faces and ride on their backs in exploitive and potentially harmful circus-style shows.”
A federal judge in Texas issued a permanent injunction Tuesday blocking President Trump from using billions of dollars Congress earmarked for the Defense Department to instead build his border wall.
Judge David Briones, a Clinton appointee to the bench, had previously ruled Mr. Trump’s move illegal, but had given both sides a chance to argue over what the remedy should be.
“Because defendants’ actions are unlawful and the people’s representatives — Congress — declined to augment the border wall budget as defendants attempt, the public interest would be served by halting them,” the judge wrote.
Democrats, in their drive toward impeachment, charge that President Trump withheld U.S. aid to Ukraine until Kyiv agreed to launch an investigation into potential corruption involving former Vice President Joseph R. Biden and to conduct an inquiry into Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. (Snip) A leaked memorandum of conversation obtained by The Washington Times found that Mr. Clinton pressured the Russian leader by offering U.S. political support for Mr. Yeltsin’s reelection — with just one catch: Russia first had to lift a ban on U.S. chicken imports, imposed over concerns that the poultry was tainted with bad bacteria.
More than 300 Saudi Arabian military aviation students have been grounded as part of a 'safety stand-down' after a Saudi Air Force lieutenant shot and killed three people last Friday at a US Navy base in Florida. An Air Force spokeswoman said an undisclosed number of additional Saudi students have also stopped flying. The FBI has said US investigators believe Saudi Air Force Second Lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, 21, acted alone when he attacked a US Navy base in Pensacola before he was fatally shot by a deputy sheriff. But US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he had instructed the armed forces
President Trump said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi only signed on to the USMCA trade deal because she was 'embarrassed' with the Democrats impeachment announcement. Standing outside the White House in the rain before heading to a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Trump noted that Tuesday 'of all days' the House Democrats signed on to the trade deal. 'And I call that the silver lining to impeachment. Because without the impeachment they would hever never approved it, in my opinion,' Trump told reporters. 'And the reason is they wanted to muffle down the impeachment because they're embarrassed by it.'
The Gateway Pundit’s Florida Man took a trip up north and ended up in cold and rainy Hershey, Pennsylvania on Tuesday to cover President Trump’s reelection campaign rally at the 10,500 seat Giant Center. Thousands lined up in the inclement weather starting early in the morning. This writer was not among them. (Photo) But others were:(Tweets) Arriving in the afternoon with a let up in the rain, the parking lot was seen buzzing with activity and the usual well-mannered horde of Trump supporters. And a surprise visit from a fired up Scot Presler who was greeting supporters as they waited in line. Presler, as just about any Trump supporter knows,
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is rushing the impeachment vote to the floor of the House before the Christmas recess to keep wavering Democrats in key battleground districts away from their constituents, the majority of whom are potentially uncomfortable with impeaching the president. “House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump over his contacts with Ukraine: Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress,” Breitbart News Network reported. The House Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on these articles this week
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is asking Warner Bros. and the makers of “Richard Jewell” to release a statement acknowledging it took dramatic license when it portrayed journalist Kathy Scruggs as trading sex for tips. The Clint Eastwood film looks at the media circus that broke out around Jewell, a security guard who came under suspicion for orchestrating the Centennial Olympic Park bombing before being exonerated. Scruggs, an employee at the paper, broke the story that Jewell was under investigation by the FBI. The film shows Scruggs, portrayed by Olivia Wilde, sleeping with an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) to get the story. Scruggs died in 2001 at the age of 42.
Although social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter have taken heat for spreading misinformation, it turns out that we—all of us—may be our own worst enemies in the battle against the scourge of fake news. A new study found that people given accurate statistics on controversial topics tend to misremember those numbers in order to fit their own commonly held beliefs. In the study, when people were shown that the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States declined recently—which is true but has gone against most people’s beliefs—they tended to recall the opposite.
Longtime NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw came on CBS’s The Late Show Monday to talk about his new Watergate book and compare the impeachment inquiry of Richard Nixon to the current impeachment of President Trump. While he was there, he also boasted how journalists in his day could be counted on to report accurately; but today, people got their news from social media which couldn’t be trusted. While comparing his time covering Watergate to the current impeachment proceedings, Brokaw told host Stephen Colbert how journalists used to be considered trustworthy, because they had plenty of time to do their own sourcing and could control what was reported:
Daisy Ridley promotes 'Star Wars'
with Trump-bashing: 'Every sane
person' opposes U.S. president replies
with Trump-bashing: 'Every sane
person' opposes U.S. president replies
British actress Daisy Ridley, who portrays Rey in “Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker,” said Disney doesn’t have her on any sort of rhetorical leash when it comes to politics—particularly about President Trump. The linchpin heroine of the latest “Star Wars” movie and the previous two installments of the franchise sat down recently with the U.K. Guardian for a wide-ranging interview when the conversation veered into U.S. politics. Ms. Ridley said that Americans must suffer some form of mental illness to support the Republican president. “Given that Disney owns Star Wars, is she conscious of what issues she can talk about publicly?”
An administrator who oversees purchasing for Broward schools could receive a demotion and a nearly $44,000 pay cut because she showed up for work on Halloween dressed as a flasher. Mary Coker, 46, currently makes $154,286 as the district’s director of procurement and warehousing services, a job she’s held since 2016. Superintendent Robert Runcie plans to ask the School Board on Tuesday to demote her to manager of materials and logistics, a job where the most she could be paid is $110,702. According to a district complaint, Coker showed up at both Lanier James Education Center, an alternative school, and an administrative
A majority of Democratic voters polled recently said Barack Obama was a better president than George Washington, Monmouth University reported Tuesday. Conducted from Dec. 4-8, the survey involved asking more than 900 respondents to answer: “Who was a better president: George Washington or Barack Obama?” Among all registered voters, 58% named Washington as the better president compared to 33% who picked Mr. Obama.(Snip) Among all Democrats, 29% said Washington and 63% said Mr. Obama. Monmouth said the survey question was “inspired” by a recent Economist/YouGov Poll that similarly asked respondents to compare Mr. Trump to several fellow Republican presidents
The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel believes Rep. Adam Schiff owes the country an “enormous apology.” She spoke to “Fox & Friends” hosts about the release of the anticipated Justice Department inspector general report, noting that the contents spell “triumph” for Rep. Devin Nunes and trouble for his Democrat colleague, Schiff.(Video) Strassel explained that it was Nunes who, in early 2018 was heading the House Intelligence Committee, raised the alarm over the issuance of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to spy on former Trump campaign official, Carter Page.
'Aghast' to learn extent of Obama AG's
involvement in FBI Trump probe:
Fmr independent counsel replies
involvement in FBI Trump probe:
Fmr independent counsel replies
Former Whitewater Independent Counsel Robert Ray said he was "aghast to learn how little involved the [Obama administration] attorney general and the deputy attorney general of the United States" were in the FBI investigation into President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.Ray said that is the most stunning revelation from the Justice Department Inspector General's review of FBI conduct at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign."I think Michael Horowitz was surprised to learn," said Ray on Fox Nation's "Deep Dive" on Tuesday, "and I cannot believe that there is an investigation that would take you inside a presidential campaign and four people who were targeted within that campaign
RUSH: We’ll go to San Francisco. Jim, welcome, sir, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: Hey, Rush. I agree with everything you’re saying, of course, but the bottom line is the headliner out of this is no bias, right? (Snip) For all this talk about Trump wanting to be a monarch and a king, this actually is the equivalent of taking down the invisible apparatus that actually has been running this country for take your pick of how many decades, but at least since post-World War II.
Six people have been killed in a shoot-out in Jersey City after a 'juvenile male and female suspect' launched a two-hour gun battle with a SWAT team that reportedly began in a cemetery and ended with them being shot dead inside a bodega. The Hudson County Prosecutor's Office confirmed that one police officer—a 39-year-old married father of five—was fatally shot and two others were wounded along with a civilian in the active shooter situation on Martin Luther King Drive on Tuesday afternoon.(Snip) A third suspect, described by the source as a black male wearing all black
Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday it’s possible the FBI acted in “bad faith,” disputing one of the principal conclusions reached in a recently released report from the Justice Department’s inspector general.
In an interview with NBC News, Mr. Barr said he disagreed with Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s finding that the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign was justified.
“Here, I felt this was very flimsy,” Mr. Barr said. “It think you step back here and you say, ‘What was this all based on,’ it’s not sufficient.” “There was never has been any evidence of collusion and this campaign and the president’s administration has been dominated
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Tuesday indicated that Democrats must impeach President Trump quickly in order to stop him from prevailing in the 2020 presidential election. Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against the president: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Notably, neither allege a high crime or misdemeanor. Noticeably absent was the Democrats’ longheld appeal to bribery, extortion, or treason. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), flanked by chairs Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and Richard Neal (D-MA), stepped aside as both Nadler and Schiff briefly offered minimal details on their decision.
Former President Bill Clinton, the only living American president to have gone through the same process, weighed in Tuesday on House Democrats' bid to impeach President Trump -- saying lawmakers are doing “what they believe is right.” “They’re doing their job as they see it and we should wait to see it unfold,” Clinton told Fox News while touring a Clinton Foundation program in New York City. “And the rest of us should go about our jobs and do them as we see it. House Democrats on Tuesday announced two articles of impeachment against Trump, accusing him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over
Virginia had long been a red state, then took on a purple hue, and more than a decade ago started to turn blue.The last time a Republican presidential candidate won the state was George W. Bush in 2004. Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012, and Hillary Clinton took the state 49.7% to 44.4%.The biggest change in the state are the counties and cities just outside Washington, D.C. Some counties that had long been red are now blue.And not everyone’s happy about it.A group called America First Conservatives dropped a banner from Key Bridge in Arlington, Virginia, that said
JERSEY CITY – Police have surrounded a building in Jersey City following a lengthy gun battle. A police officer has been shot, according to New Jersey State Police. The officer’s condition wasn’t immediately known. The incident is still developing and dozens of shots could be heard going off as police engaged the suspect in the vicinity of Martin Luther King Drive and Bayview Avenue. The incident has been underway since roughly 12:30 p.m. (Tweet) “I got caught in a one way street with a bunch of cars and I was wondering why nobody was moving. And all of a sudden
Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday blasted the conduct of the FBI a day after the release of an inspector general's report that found the Russia probe was properly predicated. Barr, a Donald Trump loyalist who oversaw the release of the Mueller probe, said FBI agents may have acted in 'bad faith' – and expounded on the dangers of the head of government using the powers of the state 'to spy on political opponents' in a way that might affect an election outcome. His statements came on a day when Trump, who nominated Barr,
Pierce Bush, GOP Congressional
Candidate And H.W.’s Grandson,
Marched InAnti-Trump Protest In 2017 replies
Candidate And H.W.’s Grandson,
Marched InAnti-Trump Protest In 2017 replies
Republican Texas congressional candidate Pierce Bush, the grandson of former President George H.W. Bush, marched in an anti-Trump protest in January 2017, according to photos he posted on his personal Facebook page.
Bush jumped into the GOP primary for Texas’ 22nd Congressional District on Monday. “It’s time for new leaders to stand for conservatism that empowers all Americans, placing individuals above government and ensuring we all have the freedom to achieve success in life,” he said in his launch video.
The new inspector general report on FISA abuse settles the debate between Republicans and Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Both groups put out memos about the Department of Justice’s efforts to secure a warrant to wiretap Carter Page.
At the time of their release, the media praised Democrat Adam Schiff and his memo and vilified Republican Devin Nunes and his memo. Nearly two years later, the inspector general’s report vindicates the Nunes memo while showing that the Schiff memo was riddled with lies and false statements.
The memo from the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee reported:
A salacious and unverified dossier formed an essential part of the application
House Democrats and the Trump administration have reached an agreement to move forward with the White House’s replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement, top Democrats said Tuesday.
The two sides had worked for more than a year to resolve Democratic concerns about enforcement tools for labor and environmental standards under the new deal, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. House Democrats, President Donald Trump, top Senate Republicans and labor leaders all cited progress toward a deal this week.
The Trump administration needs to submit ratifying legislation to Congress for the House to move forward with approving the agreement.
Much has been made in the media about uncertainty regarding our nation’s trade policy. Stories of those harmed by the trade tensions between the United States and China, as well as by the tensions between the U.S. and its North American neighbors, permeate the news cycles. Most of this uncertainty is blamed on President Trump’s confrontational negotiating style.
However, when it comes to trade relations between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, Trump has already delivered a trade agreement. The only person prolonging uncertainty in this case and inflicting unnecessary economic damage is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement has been before Congress for months now with no action.
The Japanese government has purchased an uninhabited island valued at 16 billion yen ($AU215 million) on the East China Sea, in response to growing threats from Beijing. (Snip) “It’s important to secure the site for field carrier landing practice from the viewpoint of security so we will continue to try to build a permanent facility at an early date,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said of the agreement.
The purchase from Tokyo-based developer Taston Airport will be used to set up a military base in response to growing threats from Beijing, including in the South China Sea. The purchase follows pressure from Washington to Tokyo to find a location for
China is developing a new high-tech system of mass surveillance and coercion aimed suppressing political dissent among its 1.4 billion people, while forcing American and Western businesses to conform to the government’s communist policies if they want to operate there. The system that critics call an Orwellian national-level control system has been dubbed the Social Credit System (SCS) and was set for launch in the coming year, although recent reports from China now say the rollout could be delayed until 2021. The massive system has been tested in several major Chinese cities and uses millions of surveillance cameras linked to supercomputers
Pigeons donning tiny cowboy hats have been spotted in the Las Vegas area — and animal rescuers are searching for the culprit responsible for dressing up the small birds.
The animals first appeared in a video taken on Thursday in which they're walking around normally, but with little cowboy hats on their heads, and no one seems to know who's dressing up the pigeons or where the hats are coming from. (Tweet) Another bird, dressed to the nines in a hat, was filmed in a second video, posted online Monday. Mariah Hillman, who operates a Las Vegas-based pigeon rescue called Lofty Hopes, told KVVU-TV that at first, "I was like,
ExxonMobil won a first-of-its-kind climate change fraud trial on Tuesday, as a judge rejected the state of New York's claim that the oil and gas giant misled investors in accounting for the financial risks of global warming.
New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager said the state failed to prove that Exxon violated the Martin Act, a broad state law that does not require proof of intent of shareholder fraud.
“The office of the Attorney General failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that ExxonMobil made any material misstatements or omissions about its practices and procedures that misled any reasonable investor,”
The Burden of Impeachment
replies
Constitutionally backward is how we would describe the assertion by the Democrats that President Trump is being contemptuous of Congress by failing to mount in the House a defense against impeachment. The Times, in an editorial this afternoon, says that by signaling that he won’t “mount any defense,” the president is suggesting that “it is somehow beneath him to participate in a constitutional process.”
That’s strikes us as a bit touchy. And just wrong in respect of who is supposed to bear the burden in these kinds of things. It’s a bedrock principle in American law, after all, that in criminal matters —
Unlearning Together
replies
The attack on London Bridge - no, not the 2017 attack, the new one - broke just as I was heading off to guest-host Tucker Carlson's show at Fox News. There is a small and rather sad "Christmas market" of pop-up stalls at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 44th Street - surrounded, of course, by large concrete blocks placed there in case any radicalized SUV or extremist mid-size rental car were minded to drive up on the sidewalk and mow down shoppers.
In more sophisticated societies such as Angela Merkel's Germany, the so-called "Merkel Lego" barricading Christmas fairs is painted to look like giant, ill-proportioned candy canes
FBI Director Christopher Wray was publicly called out by the man who appointed him, President Donald Trump, for his swampy response to the report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz into FBI corruption regarding the Russia hoax investigation targeting the Trump campaign and White House. Trump, who fired Wray’s predecessor James Comey in May 2017, curiously described Wray as the “current Director of the FBI”.(Photo) “I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading,
‘Trust Us,’ the Bidens Said.
replies
Begin with the premise that there’s no good way for presidential candidate Joe Biden to address the issues that arose from his son Hunter’s work for Burisma Holdings. The former vice president isn’t going to throw his son under the bus, and Hunter can’t resign from his position as a Biden offspring. In mid-October, Hunter Biden did a defiant television interview, declaring he had “no regrets” about anything he did with Burisma. Joe Biden can’t contradict his son and admit that Hunter shouldn’t have taken the position on the company board.
Wherever you stand on the political spectrum, you have to pity Hunter Biden.
Cue up a Category 5 Schadenfreude Alert! The media is complaining that a forthcoming Hollywood movie might be less than accurate to the true story! The movie is Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell, which tells the story of the rush to judgment in the bombing of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
The bombing turned out to be the handiwork of Eric Rudolph (now serving a life sentence), who would otherwise be a poster child for the left’s favorite bogeyman—a white supremacist—except that he isn’t overweight and didn’t speak with a drawl like Olympic park security guard Richard Jewell, whom the FBI locked in on as their prime suspect. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Evidence that socialism is doomed to fail wherever it is tried occurred long before America became a nation. In 1607, inhabitants of Jamestown, Virginia were on the verge of starvation, largely because the settlement's communal living arrangement failed to produce enough food. Among the steps that saved Jamestown from oblivion was doing away with communal sharing in favor of incentive-based farming that rewarded personal initiative. (Photo) Three and a half centuries later, the same lesson repeated itself in San Francisco and elsewhere, when the utopian "free food" communes of the hip generation went the way of the dinosaurs.
Democrats last year smeared Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) when he issued a memo with findings that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process when it obtained surveillance warrants on Carter Page, a member of the Trump campaign, in 2016.
However, a report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz provided a damning indictment of the FBI’s use of the FISA process that vindicated Nunes’s memo and proved Democrats’ smears and assertions were false. (Snip)
The DOJ IG’s report confirmed every finding in Nunes’s memo.
Yet, Democrats tried to prevent the publishing of Nunes’s memo
Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz released an 83-page whitewash and former FBI Director James Comey is still exposed as a dirty cop.
Only adding to his disgrace is that almost immediately after the release of the report, this dirty cop took to the pages of the far-left Washington Post to falsely and arrogantly claim vindication.
What a monster. What a sick, twisted, narcissistic swamp monster this man is. The fact such a creature was allowed to lead the FBI is just another reminder that the entire System is corrupt and must, for the sake of democracy, be figuratively burned to the ground.
House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump over his contacts with Ukraine: Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
“Today, in the service to our duty to the Constitution and to our country, the House Judiciary Committee is introducing two articles of impeachment, charging the President of the United States of committing high crimes and misdemeanors,” Nadler said prior to announcing the articles of impeachment.
“It is an impeachable offense for a president to use the powers of his office to seek a personal benefit,” (Snip)
The charges (Snip) stem from second-hand allegations brought forth in a whistleblower complaint by a partisan CIA officer,
(Editor’s Note: Back on October 23 popular CFP columnist Lee Cary sent this savvy email: “CONFIDENTIAL: SAVE THIS PREDICTION IN CASE I’M RIGHT, CHIEF”.
Today he writes: “My timing was premature, but now (Steve) Bannon agrees.)Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said Hillary Clinton is waiting to enter the 2020 race and “save the Democratic Party” from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Bannon, who served under President Trump, said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that Clinton’s recent interview with Howard Stern confirmed for him the former secretary of state would enter the race.
It would be a great understatement to say that Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice Inspector General, doesn’t leap to conclusions. In fact, he does everything possible to ignore reasonable conclusions (snip) They had better enjoy this sugar rush while it lasts, because Horowitz will be testifying tomorrow before the Senate Judiciary Committee where he will have to make explicit all the other evidence that he disregarded in not drawing the obvious conclusion. And as the factual information gathered sinks in, and as indictments follow, the miscreants will barely remember their initial crowing.
To understand just how shoddy the FBI’s work was in securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting the Trump campaign, you only need to read an obscure attachment to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report.
Appendix 1 identifies the total violations by the FBI of the so-called Woods Procedures, the process by which the bureau verifies information and assures the FISA court its evidence is true.
The Appendix identifies a total of 51 Woods procedure violations from the FISA application the FBI submitted to the court authorizing surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page starting in October 2016.A whopping nine of those violations fell into the category called: “Supporting
BAM! It’s a quick uppercut to the jaw of the Deep State delivered via Attorney General William Barr in the form of a brutally powerful statement following today’s release of the IG report.
AG Barr makes clear he has the Deep State in his sights and he appears fully prepared to take this to the finish line.
(Snip)
“The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken. It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory. Nevertheless, the investigation
This is Deep State chicanery exposed for all the world to see – IF they are willing to pay attention.
When the far-left media claims there is “no evidence” of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, Ukraine, Obama administration officials, etc., they are pushing an outright lie. The evidence is clear, it’s available, and it’s incredibly damning to the wrongdoers involved as is so clearly outlined in the following OAN news report:
The Democrats’ Ukrainian impeachment gambit is backfiring on Joe Biden. The three-time presidential hopeful is getting awfully testy with voters and journalists who dare to confront Biden about his son’s ghost-payrolling gig for a corrupt Ukrainian energy company while dad was vice president and acted as President Obama’s point man for that country.
(Snip)
But Biden’s in-your-face reaction when presented with valid inquiries about his son’s multi-million-dollar patronage job, a post that he surrendered this year only after the senior Biden announced his run for president, is telling: This is how you behave when the press runs cover for you and your boss for more than a decade.
When you’re trying to sell socialism to the American people, it’s inevitable that you’ll paint yourself into some kind of corner. Top-tier Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, who’s got a good chance of securing the nomination, now finds herself stuck in a pretty embarrassing one.
She and Pete Buttigieg in recent days have been playing a tit-for-tat game of who benefited from capitalism more, the youthful South Bend mayor with his lucrative gig at management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., or Warren making nearly $2 million for a string of clients as a corporate lawyer.
Warren felt compelled to provide the details and the fees she received, and it must
USMCA trade agreement reached
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Trade negotiators from the U.S., Mexico and Canada have reached an agreement that makes changes to the enforcement of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, multiple sources have told FOX Business. A final deal could come together in the next 24 hours, according to sources, paving the way for ratification by all three countries. U.S. stocks were little changed on the developments.
Bill Hemmer has for years been the faithful morning co-anchor at Fox News Channel, boosting the profiles of time-slot partners like Megyn Kelly, Martha MacCallum and Shannon Bream. Now he's set to step into his own solo spotlight. Hemmer will take over the 3pm timeslot previously anchored by Shepard Smith, the last stage of a much-scrutinized transition at the Fox News. The appointment was applauded by the President who took to Twitter to share his approval: 'A great choice. Bill is a winner!' he wrote.
A Justice Department watchdog’s report released Monday definitively debunked one of the Steele dossier’s most pervasive allegations of collusion, while severely undermining other hair-raising claims about Donald Trump and former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.The report is unsparing of both Christopher Steele, the dossier author, and the FBI’s handling of the salacious document.It paints a picture of Steele, a former British spy, as an eager gun-for-hire encumbered with a poor sense of judgment. The FBI, while absolved of a top-down, politically-motivated conspiracy to take down Trump, failed to verify any of Steele’s allegations,
The U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) audit on the origins of the Russiam collision hoax released Monday by the inspector general (IG) found “at least 17 significant errors and omissions” in the Carter Page federal surveillance application that enabled the investigation into the Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.DOJ IG Michael Horowitz’s report indicated the agents in charge of dealing with approving FISA surveillance, particularly the Carter Page one approved by FBI Director James Comey, “did not give appropriate attention or treatment to the facts that cut against probable cause, or reassess the information supporting probable cause
The collapse of the figurative and literal wall between East and West Germany was chief among the upheavals in those final weeks of 1989. Not even a year out of office and Reagan was magnificently proven correct in his understanding of basic humanity: people want to be free. Apart from one major exception, the oppressed behind the Iron Curtain that autumn overcame their regimes without bloodshed and violence. (Photo) I was in high school during the fall of communism across Eastern Europe. I could not then imagine that precisely thirty years later a caricature of upheaval would be transpiring in my own country.“Resist!” is screamed by
The new report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed former CIA Director John Brennan lied to Congress about whether the dossier authored by Christopher Steele was used in the Obama administration’s Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).
The ICA, a report conducted by intelligence officials in 2016 on Russian election interference, was used to brief President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017. According to the IG report, there was significant discussion by top intelligence officials as to whether the unverified Steele dossier should be included in the main body of the ICA report, summarized in an appendix, or even included at all.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry drew some comparisons between his ill-fated run for president in 2004 and former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
Republicans are using dirty tricks on Biden, Kerry told reporters Sunday at a rally in New Hampshire. He suggested President Donald Trump’s criticisms of Biden’s son’s business dealings in Ukraine are similar to those leveled against his Vietnam War record in the 1960s.
“This is not a new strategy. They did it with me, about my military record,” he said at the rally.
The New York State attorney general has issued a new subpoena to the National Rifle Association, deepening her eight-month investigation and providing fresh clues about where it is headed, according to people with knowledge of the document.
The subpoena, which was described to The New York Times, was issued last week and covers at least four areas, including campaign finance, payments made to board members and tax compliance. Because the N.R.A. is chartered in New York and the office of the attorney general, Letitia James, has a range of enforcement options, the investigation has alarmed N.R.A. officials already grappling with infighting and litigation.
For two years, the president of the United States and his followers have loudly declared that the FBI acted unlawfully in conducting a counterintelligence investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
They repeatedly told the American people that the FBI had done all sorts of bad things, such as tapping Donald Trump’s wires during the campaign, opening an investigation without adequate cause, with the intent to damage Trump, and inserting secret informants into the Trump campaign.
The president said the FBI’s actions were “treason.”
It’s Not Because She’s a Woman
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In early October, Elizabeth Warren hit her stride. Her stock in the Democratic primary had been climbing steadily since midsummer, and as Joe Biden continued to lag, the Massachusetts senator became the first presidential hopeful to overtake him as front-runner in the RealClearPolitics polling average.
She’s been in free fall ever since.
Warren now sits at just 14.8 percent in the RCP average, in third place behind Bernie Sanders, with about half the support Biden has. The former vice president has lost a step or two (or several) since his time as Obama’s right-hand man, but it’s looking less and less likely that Warren will be the Democrat to supplant
After three years of trying to oust President Donald Trump from the White House – using everything from Russia! Russia! Russia! to the Emoluments Clause to the 25th Amendment to Ukraine phone calls – Democrats appear to have settled on four items on which to impeach the president.
The House Judiciary Committee is hearing “presentations of evidence” from attorneys representing the Democrat majority and Republican minority in order to formalize articles of impeachment against Trump.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy told Fox News that after the testimony by Intelligence Committee majority counsel Daniel Goldman, it boils down to four things
The biggest bombshell on Monday burst not in Washington, D.C., but in Connecticut, where John Durham, its U.S. attorney, rebutted Michael Horowitz’s finding that the FBI had adequate grounds to begin an investigation of the Trump campaign. No, it didn’t, said Durham:(Snip) Translation: Durham has collected much more information than Horowitz, and it points toward the conclusion that the investigation was bogus from the start.
Naturally, the media is portraying Horowitz’s timid conclusion as a refutation of Trump while ignoring the import of Durham’s objection. Reporters have also scoffed at Attorney General Bill Barr’s comments buttressing Durham’s position. How outrageous, they harrumphed, that Barr would “undercut” a subordinate.
It’s now official: Russia, Russia, Russia really was fake news from the start. There was no factual basis for the FBI to spy on Donald Trump’s campaign.
That means there was no need for the appointment of a special counsel and that Robert Mueller should have stayed in retirement. It means the two years of rumors and accusations and the giant cloud of suspicions over the White House produced by Mueller’s headhunters were unfair and unjustified.
It also means J. Edgar Hoover can finally rest in peace. James Comey is now revealed to be the dirtiest cop ever to run the FBI.
Authorities scrambling to search for survivors after a volcanic island in New Zealand erupted said Monday that aerial searches have revealed "no signs of life" since the eruption.
The New Zealand police said in a press release early Tuesday morning local time that at least five people died and eight are missing when the eruption took place Monday afternoon on White Island. White Island sits about 30 miles offshore from mainland New Zealand and experts say it's the country's most active cone volcano, with about 70 percent of the volcano lying under the sea.
"Police believe that anyone who could have been taken from the island alive
In the hours after U.S. Attorney John Durham announced Monday that he did not "agree" with key findings by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, speculation swirled over what Durham has uncovered in his ongoing review into potential surveillance abuses against President Trump's team.
Durham's inquiry has had a broader scope than Horowitz's, including a focus on foreign actors as well as the CIA, while Horowitz concentrated his attention on the DOJ and FBI.
Additionally, Durham's criminal review has had additional investigative resources not available to Horowitz.
The danger of reliance on electrical generation power sources that can suddenly surge or diminish the way wind and solar energy do was highlighted by a major blackout that left central Australia and the "major" town of Alice Springs without electricity for up to nine hours. Yesterday, two top energy officials in the Northern Territory lost their jobs over the fiasco: The Northern Territory Labor government has sacked the territory's two most senior energy chiefs following a damming report from the market regulator into a "system black" event that hit the city of Alice Springs in October.
Michelle Obama opened up on the presidential impeachment hearings calling the moves to oust President Donald Trump from office 'surreal', while assuring the public 'we'll come out stronger'.The former First Lady spoke with host Jenna Bush Hager on the Today show on Monday as she visited Vietnam for her first public overseas trip since leaving the White House to promote girls' education. When asked about her impression of the impeachment hearings she said: 'It's surreal I think. The last impeachment hearing, a lot of young people weren’t around for that. So this is all new, I don’t think people know what to make of it.