“If Gallup’s latest survey of what issues concern Americans the most is anything to go by, politicians with an eye on the 2020 elections may want to rethink their strategy. In a remarkable flip from only two years ago, the biggest problem on the minds of the voters is the state of their own government. Coming in second – and flying in the face of the DNC’s platform – is immigration. (CNS News)
A new survey shows that the “top problem” cited by Americans is “government,” and the second top problem is “immigration.” For contrast, among the issues seen as least problematic for Americans are “unemployment-jobs” and “gun control/guns.”
In the survey, conducted by Gallup after the midterm elections, the polling firm asked Americans about the country’s top problems and then listed those issues that were “mentioned by at least 3% of respondents.”…
Only 8% of respondents said “unifying the country” was a problem, and only 3% said unemployment-jobs and then gun contol/guns were a problem.
Also, only 5% said “healthcare” was a problem.
The contrast between what Americans are actually worried about and what our politicians are focusing on is, at least in some areas, shocking. On the list of things keeping people awake at night, only two items – the government and immigration – make it into double digits. And those two have reversed position since the election. In November, immigration was number one and the government was number two.
All through the midterms, we were told by Democrats and most of the media that healthcare was the “untold story” and a top concern among voters. They even credited healthcare woes with many of the losses the GOP suffered in the House. But how many Americans cited healthcare as a major concern? 5 percent. That’s the same number that put the environment/pollution as a top concern.
At the bottom of the list? Gun control. It’s funny how Nancy Pelosi listed that as her top priority after taking back the Speaker’s gavel, considering virtually nobody is focusing on it or particularly worried about it.”
“Customs and Border Protection officers on Tuesday morning took in the final members of a group of asylum seekers who, accompanied by attorneys and two members of Congress, sat on U.S. soil outside the Otay Mesa Port of Entry for hours, some overnight.
Reps. Nanette Barragan and Jimmy Gomez, both of the Los Angeles area, walked with the group of about 15 asylum seekers up the path to the port of entry around 2:30 p.m. on Monday. When they passed a placard that indicated they had reached the U.S., all of the migrants sat down on the concrete in front of the port’s gate.
At some point, an additional family that happened to be trying to request asylum at the port joined the group.
Volunteers, mostly attorneys and law students, shielded the migrants to keep them from being forced back into Mexico while the two members of Congress questioned officials about whether they would take the group into the port for processing.”
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And just a reminder, these are the type of people they’re advocating for, not Americans. Criminal illegals are who they represent, And just a reminder, the 2 morons above and their sanctuary policies are what protect vermin like this.
“A man who went on a deadly shooting, carjacking and robbery rampage in California’s Central Valley died Monday during a high-speed highway chase during which he intentionally tried to smash into other cars, authorities said.
Gustavo Garcia, 36, of Visalia was pronounced dead at the scene Monday morning on State Route 65 in Porterville after he was flung from a stolen truck after a gun battle with police and wrong-way car crashes that left four people injured, one critically, police said.
In attacks on apparently random strangers, Garcia also killed a man at a gas station convenience store, shot and wounded a farmworker in an orchard and a woman at a motel, carjacked other farmworkers and robbed a convenience store at gunpoint, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said.”
He also fired shots in the backyard of his ex-girlfriend’s Visalia home as she and her children were inside and may have committed as many as a dozen crimes during a “rampage” that began Sunday afternoon, he said.”
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“Garcia had a long criminal history that included arrests for drugs, assault with a deadly weapon, vandalism and contributing to the delinquency of a minor and he had been in trouble with immigration officials several times and was deported in 2014, Boudreaux said. However, he did not know Garcia’s recent immigration status.
The rampage began around 1 p.m. Sunday in Exeter when Garcia shot a farmworker who was picking fruit, police said. He was expected to recover.
Minutes later, Garcia robbed a convenience store. Surveillance video showed Garcia firing shots at the ceiling and demanding more than $2,000 in cash, the Fresno Bee reported.
A second man who had been a passenger in Garcia’s car was being sought as a person of interest in the holdup, police said.
At about 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Garcia shot a Motel 6 guest in the arm and chest in Tulare, although her wounds weren’t life-threatening, authorities said.
“She had made eye contact with the subject and he had followed her to her parking spot, where he got out of the car and for an unbeknownst reason began firing at her vehicle,” Tulare interim Police Chief Matt Machado said.”
“In a rare moment of bipartisan action, the U.S. Senate passed President Trump’s widely supported First Step Act, a prison reform bill promoted heavily by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. After the bill passed with an overwhelming 87-12 vote Tuesday night, Trump took to Twitter to celebrate the “historic” bill.
“America is the greatest Country in the world and my job is to fight for ALL citizens, even those who have made mistakes,” Trump wrote in a pair of tweets. “Congratulations to the Senate on the bi-partisan passing of a historic Criminal Justice Reform Bill. This will keep our communities safer, and provide hope and a second chance, to those who earn it. In addition to everything else, billions of dollars will be saved. I look forward to signing this into law!”
The bill, which had strong backing from groups on both the Right and Left, had stalled in the Senate before pressure from Trump and other Republicans, along with a few adjustments to the bill, convinced Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to put it up for vote. The bill is now expected to sail through the House this week. A version of the bill passed easily in the House in May (360-59).
The First Step Act (S. 3649) “provide[s] for programs to help reduce the risk that prisoners will recidivate upon release from prison” and, in so doing, reduce the number of inmates overall. The primary focus of the bill is to promote federal rehabilitation efforts, including providing programs designed to prevent recidivism and easing up on statutory sentencing for some drug offenders. Life sentences for three-time drug offenders will be reduced to 25 years.”
“A longtime associate of late Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain provided a copy of the infamous Steele dossier to BuzzFeed News, according to an explosive court filing released Wednesday.
David Kramer, a former State Department official who was an executive at the McCain Institute, met on Dec. 29, 2016 with BuzzFeed reporter Ken Bensinger, according to a filing submitted Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro.
BuzzFeed published the dossier, which was authored by former British spy Christopher Steele, on Jan. 10, 2017.”
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“Kramer obtained copies of the dossier after meeting in late November 2016 with Steele. He and McCain became aware of Steele’s investigation of then-candidate Donald Trump earlier that month at the Halifax International Security Forum.
McCain dispatched Kramer to London to meet with Steele. After that Nov. 28, 2016 encounter, Kramer obtained a copy of the dossier from Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.
Kramer met Nov. 30, 2016, with McCain and McCain’s chief of staff, Christopher Brose, to review Steele’s reports.
“Kramer advised McCain to share the reports with the FBI and the CIA,” according to Ungaro.
Days later, Kramer met at McCain’s behest with Victoria Nuland, who served then as assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian affairs and the State Department, and Celeste Wallender, the top Russian affairs official at the National Security Council.”
“Now That The Russian Collusion Narrative Is Deflating, The Left Is Shifting Goalposts
It’s increasingly difficult to sustain the smoke without any actual fire, and that reality is now evident in even liberal publications.”
“Nate Silver, of all people, recently tweeted that the scale of Russian involvement in the 2016 election was quite small, and its effect was not visible. Silver is of course not a Russian agent, nor should this sentiment be out of place.
After all, it seems so obvious that it shouldn’t even need mentioning in analytical circles. But it’s not often that we see an otherwise shrill and religiously anti-Republican national publication write a normal analytical opinion. It’s a signal of the scaling down of the Russian influence narrative that has been pushed for the last two years.
NPR’s essay on Russia collusion being unproven was a surprise: “Prosecutors say that [Paul] Manafort shouldn’t get any consideration for the information he has given the feds because he has been lying to them; Manafort’s lawyers say he gave the government valuable information. Nonetheless, the crimes for which the feds want Manafort to be locked up aren’t a Russian conspiracy to throw the election.”
It was followed by The Nation, no right-wing MAGA hatters, with a thorough essay discussing the differences of the ones charged, the charges, and the original narrative of the collusion story. In an absurd irony, the piece notes how Manafort might go to jail for a “crime” of ostensibly tilting the Ukrainian government towards the European Union — weaning them away from Russia:
When it comes to his work in Ukraine, Manafort, as former Fusion GPS researcher Graham Stack writes, was convicted for ‘doing the opposite of colluding with Russia.’ In Ukraine, Manafort pushed a pro-Western agenda … Internal documents released by Mueller make clear that Manafort tried to steer his client, then – Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, to align with the European Union and away from Russia, or, in Manafort’s own words, promote ‘the key geopolitical messaging of how “Europe and the U.S. should not risk losing Ukraine to Russia.”‘
On former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, the piece notes, “The only Russia-related criminal activity comes in Cohen’s lies to Congress about the effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, a failure that never got beyond a letter of intent.”
So, while Manafort and Cohen are guilty of several felonies like campaign finance misappropriation, or perjury, or even corruption, the “original sin” is still unsubstantiated. “
“The contrast between the outcome of Andrew McCabe lying to the FBI and Michael Flynn lying to the FBI demonstrate the DoJ is ruled by only one law: Does it help get Trump?”
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“Has the government complied with Sullivan’s February 16, 2018 order directing the government to turn over all evidence relevant to Flynn’s guilt or innocence? Flynn made the mistake of embarrassing the government by pointing out that the FBI encouraged Flynn to participate in the fateful interview without a lawyer and did not warn him that a misstatement could lead to criminal conviction.
Logically, there has to be something that will inform the interviewee that a misstatement could lead to jail time. 18 U.S.C. § 1001 requires that the person make the statement “knowingly and willfully” make a “materially” false statement. It’s not at all clear that Flynn knew or should have known the FBI was there to investigate a crime. The closest we have is McCabe’s written recollection of a conversation with Flynn that he wanted two agents to discuss a “sensitive” matter with Flynn. McCabe wrote,
I told LTG Flynn that I had a sensitive matter to discuss. I explained that in light of the significant media coverage and public discussion about his recent contacts with Russian representatives, that Director Comey and I felt that we needed to have two of our agents sit down with the General and hear from him the details of those conversations.
Or so the man who repeatedly lied to the FBI himself says he remembers telling Flynn. After one reads the 302 of the January interview that followed this McCabe phone call, one can be skeptical that McCabe did indeed clearly warn Flynn that the agents were there as part of an investigation. Without that admonition, Flynn may have felt free to guess about details he did not remember. That’s what makes it a trap.”
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“So as much as those sympathetic to Flynn might hope he’ll file a motion to set aside his plea, a father’s loyalty to his son might be the reason he continues to bear the apparent injustice without objection. Serious legal professionals (here and here, for example) have questioned whether Flynn might have lacked the criminal intent to be guilty of anything and whether the entire conviction is just a sad case of the power of prosecutors to crush their individual citizens.
Flynn’s effort to attack the conduct of the government in the sentencing phase obviously backfired with this judge. There’s a process for making those challenges and the judge rightly insisted Flynn follow that process instead of attempting to bait the judge into doing it on his own.
Had the Flynn conviction fallen apart, it would have been devastating to the Mueller probe but a long-overdue rebuke to the politically motivated investigation. The lack of any significant jail time in both the Flynn (anticipated) and the George Papadopoulos cases are signs that the cases were at risk for the very dubious techniques used to trap these targets into process crimes.
While it does not appear that Flynn had anything to do with any alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. 2016 election, there is a reasonable conversation to be had about the appropriateness of an intelligence official going to work for a foreign government (i.e., Turkey) immediately after leaving a sensitive post with the U.S. government. Turkey attempted to use Flynn to coax a change in U.S. policy as part of an extensive lobbying campaign.
By my guess, there are thousands of former U.S. officials around Washington D.C. selling influence for foreign money. For example, the registered agents representing Saudi Arabia spent $1.6 million in the midterm elections (and so many like Flynn and Manafort don’t register). Maybe Flynn deserved to go to prison for a long time for “selling out” his country to Turkey. But he won’t. Because the only crimes that matter are the ones that can be used to get Trump.”
“Martha McSally was not a perfect Republican candidate for Senate, and her inability to win an election against an utterly revolting and gaffe-prone leftist such as Kyrsten Sinema in a place like Arizona (which, at least on paper, doesn’t permit ballot harvesting) doesn’t speak all that well for her.
But the choice of McSally to fill the unfinished Senate term of Sen. John McCain by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey was sweet news indeed.
That’s because the loud opposition to her from the McCain family was so very bad, and this appointment stands as a rebuke to them. Better still, now that McSally’s got the job over their objections, she owes them nothing.
Here was the Washington Examiner story four days ago:
Meghan McCain’s husband said that Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., would be an “unwise choice” for Arizona senator.
“McSally strikes me as an unwise choice for a number of reasons,” Ben Domenech tweeted. “She’s like an NFL team that plays down to its opponents’ level – and she’ll be tasked with running for re-election immediately.”
He made a tweet, and his wife, McCain’s daughter Meghan, retweeted it. Then McSally went to try to make nice with the dragon-lady matron of the bunch, Cindy McCain, but things didn’t seem to get any better, though officially they say so, minus their endorsement, of course. The whole thing was over something embarrassingly small and petty, too: McSally’s “crime” in their eyes was that she didn’t bring McCain’s name up in a speech on some defense authorization bill. Whoa! That was enough to turn this touchy bunch entirely against the woman, who had actually been a friend of McCain’s, and then they got loud about it.
The McCains overreached. They overplayed their hand. They horned in where they had no business. And they got smacked down.
Ducey’s appointment of her stands as a great rebuke to these obnoxious and entitled people, who, frankly, have no right at all to say who they think should finish his term. Had Ducey been a Democrat, the job would have been filled by a Democrat – and knowing the McCains, they probably would have actually liked that. Instead, Arizona got a normal Republican, who made the mistake of offending them by a tiny omission, and too bad if they don’t like it.”
The biggest problem America has is spiritual.
Not just religious, that too.
But we have left the founding principle of independence, self determination, respect and the religious foundation we once had.
It is more than kneeling for the national anthem, that is just a sign of the times.
I likely won’t see it, but I pray for my grandkids every day.
I am not a prophet, nor a prophet’s son. But, concerning the pullout from Syria.
Where else will we have troops?
The reason I ask is because I have always been puzzled by the battle of Zachariah 12. It has never been fought. It can’t be fought as long as US troops are in the way.
Not a comment on the wisdom of the move. Just an observation.
So like the witch hunt against Trump, this so-called Russian interference story was actually just Democrat interference. Both are false canards started by Dems to smear their opponents..
It’s sad that so many Alabama Republicans fell for it.
“DEMOCRATS RAN RUSSIAN BOT ‘FALSE FLAG’ OPERATION IN ALABAMA — AND MEDIA FELL FOR IT”
“Democratic operatives created thousands of Twitter accounts posing as Russian bots in order to boost Alabama Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in the October 2017 special election by linking his Republican opponent, Roy Moore, to Russian influence campaigns.
The operatives, who were funded by liberal billionaire Reid Hoffman independently of Jones’s campaign, created more than a thousand Russian-language accounts that followed Moore’s Twitter account overnight, The New York Times reported Wednesday evening.
Hoffman gave the operatives $100,000 for their project, which included creating fake conservative Facebook accounts to dissuade voters from supporting Moore, according to the Times.
“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the operatives recounted in an internal report obtained by the Times.
Media outlets — both in Alabama and nationally — fell for the ploy and amplified the false narrative in October 2017.
The Montgomery Advertiser, an Alabama affiliate of USA Today, was the first to run with the story. Brian Lyman, the reporter on that story, did not immediately return The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. National media outlets quickly seized upon Lyman’s story.
“Roy Moore flooded with fake Russian Twitter followers,” read the headline on a New York Post story, which cited the Advertiser.
Left-wing publication Mother Jones cited the same report in a story titled, “Russian Propagandists Are Pushing for Roy Moore to Win.” That report didn’t rely exclusively on the fake Twitter followers, citing Russian media’s favorable coverage of Moore.
The Washington Post focused its story on the fact that Moore blamed Democrats for the fake accounts.”
“The New York Times dropped a bombshell on Wednesday about how Democratic tech experts adopted Russian tactics supposedly used in the 2016 election in order to help Democrat Doug Jones defeat Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race in 2017:
One participant in the Alabama project, Jonathon Morgan, is the chief executive of New Knowledge, a small cyber security firm that wrote a scathing account of Russia’s social media operations in the 2016 election that was released this week by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
An internal report on the Alabama effort, obtained by The New York Times, says explicitly that it “experimented with many of the tactics now understood to have influenced the 2016 elections.”
The project’s operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention.
“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says.
Morgan insisted that the project was meant “to explore how certain online tactics worked, not to affect the election.” I doubt it would have worked due to Moore’s past of pursuing underage girls for hookups.
The measly budget of $100,000 probably didn’t help things considering the senate race cost $51 million, which includes the primaries.
Even Moore’s campaign had suspicions about interference:
“We did have suspicions that something odd was going on,” said Rich Hobson, Mr. Moore’s campaign manager. Mr. Hobson said that although he did not recall any hard evidence of interference, the campaign complained to Facebook about potential chicanery.
“Any and all of these things could make a difference,” Mr. Hobson said. “It’s definitely frustrating, and we still kick ourselves that Judge Moore didn’t win.””
If so, good, now do your jobs and pass a budget, not yet another CR that kicks it down the road.
When I begrudgingly signed the Omnibus Bill, I was promised the Wall and Border Security by leadership. Would be done by end of year (NOW). It didn’t happen! We foolishly fight for Border Security for other countries – but not for our beloved U.S.A. Not good!
Can this wounded veteran give anymore to his country? @BrianKolfage is an amazing American. It’s a shame he has to essentially run a bake sale since my colleagues in Congress are clueless. Also listen to Brian’s story on @RedPilled_USA podcast. https://t.co/PnFfYkBxyB
It’s almost like these people are targeting him for his religious beliefs or something. But that can’t be right, because i’ve been assured for years that LGBQ is all about live and let live.
He’ll probably have to shut it down. But what is “it” really: just a few agencies. Dems and Republican NTers should be careful lest the public figure out they can live just fine without those agencies. Permanently.
Never have so few contributed so little for so long to society and yet remain so in awe of their own words which could be scribbled by untrained deformed monkeys
“Smash Racism DC organizer Jose Martin, also known as “Chepe,” is a radical communist and Antifa leader operating in the U.S. He advocates for the violent overthrow of the government and for the murder of the rich and claims to have international involvement in left-wing movements.
…
But the agitator has made great efforts to separate his fanatical personas from a third identity, his legal name: Joseph “Jose” Alcoff. Under that identity, the 36-year-old has worked as a payday campaign manager for Americans for Financial Reform since 2016, where he advocates for reforms of predatory loans before members of Congress.
…
He has used his Jose Martin identity to make public appearances to promote socialism, once calling for a society without police. But his communist Chepe alias makes his Jose Martin identity seem moderate, using it to advocate for violence to achieve his goal of eliminating capitalism and the U.S. government.
…
Meanwhile, in his professional capacity as Alcoff, he’s been quoted in press releases from Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and appeared at an event with Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia outside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in March and has been pictured alongside Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters.”
Kevin Williamson @ National Review has a positive article about Mexico’s border wall that we are helping to pay for—-southern border that is. But it’s not just a wall; there is also police and military presence. That’s starting to sound familiar….and it’s not a bad idea. What is a standing army legitimately supposed to do if not protect the borders of the country?
“Writer touted by CNN as ‘Journalist of the Year’ forced to resign for fabricating stories”
“The German magazine Der Spiegel revealed Wednesday that one of its top award-winning journalists fabricated many of his articles, inventing characters, sources, and their quotes “on a grand scale” for many years.
Claas Relotius, a reporter and editor, admitted to fabricating parts of at least 14 stories following the magazine’s internal investigation. The publication said the issue “marks a low point in the 70-year history of Der Spiegel.”
“I am sick and I need to get help,” he reportedly told the magazine.
The reporter contributed around 60 articles to Der Spiegel, one of the leading German magazines for investigative reporting. He previously worked for other publications in Europe and won awards such as CNN Journalist of the Year in 2014.
The fabricated articles include a phone interview with the parents of free agent NFL player Colin Kaepernick and a story about an American woman who claims to have volunteered to witness the executions of death row inmates.
Relotius also drew the fury of locals in Fergus Falls, Minn., after spending three weeks in town and fabricating facts, characters and quotes from people in an effort to portray the town in a negative light.
“What happened is beyond what I could have ever imagined: An article titled ‘Where they pray for Trump on Sundays,’ and endless pages of an insulting, if not hilarious, excuse for journalism,” wrote Michele Anderson and Jake Krohn who investigated Relotius’ Der Spiegel article about the town.
Both Anderson and Krohn went on to reveal that the article doesn’t contain any truth except for the town’s population, the average temperature, and names of the businesses or public figures.
Nearly everything else, including a coal plant employee named Neil Becker, who doesn’t actually exist, or quotes from a restaurant employee, who was falsely called the owner of a restaurant and whose son was given a fictional illness, was made up.”
‘This was the year when reporters … began loosening the usual boundaries governing journalism’
“It was the year “corroborating evidence” became the most hotly contested term in America, Michael Avenatti was unleashed on an unconsenting public, on-air profanity was normalized, and reporters worked overtime as Democratic cheerleaders, frequently urging lawmakers to deliver them the media event of the millennium — the impeachment of President Trump.
Whatever Trump was for, the media came out against. When Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to become the next justice on the Supreme Court, the media went to war, digging through every trace of his existence, even combing through notes he sent in high school — anything that might turn up the silver bullet that sank his nomination.
There was so much, in fact, that we had expand our normal custom of compiling the “Top 10 Most Mortifying Media Moments” and expand it to a more befitting “Top 18.”
So now, without any further ado, here are the 18 most mortifying media moments from 2018.
18 — Beto O’Rourke Is a Rock Star Who’s Making People Horny (July – Nov., 2018)
Starting circa July, the media came down with a fever, and the only prescription was more Beto O’Rourke. The major media effectively offered Beto an open-invite to receive a glowing profile whenever his schedule permitted. He was featured on the cover of virtually every publication covering politics, and likewise received effusive praise in the broadcast media. In one representative moment, ABC’s Paula Faris, traveling with Beto on the campaign trail, marveled at his adoring fans and gushed aloud, “You’re a rock star!” Things got so heated, in fact, that the Daily Dot “reported“ that an Instagram video of Beto making dinner was “making people horny.”
17 — Cheering on North Korea at the Olympics (Feb. 10, 2018)
The American media went gaga for the sister of North Korea’s dictator, Kim Yo-jong, a younger sibling to Kim Jong Un, and the North Korean cheer squad, during the 2018 Winter Olympics. Yo-jong, who attended the games on behalf of North Korea, is the deputy director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of North Korea’s Worker’s Party and a member of the Politburo.
CNN offered the most excited praise, publishing an article titled, “Kim Jong Un’s sister is stealing the show at the Winter Olympics.” The article began, “If ‘diplomatic dance’ were an event at the Winter Olympics, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister would be favored to win gold.” The Washington Post was likewise smitten with Kim Jung Un’s sister, likening her to the “Ivanka Trump of North Korea.”
The North Korean cheer squad, who appeared at both the joint South/North Korean women hockey team’s game and the joint Korean speedskating performance, also received glowing reviews in the American media. A Wall Street Journal article triumphed: “North Korean Cheerleaders: 100 Olympic Stars Are Born.” The article describes the cheer squad as the highlight of the speedskating event: “The surprise came when the South Koreans on the ice were upstaged from the stands by over 100 of their neighbors from over the border, the North Korean cheer squad.” During NBC’s coverage of the Olympics, reporter Mary Carillo excited described watching the North Korean cheer squad. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” she said. “It was a remarkable scene.”
16 — CNN Harassed a Random Old Lady for … Doing the Same Thing CNN Did (Feb, 2018)
For some reason CNN at one point tracked down a senior citizen Facebook user who, apparently, shared a meme that had originally been posted by a Russian troll farm. CNN’s Drew Griffin tracked her down and essentially accused the unsuspecting grandma of acting as an agent of a foreign government. It was painfully awkward for her, for Griffin, and for all of the viewers at home. But what was especially ironic was that the woman’s “crime” was doing … exactly what CNN itself had itself done: inadvertently promoted an event in part organized by the aforementioned Russian troll farm. After Trump won the 2016 election, CNN enthusiastically reported from an anti-Trump “Love Rally” in New York City, which Robert Mueller later reported to have been organized by Russians.
15 — Networks Let Michael Avenatti Use Them to Spread Smears (Sept. 26, 2018).
After celebrity TV attorney Michael Avenatti began claiming he had a secret client who would upend Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, the media effectively extended him an open invitation to spread his scurrilous smears. Once he unveiled his client, Julie Swetnick, and her bizarre claims of drugs, drinking, and gang rape, he was invited onto ABC, CNN, MSNBC, where he presented no evidence against Kavanaugh, but helped add to the circus atmosphere by challenging Kavanaugh to a lie detector test. NewsBusters reported that Avenatti was treated to more than 170 interviews from March to November. CNN’s media reporter, Brian Stelter, even promoted Avenatti as a “serious” contender for the 2020 Democratic nomination.
NBC tried to corroborate Avenatti’s gang-rape claims but could not, yet the network let the accuser spread them anyway. Later, when fame-thirsty attorney was arrested for beating up his girlfriend and was evicted from his office for non-payment and was sued by his former partners for refusing to pay previous settlements … the media lost all interest in Michael Avenatti.
14 — Steve Schmidt Loses Touch with Reality, MSNBC Keeps Inviting Him on Anyway (Jan. – Dec., 2018)
Like many others in the media, the Trump Era has severed Steve Schmidt from any sense of perspective. His appearances on MSNBC can now be reliably counted on for serving up hefty portions of hilariously detached hyperbole. Schmidt, we often wonder, must surely be running out of ways to express how much he hates Trump — but somehow he keeps managing to up the ante. In September, he said of Trump: “On any given moment, the combination of his erratic behavior, his ignorance could pose a profound danger to every single person in this country and literally every inhabitant of the planet Earth.” In a December segment on Michael Cohen pleading guilty to a campaign finance violation, Schmidt wondered aloud: “Look, we’re at this moment in time right now where we have enough information to sit and wonder, might this be the greatest crime in American history?” ”
“After The Guardian published an uncorroborated report by Luke Harding and Dan Collyns alleging Paul Manafort met with Julian Assange at London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, Greenwald called out the reporters for failing to vet the information—accusing the publication on Twitter of behavior that “erodes trust in journalism and undermines the work of journalists everywhere.” From Greenwald’s perspective, it was indicative of a much more frightening trend in media: the reliance on government sources for scoops and information
“I think journalists ought to be aware that when you’re using intelligence [sources], there’s always a high risk you’re being deceived, lied to, propagandized or manipulated since that is what those agencies are designed to do,” explained Greenwald. “That’s clearly what happened here.”
The veteran investigator says he’s working on follow-up reporting intended to set the record straight. In the meantime, Greenwald appears content to snipe at his former colleagues, often over Twitter, while reveling in his role as edgelord of international politics.
“If you look at Luke Harding’s traffic metrics, they went through the roof,” Greenwald told Observer. “That’s an incentive scheme to continue to do @#$%%$ journalism.”
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But they so desperately wanted, no needed, it to be true, in this case and countless others. Too bad it rarely is. Their credibility is dying the death of a million small cuts, all self-inflicted.
“House Speaker Paul Ryan emerged from a last-minute White House meeting Thursday between President Donald Trump and House Republicans to say that the president told them he will refuse to sign a stopgap funding bill as it’s currently written — a measure that would avert a shutdown before a Friday midnight deadline.
Ryan told reporters that he and other GOP leaders were going back to try to add more border security funding to the legislation.
“The president informed us that he will not sign the bill that came over from the Senate last evening because of his legitimate concerns for border security, so what we’re gonna do is go back to the House and work with our members,” Ryan, R-Wis., said. “We want to keep the government open but we also want to see an agreement that protects the border.”
Trump had called the meeting on short notice amid criticism that he was “softening” on a key campaign promise.
“The president said what the Senate sent over is just kicking the can down the road,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said. “We want to solve this problem. We want to make sure we keep the government open and we’re gonna work to make sure we have that done.”
Earlier, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced, “At this moment, the President does not want to go further without border security, which includes steel slats or a wall. The President is continuing to weigh his options.”
Besides Ryan and McCarthy, ABC News confirmed that Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows, Majority Whip Steve Scalise and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio were at the White House meeting.
Ryan declined to comment as he left the Capitol late Thursday morning and returned to the Capitol without engaging reporters. “
“Soros Gave $1.35M to ‘Nonpartisan’ Watchdog Inundating Trump with Lawsuits
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shares employees with Media Matters, state filings show”
“Liberal billionaire George Soros provided $1.35 million to a “nonpartisan” government watchdog organization last year that is hitting the Trump administration with a steady flow of complaints and lawsuits in an attempt to “damage” his presidency, according to tax filings provided to the Washington Free Beacon.
Separate state filings also reveal that the “nonpartisan” watchdog shares employees with the liberal Media Matters for America, an organization that was founded by Democratic operative and Clinton loyalist David Brock. Confidential documents handed out by Brock to big money donors in early 2017 and obtained by the Free Beacon previously shed light on how Brock planned to attack Trump over the course of his presidency using his constellation of organizations.
Soros gave $1.35 million to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that does not reveal its donors. The group has been involved with a number of high-profile lawsuits and complaints against Trump and other Republicans. Its top members regularly appear on news programs attacking the administration and members of the GOP but are rarely identified as having a left-wing mission by the outlets and on-air personalities.
Soros’s donations to CREW came from two entities in his Open Society Foundations network including $1,250,000 from the Foundation to Promote Open Society and $100,000 from the Open Society Policy Center, according to a review of his groups’ most recent tax forms covering the 2017 fiscal year that were provided by Soros’s spokesperson.”
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And the above is just the tip of his influence iceberg.
“George Soros gave $1M to group that paid for Fusion GPS research”
“Democratic billionaire George Soros has given $1 million to a group which has paid for research from Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that commissioned the infamous Trump dossier.
The money was given to the Democracy Integrity Project, according to a Soros representative who spoke to the New York Times. Soros is mulling donating even more.
The $1 million figure appears to be newly revealed information. It was reported earlier this year by the Washington Post that Soros had given a grant to the nonprofit group.
“Ryan’s announcement came after an hour-plus meeting in the Oval Office between Trump, Ryan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and two members of the House Freedom Caucus, Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Jordan and Meadows had led a revolt on the House floor on Wednesday night because the bill did not fund Trump’s border wall, a call that was taken up by conservative commentators in the media. All of this proved too much for Trump to resist, leading to an embarrassing setback for Ryan, McCarthy, Scalise and other top House Republicans. Once again, the Freedom Caucus is the tail that wags the dog.
“The president informed us he will not sign the bill that came from the Senate last evening because of his legitimate concerns for border security,” Ryan told reporters after meeting with Trump at the White House. “So what we’re going to do is go back to the House and work with our members.”
Ryan, McCarthy and Scalise had been urging Trump to avoid a shutdown and agree to a stopgap funding measure that would keep the government open until Feb. 8. The party leaders initially argued that Senate Democrats will never approve Trump’s demand for another $5 billion in wall funding.
After the meeting, McCarthy embraced Trump’s position.
“We had a great discussion with him now,” McCarthy said. “The president said that what the Senate sent over is just kicking the can down the road. We want to solve this problem, we want to keep the government open.”
Meadows and Jordan had argued that once Democrats get control of the House on Jan. 3, incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her colleagues will never approve any money for the president’s border wall project so they had to act now.
Meadows, the Freedom Caucus chairman, along with more than a dozen other conservatives, took to the House floor Wednesday night in a series of protest floor speeches demanding more money for the wall.
“My president, we’re going to back you up, if you veto this bill, we’ll be there.” Meadows said on the floor. Hours earlier, Meadows tweeted that a punt into February would be a “Valentine’s Day gift” to Pelosi and her deputies.”
——————
Once again Trump sides with the majority of voters.
I watched the president’s presser. He made many good points about how this is a national security issue. I can’t find it on youtube yet, but I’ll post it when I find it.
One of his central points was how 80% of the heroin/fentanyl in this country comes across the southern border. He also blamed it for 80,000 deaths a year. I thought that was a bit of hyperbole to make a point. Everyone knows about the heroin epidemic, but few know the real numbers, myself included. The sobering reality is, he’s not exaggerating. If this isn’t a national security issue, nothing is.
And that’s without even touching on the cost of human trafficking, crime, murder, and the rest that cost us as well. Illegal immigration costs us billions a year. So a 5 billion tab to ease the flow will pay for itself in about a week.
“A class of synthetic drugs has replaced heroin in many major American drug markets, ushering in a more deadly phase of the opioid epidemic.
New numbers Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that drug overdoses killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2017, a record. Overdose deaths are higher than deaths from H.I.V., car crashes or gun violence at their peaks.”
And later when you watch the news and they try to tell you the market volatility is because of the shutdown, know you’re being sold a bogus premise. The market was already heading down due to The Fed announcing 2 coming interest rate jumps and a declining tech sector, where a valuation correction has been long overdue. While Trump’s actions contribute as well, it’s not one of the main reasons. Anyone who says otherwise is being dishonest.
“Dow drops 470 points to 14-month low in second day of big losses following Fed rate hike”
“U.S. stocks swooned for a second day Thursday after the Federal Reserve raised benchmark interest rates and said that it would continue to let its massive balance sheet shrink at the current pace. Fears of a government shutdown also sent stocks tumbling to new lows Thursday afternoon.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 464.06 points to 22,859.6, bringing its two-day declines to more than 800 points and its 5-day losses to more than 1,700 points. The S&P 500 fell 1.5 percent to finish at 2,467.41 as technology stocks underperformed. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.6 percent and closed at 6,528.41, briefly dipping into bear market territory amid big losses in Amazon and Apple. The Nasdaq is 19.7 percent below its recent high. Companies in the S&P 500 have lost a total of $2.39 trillion in market cap this month. The Cboe Volatility Index — one of the market’s best gauges of marketplace fear — rose above 30.
The Dow and Nasdaq posted their lowest closes since October 2017, while the S&P 500 finished at its lowest level since September 2017.
The Dow and S&P 500, which are both in corrections, are on track for their worst December performance since the Great Depression in 1931, down more than 10 percent each this month. The S&P 500 is now in the red for 2018 by 7.7 percent.”
Now it will be up to the Senate. Should be interesting to see were some come down on this, especially Flake and his fellow members of the soon to be out the door gang.
“The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a Republican bill to provide President Donald Trump $5 billion to start building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border along with funds to keep several federal agencies operating beyond Friday.
By a vote of 217-185, the House approved the temporary funding bill.”
Wandering Views 
The biggest problem Americans’ have is their government.
Second is immigration.
Our govt fails on both counts. They refuse to listen. Their priorities are not our priorities.
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/12/19/gallup-biggest-problem-americans-government/
“If Gallup’s latest survey of what issues concern Americans the most is anything to go by, politicians with an eye on the 2020 elections may want to rethink their strategy. In a remarkable flip from only two years ago, the biggest problem on the minds of the voters is the state of their own government. Coming in second – and flying in the face of the DNC’s platform – is immigration. (CNS News)
A new survey shows that the “top problem” cited by Americans is “government,” and the second top problem is “immigration.” For contrast, among the issues seen as least problematic for Americans are “unemployment-jobs” and “gun control/guns.”
In the survey, conducted by Gallup after the midterm elections, the polling firm asked Americans about the country’s top problems and then listed those issues that were “mentioned by at least 3% of respondents.”…
Only 8% of respondents said “unifying the country” was a problem, and only 3% said unemployment-jobs and then gun contol/guns were a problem.
Also, only 5% said “healthcare” was a problem.
The contrast between what Americans are actually worried about and what our politicians are focusing on is, at least in some areas, shocking. On the list of things keeping people awake at night, only two items – the government and immigration – make it into double digits. And those two have reversed position since the election. In November, immigration was number one and the government was number two.
All through the midterms, we were told by Democrats and most of the media that healthcare was the “untold story” and a top concern among voters. They even credited healthcare woes with many of the losses the GOP suffered in the House. But how many Americans cited healthcare as a major concern? 5 percent. That’s the same number that put the environment/pollution as a top concern.
At the bottom of the list? Gun control. It’s funny how Nancy Pelosi listed that as her top priority after taking back the Speaker’s gavel, considering virtually nobody is focusing on it or particularly worried about it.”
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Democrats have found a new way to let illegals jump the line in front of those following the legal and right way of immigrating here.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/sd-me-otay-asylum-20181218-story.html
“Customs and Border Protection officers on Tuesday morning took in the final members of a group of asylum seekers who, accompanied by attorneys and two members of Congress, sat on U.S. soil outside the Otay Mesa Port of Entry for hours, some overnight.
Reps. Nanette Barragan and Jimmy Gomez, both of the Los Angeles area, walked with the group of about 15 asylum seekers up the path to the port of entry around 2:30 p.m. on Monday. When they passed a placard that indicated they had reached the U.S., all of the migrants sat down on the concrete in front of the port’s gate.
At some point, an additional family that happened to be trying to request asylum at the port joined the group.
Volunteers, mostly attorneys and law students, shielded the migrants to keep them from being forced back into Mexico while the two members of Congress questioned officials about whether they would take the group into the port for processing.”
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And just a reminder, these are the type of people they’re advocating for, not Americans. Criminal illegals are who they represent, And just a reminder, the 2 morons above and their sanctuary policies are what protect vermin like this.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/business/article223239785.html
“A man who went on a deadly shooting, carjacking and robbery rampage in California’s Central Valley died Monday during a high-speed highway chase during which he intentionally tried to smash into other cars, authorities said.
Gustavo Garcia, 36, of Visalia was pronounced dead at the scene Monday morning on State Route 65 in Porterville after he was flung from a stolen truck after a gun battle with police and wrong-way car crashes that left four people injured, one critically, police said.
In attacks on apparently random strangers, Garcia also killed a man at a gas station convenience store, shot and wounded a farmworker in an orchard and a woman at a motel, carjacked other farmworkers and robbed a convenience store at gunpoint, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said.”
He also fired shots in the backyard of his ex-girlfriend’s Visalia home as she and her children were inside and may have committed as many as a dozen crimes during a “rampage” that began Sunday afternoon, he said.”
————
“Garcia had a long criminal history that included arrests for drugs, assault with a deadly weapon, vandalism and contributing to the delinquency of a minor and he had been in trouble with immigration officials several times and was deported in 2014, Boudreaux said. However, he did not know Garcia’s recent immigration status.
The rampage began around 1 p.m. Sunday in Exeter when Garcia shot a farmworker who was picking fruit, police said. He was expected to recover.
Minutes later, Garcia robbed a convenience store. Surveillance video showed Garcia firing shots at the ceiling and demanding more than $2,000 in cash, the Fresno Bee reported.
A second man who had been a passenger in Garcia’s car was being sought as a person of interest in the holdup, police said.
At about 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Garcia shot a Motel 6 guest in the arm and chest in Tulare, although her wounds weren’t life-threatening, authorities said.
“She had made eye contact with the subject and he had followed her to her parking spot, where he got out of the car and for an unbeknownst reason began firing at her vehicle,” Tulare interim Police Chief Matt Machado said.”
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It’s time to say, enough.
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Trump gets a win. So does long overdue criminal justice reform.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/39485/trump-celebrates-big-win-first-step-passes-strong-james-barrett
“In a rare moment of bipartisan action, the U.S. Senate passed President Trump’s widely supported First Step Act, a prison reform bill promoted heavily by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. After the bill passed with an overwhelming 87-12 vote Tuesday night, Trump took to Twitter to celebrate the “historic” bill.
“America is the greatest Country in the world and my job is to fight for ALL citizens, even those who have made mistakes,” Trump wrote in a pair of tweets. “Congratulations to the Senate on the bi-partisan passing of a historic Criminal Justice Reform Bill. This will keep our communities safer, and provide hope and a second chance, to those who earn it. In addition to everything else, billions of dollars will be saved. I look forward to signing this into law!”
The bill, which had strong backing from groups on both the Right and Left, had stalled in the Senate before pressure from Trump and other Republicans, along with a few adjustments to the bill, convinced Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to put it up for vote. The bill is now expected to sail through the House this week. A version of the bill passed easily in the House in May (360-59).
The First Step Act (S. 3649) “provide[s] for programs to help reduce the risk that prisoners will recidivate upon release from prison” and, in so doing, reduce the number of inmates overall. The primary focus of the bill is to promote federal rehabilitation efforts, including providing programs designed to prevent recidivism and easing up on statutory sentencing for some drug offenders. Life sentences for three-time drug offenders will be reduced to 25 years.”
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Well….
Once a traitor…….
https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/19/buzzfeed-mccain-associate-dossier/?platform=hootsuite
“A longtime associate of late Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain provided a copy of the infamous Steele dossier to BuzzFeed News, according to an explosive court filing released Wednesday.
David Kramer, a former State Department official who was an executive at the McCain Institute, met on Dec. 29, 2016 with BuzzFeed reporter Ken Bensinger, according to a filing submitted Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro.
BuzzFeed published the dossier, which was authored by former British spy Christopher Steele, on Jan. 10, 2017.”
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“Kramer obtained copies of the dossier after meeting in late November 2016 with Steele. He and McCain became aware of Steele’s investigation of then-candidate Donald Trump earlier that month at the Halifax International Security Forum.
McCain dispatched Kramer to London to meet with Steele. After that Nov. 28, 2016 encounter, Kramer obtained a copy of the dossier from Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.
Kramer met Nov. 30, 2016, with McCain and McCain’s chief of staff, Christopher Brose, to review Steele’s reports.
“Kramer advised McCain to share the reports with the FBI and the CIA,” according to Ungaro.
Days later, Kramer met at McCain’s behest with Victoria Nuland, who served then as assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian affairs and the State Department, and Celeste Wallender, the top Russian affairs official at the National Security Council.”
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Moving the goalposts.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/20/now-russian-collusion-narrative-deflating-left-shifting-goalposts/
“Now That The Russian Collusion Narrative Is Deflating, The Left Is Shifting Goalposts
It’s increasingly difficult to sustain the smoke without any actual fire, and that reality is now evident in even liberal publications.”
“Nate Silver, of all people, recently tweeted that the scale of Russian involvement in the 2016 election was quite small, and its effect was not visible. Silver is of course not a Russian agent, nor should this sentiment be out of place.
After all, it seems so obvious that it shouldn’t even need mentioning in analytical circles. But it’s not often that we see an otherwise shrill and religiously anti-Republican national publication write a normal analytical opinion. It’s a signal of the scaling down of the Russian influence narrative that has been pushed for the last two years.
NPR’s essay on Russia collusion being unproven was a surprise: “Prosecutors say that [Paul] Manafort shouldn’t get any consideration for the information he has given the feds because he has been lying to them; Manafort’s lawyers say he gave the government valuable information. Nonetheless, the crimes for which the feds want Manafort to be locked up aren’t a Russian conspiracy to throw the election.”
It was followed by The Nation, no right-wing MAGA hatters, with a thorough essay discussing the differences of the ones charged, the charges, and the original narrative of the collusion story. In an absurd irony, the piece notes how Manafort might go to jail for a “crime” of ostensibly tilting the Ukrainian government towards the European Union — weaning them away from Russia:
When it comes to his work in Ukraine, Manafort, as former Fusion GPS researcher Graham Stack writes, was convicted for ‘doing the opposite of colluding with Russia.’ In Ukraine, Manafort pushed a pro-Western agenda … Internal documents released by Mueller make clear that Manafort tried to steer his client, then – Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, to align with the European Union and away from Russia, or, in Manafort’s own words, promote ‘the key geopolitical messaging of how “Europe and the U.S. should not risk losing Ukraine to Russia.”‘
On former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, the piece notes, “The only Russia-related criminal activity comes in Cohen’s lies to Congress about the effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, a failure that never got beyond a letter of intent.”
So, while Manafort and Cohen are guilty of several felonies like campaign finance misappropriation, or perjury, or even corruption, the “original sin” is still unsubstantiated. “
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Worse and worse.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/19/evidence-coming-flynn-case-makes-muller-look-worse-worse/
“The contrast between the outcome of Andrew McCabe lying to the FBI and Michael Flynn lying to the FBI demonstrate the DoJ is ruled by only one law: Does it help get Trump?”
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“Has the government complied with Sullivan’s February 16, 2018 order directing the government to turn over all evidence relevant to Flynn’s guilt or innocence? Flynn made the mistake of embarrassing the government by pointing out that the FBI encouraged Flynn to participate in the fateful interview without a lawyer and did not warn him that a misstatement could lead to criminal conviction.
Logically, there has to be something that will inform the interviewee that a misstatement could lead to jail time. 18 U.S.C. § 1001 requires that the person make the statement “knowingly and willfully” make a “materially” false statement. It’s not at all clear that Flynn knew or should have known the FBI was there to investigate a crime. The closest we have is McCabe’s written recollection of a conversation with Flynn that he wanted two agents to discuss a “sensitive” matter with Flynn. McCabe wrote,
I told LTG Flynn that I had a sensitive matter to discuss. I explained that in light of the significant media coverage and public discussion about his recent contacts with Russian representatives, that Director Comey and I felt that we needed to have two of our agents sit down with the General and hear from him the details of those conversations.
Or so the man who repeatedly lied to the FBI himself says he remembers telling Flynn. After one reads the 302 of the January interview that followed this McCabe phone call, one can be skeptical that McCabe did indeed clearly warn Flynn that the agents were there as part of an investigation. Without that admonition, Flynn may have felt free to guess about details he did not remember. That’s what makes it a trap.”
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“So as much as those sympathetic to Flynn might hope he’ll file a motion to set aside his plea, a father’s loyalty to his son might be the reason he continues to bear the apparent injustice without objection. Serious legal professionals (here and here, for example) have questioned whether Flynn might have lacked the criminal intent to be guilty of anything and whether the entire conviction is just a sad case of the power of prosecutors to crush their individual citizens.
Flynn’s effort to attack the conduct of the government in the sentencing phase obviously backfired with this judge. There’s a process for making those challenges and the judge rightly insisted Flynn follow that process instead of attempting to bait the judge into doing it on his own.
Had the Flynn conviction fallen apart, it would have been devastating to the Mueller probe but a long-overdue rebuke to the politically motivated investigation. The lack of any significant jail time in both the Flynn (anticipated) and the George Papadopoulos cases are signs that the cases were at risk for the very dubious techniques used to trap these targets into process crimes.
While it does not appear that Flynn had anything to do with any alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. 2016 election, there is a reasonable conversation to be had about the appropriateness of an intelligence official going to work for a foreign government (i.e., Turkey) immediately after leaving a sensitive post with the U.S. government. Turkey attempted to use Flynn to coax a change in U.S. policy as part of an extensive lobbying campaign.
By my guess, there are thousands of former U.S. officials around Washington D.C. selling influence for foreign money. For example, the registered agents representing Saudi Arabia spent $1.6 million in the midterm elections (and so many like Flynn and Manafort don’t register). Maybe Flynn deserved to go to prison for a long time for “selling out” his country to Turkey. But he won’t. Because the only crimes that matter are the ones that can be used to get Trump.”
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Sweet revenge……
And a rebuke of the McCain family and their “politics.”
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/sweet_revenge_on_the_mccains_martha_mcsally_to_take_the_old_mans_senate_seat.html
“Martha McSally was not a perfect Republican candidate for Senate, and her inability to win an election against an utterly revolting and gaffe-prone leftist such as Kyrsten Sinema in a place like Arizona (which, at least on paper, doesn’t permit ballot harvesting) doesn’t speak all that well for her.
But the choice of McSally to fill the unfinished Senate term of Sen. John McCain by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey was sweet news indeed.
That’s because the loud opposition to her from the McCain family was so very bad, and this appointment stands as a rebuke to them. Better still, now that McSally’s got the job over their objections, she owes them nothing.
Here was the Washington Examiner story four days ago:
Meghan McCain’s husband said that Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., would be an “unwise choice” for Arizona senator.
“McSally strikes me as an unwise choice for a number of reasons,” Ben Domenech tweeted. “She’s like an NFL team that plays down to its opponents’ level – and she’ll be tasked with running for re-election immediately.”
He made a tweet, and his wife, McCain’s daughter Meghan, retweeted it. Then McSally went to try to make nice with the dragon-lady matron of the bunch, Cindy McCain, but things didn’t seem to get any better, though officially they say so, minus their endorsement, of course. The whole thing was over something embarrassingly small and petty, too: McSally’s “crime” in their eyes was that she didn’t bring McCain’s name up in a speech on some defense authorization bill. Whoa! That was enough to turn this touchy bunch entirely against the woman, who had actually been a friend of McCain’s, and then they got loud about it.
The McCains overreached. They overplayed their hand. They horned in where they had no business. And they got smacked down.
Ducey’s appointment of her stands as a great rebuke to these obnoxious and entitled people, who, frankly, have no right at all to say who they think should finish his term. Had Ducey been a Democrat, the job would have been filled by a Democrat – and knowing the McCains, they probably would have actually liked that. Instead, Arizona got a normal Republican, who made the mistake of offending them by a tiny omission, and too bad if they don’t like it.”
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The biggest problem America has is spiritual.
Not just religious, that too.
But we have left the founding principle of independence, self determination, respect and the religious foundation we once had.
It is more than kneeling for the national anthem, that is just a sign of the times.
I likely won’t see it, but I pray for my grandkids every day.
I am not a prophet, nor a prophet’s son. But, concerning the pullout from Syria.
Where else will we have troops?
The reason I ask is because I have always been puzzled by the battle of Zachariah 12. It has never been fought. It can’t be fought as long as US troops are in the way.
Not a comment on the wisdom of the move. Just an observation.
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So like the witch hunt against Trump, this so-called Russian interference story was actually just Democrat interference. Both are false canards started by Dems to smear their opponents..
It’s sad that so many Alabama Republicans fell for it.
https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/19/democrats-russian-bots-false-flag/
“DEMOCRATS RAN RUSSIAN BOT ‘FALSE FLAG’ OPERATION IN ALABAMA — AND MEDIA FELL FOR IT”
“Democratic operatives created thousands of Twitter accounts posing as Russian bots in order to boost Alabama Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in the October 2017 special election by linking his Republican opponent, Roy Moore, to Russian influence campaigns.
The operatives, who were funded by liberal billionaire Reid Hoffman independently of Jones’s campaign, created more than a thousand Russian-language accounts that followed Moore’s Twitter account overnight, The New York Times reported Wednesday evening.
Hoffman gave the operatives $100,000 for their project, which included creating fake conservative Facebook accounts to dissuade voters from supporting Moore, according to the Times.
“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the operatives recounted in an internal report obtained by the Times.
Media outlets — both in Alabama and nationally — fell for the ploy and amplified the false narrative in October 2017.
The Montgomery Advertiser, an Alabama affiliate of USA Today, was the first to run with the story. Brian Lyman, the reporter on that story, did not immediately return The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. National media outlets quickly seized upon Lyman’s story.
“Roy Moore flooded with fake Russian Twitter followers,” read the headline on a New York Post story, which cited the Advertiser.
Left-wing publication Mother Jones cited the same report in a story titled, “Russian Propagandists Are Pushing for Roy Moore to Win.” That report didn’t rely exclusively on the fake Twitter followers, citing Russian media’s favorable coverage of Moore.
The Washington Post focused its story on the fact that Moore blamed Democrats for the fake accounts.”
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And Moore was right.
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More…..
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/12/democratic-tech-experts-adopted-russian-tactics-in-alabama-senate-race/
“The New York Times dropped a bombshell on Wednesday about how Democratic tech experts adopted Russian tactics supposedly used in the 2016 election in order to help Democrat Doug Jones defeat Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race in 2017:
One participant in the Alabama project, Jonathon Morgan, is the chief executive of New Knowledge, a small cyber security firm that wrote a scathing account of Russia’s social media operations in the 2016 election that was released this week by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
An internal report on the Alabama effort, obtained by The New York Times, says explicitly that it “experimented with many of the tactics now understood to have influenced the 2016 elections.”
The project’s operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention.
“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says.
Morgan insisted that the project was meant “to explore how certain online tactics worked, not to affect the election.” I doubt it would have worked due to Moore’s past of pursuing underage girls for hookups.
The measly budget of $100,000 probably didn’t help things considering the senate race cost $51 million, which includes the primaries.
Even Moore’s campaign had suspicions about interference:
“We did have suspicions that something odd was going on,” said Rich Hobson, Mr. Moore’s campaign manager. Mr. Hobson said that although he did not recall any hard evidence of interference, the campaign complained to Facebook about potential chicanery.
“Any and all of these things could make a difference,” Mr. Hobson said. “It’s definitely frustrating, and we still kick ourselves that Judge Moore didn’t win.””
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Did Trump just throw a wrench in their plans?
If so, good, now do your jobs and pass a budget, not yet another CR that kicks it down the road.
——————
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Meanwhile, conservatives (not the globalist pretenders) are taking matters into their own hands. 🙂
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Congress sucks.
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Yeah……
Good times…..
https://twitter.com/BuckSexton/status/1075480011270950912
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Dissent will not be tolerated.
This guy is being targeted, plain and simple.
——————
Yep.
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He’ll probably have to shut it down. But what is “it” really: just a few agencies. Dems and Republican NTers should be careful lest the public figure out they can live just fine without those agencies. Permanently.
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I’m glad they told me ahead of time, so I don’t bother wasting my time watching it.
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https://twitter.com/johnanimal69/status/1075516786051821574
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And they wonder why….. 🙄
https://twitter.com/RealDanLee/status/1075553503051952129
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Why am I not shocked?
Maybe because I already knew Antifa was the Democrat party’s Brownshirts.
———————
https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/18/antifa-leader-violent-communist/
“Smash Racism DC organizer Jose Martin, also known as “Chepe,” is a radical communist and Antifa leader operating in the U.S. He advocates for the violent overthrow of the government and for the murder of the rich and claims to have international involvement in left-wing movements.
…
But the agitator has made great efforts to separate his fanatical personas from a third identity, his legal name: Joseph “Jose” Alcoff. Under that identity, the 36-year-old has worked as a payday campaign manager for Americans for Financial Reform since 2016, where he advocates for reforms of predatory loans before members of Congress.
…
He has used his Jose Martin identity to make public appearances to promote socialism, once calling for a society without police. But his communist Chepe alias makes his Jose Martin identity seem moderate, using it to advocate for violence to achieve his goal of eliminating capitalism and the U.S. government.
…
Meanwhile, in his professional capacity as Alcoff, he’s been quoted in press releases from Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and appeared at an event with Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia outside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in March and has been pictured alongside Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters.”
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Kevin Williamson @ National Review has a positive article about Mexico’s border wall that we are helping to pay for—-southern border that is. But it’s not just a wall; there is also police and military presence. That’s starting to sound familiar….and it’s not a bad idea. What is a standing army legitimately supposed to do if not protect the borders of the country?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/mexico-border-security-us-foreign-aid-good-idea/
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THIS is CNN.
Fake News.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/german-star-reporter-forced-to-resign-after-admitting-to-have-fabricated-multiple-stories
“Writer touted by CNN as ‘Journalist of the Year’ forced to resign for fabricating stories”
“The German magazine Der Spiegel revealed Wednesday that one of its top award-winning journalists fabricated many of his articles, inventing characters, sources, and their quotes “on a grand scale” for many years.
Claas Relotius, a reporter and editor, admitted to fabricating parts of at least 14 stories following the magazine’s internal investigation. The publication said the issue “marks a low point in the 70-year history of Der Spiegel.”
“I am sick and I need to get help,” he reportedly told the magazine.
The reporter contributed around 60 articles to Der Spiegel, one of the leading German magazines for investigative reporting. He previously worked for other publications in Europe and won awards such as CNN Journalist of the Year in 2014.
The fabricated articles include a phone interview with the parents of free agent NFL player Colin Kaepernick and a story about an American woman who claims to have volunteered to witness the executions of death row inmates.
Relotius also drew the fury of locals in Fergus Falls, Minn., after spending three weeks in town and fabricating facts, characters and quotes from people in an effort to portray the town in a negative light.
“What happened is beyond what I could have ever imagined: An article titled ‘Where they pray for Trump on Sundays,’ and endless pages of an insulting, if not hilarious, excuse for journalism,” wrote Michele Anderson and Jake Krohn who investigated Relotius’ Der Spiegel article about the town.
Both Anderson and Krohn went on to reveal that the article doesn’t contain any truth except for the town’s population, the average temperature, and names of the businesses or public figures.
Nearly everything else, including a coal plant employee named Neil Becker, who doesn’t actually exist, or quotes from a restaurant employee, who was falsely called the owner of a restaurant and whose son was given a fictional illness, was made up.”
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And THIS is pathetic.
https://news.grabien.com/story-18-most-mortifying-media-moments-2018-1
“18 MOST MORTIFYING MEDIA MOMENTS OF 2018
‘This was the year when reporters … began loosening the usual boundaries governing journalism’
“It was the year “corroborating evidence” became the most hotly contested term in America, Michael Avenatti was unleashed on an unconsenting public, on-air profanity was normalized, and reporters worked overtime as Democratic cheerleaders, frequently urging lawmakers to deliver them the media event of the millennium — the impeachment of President Trump.
Whatever Trump was for, the media came out against. When Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to become the next justice on the Supreme Court, the media went to war, digging through every trace of his existence, even combing through notes he sent in high school — anything that might turn up the silver bullet that sank his nomination.
There was so much, in fact, that we had expand our normal custom of compiling the “Top 10 Most Mortifying Media Moments” and expand it to a more befitting “Top 18.”
So now, without any further ado, here are the 18 most mortifying media moments from 2018.
18 — Beto O’Rourke Is a Rock Star Who’s Making People Horny (July – Nov., 2018)
Starting circa July, the media came down with a fever, and the only prescription was more Beto O’Rourke. The major media effectively offered Beto an open-invite to receive a glowing profile whenever his schedule permitted. He was featured on the cover of virtually every publication covering politics, and likewise received effusive praise in the broadcast media. In one representative moment, ABC’s Paula Faris, traveling with Beto on the campaign trail, marveled at his adoring fans and gushed aloud, “You’re a rock star!” Things got so heated, in fact, that the Daily Dot “reported“ that an Instagram video of Beto making dinner was “making people horny.”
17 — Cheering on North Korea at the Olympics (Feb. 10, 2018)
The American media went gaga for the sister of North Korea’s dictator, Kim Yo-jong, a younger sibling to Kim Jong Un, and the North Korean cheer squad, during the 2018 Winter Olympics. Yo-jong, who attended the games on behalf of North Korea, is the deputy director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of North Korea’s Worker’s Party and a member of the Politburo.
CNN offered the most excited praise, publishing an article titled, “Kim Jong Un’s sister is stealing the show at the Winter Olympics.” The article began, “If ‘diplomatic dance’ were an event at the Winter Olympics, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister would be favored to win gold.” The Washington Post was likewise smitten with Kim Jung Un’s sister, likening her to the “Ivanka Trump of North Korea.”
The North Korean cheer squad, who appeared at both the joint South/North Korean women hockey team’s game and the joint Korean speedskating performance, also received glowing reviews in the American media. A Wall Street Journal article triumphed: “North Korean Cheerleaders: 100 Olympic Stars Are Born.” The article describes the cheer squad as the highlight of the speedskating event: “The surprise came when the South Koreans on the ice were upstaged from the stands by over 100 of their neighbors from over the border, the North Korean cheer squad.” During NBC’s coverage of the Olympics, reporter Mary Carillo excited described watching the North Korean cheer squad. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” she said. “It was a remarkable scene.”
16 — CNN Harassed a Random Old Lady for … Doing the Same Thing CNN Did (Feb, 2018)
For some reason CNN at one point tracked down a senior citizen Facebook user who, apparently, shared a meme that had originally been posted by a Russian troll farm. CNN’s Drew Griffin tracked her down and essentially accused the unsuspecting grandma of acting as an agent of a foreign government. It was painfully awkward for her, for Griffin, and for all of the viewers at home. But what was especially ironic was that the woman’s “crime” was doing … exactly what CNN itself had itself done: inadvertently promoted an event in part organized by the aforementioned Russian troll farm. After Trump won the 2016 election, CNN enthusiastically reported from an anti-Trump “Love Rally” in New York City, which Robert Mueller later reported to have been organized by Russians.
15 — Networks Let Michael Avenatti Use Them to Spread Smears (Sept. 26, 2018).
After celebrity TV attorney Michael Avenatti began claiming he had a secret client who would upend Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, the media effectively extended him an open invitation to spread his scurrilous smears. Once he unveiled his client, Julie Swetnick, and her bizarre claims of drugs, drinking, and gang rape, he was invited onto ABC, CNN, MSNBC, where he presented no evidence against Kavanaugh, but helped add to the circus atmosphere by challenging Kavanaugh to a lie detector test. NewsBusters reported that Avenatti was treated to more than 170 interviews from March to November. CNN’s media reporter, Brian Stelter, even promoted Avenatti as a “serious” contender for the 2020 Democratic nomination.
NBC tried to corroborate Avenatti’s gang-rape claims but could not, yet the network let the accuser spread them anyway. Later, when fame-thirsty attorney was arrested for beating up his girlfriend and was evicted from his office for non-payment and was sued by his former partners for refusing to pay previous settlements … the media lost all interest in Michael Avenatti.
14 — Steve Schmidt Loses Touch with Reality, MSNBC Keeps Inviting Him on Anyway (Jan. – Dec., 2018)
Like many others in the media, the Trump Era has severed Steve Schmidt from any sense of perspective. His appearances on MSNBC can now be reliably counted on for serving up hefty portions of hilariously detached hyperbole. Schmidt, we often wonder, must surely be running out of ways to express how much he hates Trump — but somehow he keeps managing to up the ante. In September, he said of Trump: “On any given moment, the combination of his erratic behavior, his ignorance could pose a profound danger to every single person in this country and literally every inhabitant of the planet Earth.” In a December segment on Michael Cohen pleading guilty to a campaign finance violation, Schmidt wondered aloud: “Look, we’re at this moment in time right now where we have enough information to sit and wonder, might this be the greatest crime in American history?” ”
———————
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Journalists built this all by themselves. Own it.
“After The Guardian published an uncorroborated report by Luke Harding and Dan Collyns alleging Paul Manafort met with Julian Assange at London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, Greenwald called out the reporters for failing to vet the information—accusing the publication on Twitter of behavior that “erodes trust in journalism and undermines the work of journalists everywhere.” From Greenwald’s perspective, it was indicative of a much more frightening trend in media: the reliance on government sources for scoops and information
“I think journalists ought to be aware that when you’re using intelligence [sources], there’s always a high risk you’re being deceived, lied to, propagandized or manipulated since that is what those agencies are designed to do,” explained Greenwald. “That’s clearly what happened here.”
The veteran investigator says he’s working on follow-up reporting intended to set the record straight. In the meantime, Greenwald appears content to snipe at his former colleagues, often over Twitter, while reveling in his role as edgelord of international politics.
“If you look at Luke Harding’s traffic metrics, they went through the roof,” Greenwald told Observer. “That’s an incentive scheme to continue to do @#$%%$ journalism.”
______________
But they so desperately wanted, no needed, it to be true, in this case and countless others. Too bad it rarely is. Their credibility is dying the death of a million small cuts, all self-inflicted.
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Do what voters want, fund the wall.
If not……..
Shut. It. Down.
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/trump-meeting-house-republicans-amid-border-wall-showdown-172011012.html
“House Speaker Paul Ryan emerged from a last-minute White House meeting Thursday between President Donald Trump and House Republicans to say that the president told them he will refuse to sign a stopgap funding bill as it’s currently written — a measure that would avert a shutdown before a Friday midnight deadline.
Ryan told reporters that he and other GOP leaders were going back to try to add more border security funding to the legislation.
“The president informed us that he will not sign the bill that came over from the Senate last evening because of his legitimate concerns for border security, so what we’re gonna do is go back to the House and work with our members,” Ryan, R-Wis., said. “We want to keep the government open but we also want to see an agreement that protects the border.”
Trump had called the meeting on short notice amid criticism that he was “softening” on a key campaign promise.
“The president said what the Senate sent over is just kicking the can down the road,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said. “We want to solve this problem. We want to make sure we keep the government open and we’re gonna work to make sure we have that done.”
Earlier, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced, “At this moment, the President does not want to go further without border security, which includes steel slats or a wall. The President is continuing to weigh his options.”
Besides Ryan and McCarthy, ABC News confirmed that Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows, Majority Whip Steve Scalise and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio were at the White House meeting.
Ryan declined to comment as he left the Capitol late Thursday morning and returned to the Capitol without engaging reporters. “
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This foreign meddler and his foreign money needs to be removed from US politics.
Note it’s Dems once again colluding with foreigners to influence elections.
If Mueller needs someone to indict, why isn’t this guy under his microscope?
https://freebeacon.com/politics/soros-gave-1-35m-to-nonpartisan-watchdog-inundating-trump-with-lawsuits/
“Soros Gave $1.35M to ‘Nonpartisan’ Watchdog Inundating Trump with Lawsuits
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shares employees with Media Matters, state filings show”
“Liberal billionaire George Soros provided $1.35 million to a “nonpartisan” government watchdog organization last year that is hitting the Trump administration with a steady flow of complaints and lawsuits in an attempt to “damage” his presidency, according to tax filings provided to the Washington Free Beacon.
Separate state filings also reveal that the “nonpartisan” watchdog shares employees with the liberal Media Matters for America, an organization that was founded by Democratic operative and Clinton loyalist David Brock. Confidential documents handed out by Brock to big money donors in early 2017 and obtained by the Free Beacon previously shed light on how Brock planned to attack Trump over the course of his presidency using his constellation of organizations.
Soros gave $1.35 million to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that does not reveal its donors. The group has been involved with a number of high-profile lawsuits and complaints against Trump and other Republicans. Its top members regularly appear on news programs attacking the administration and members of the GOP but are rarely identified as having a left-wing mission by the outlets and on-air personalities.
Soros’s donations to CREW came from two entities in his Open Society Foundations network including $1,250,000 from the Foundation to Promote Open Society and $100,000 from the Open Society Policy Center, according to a review of his groups’ most recent tax forms covering the 2017 fiscal year that were provided by Soros’s spokesperson.”
—————————
And the above is just the tip of his influence iceberg.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/george-soros-gave-1m-to-group-that-paid-for-fusion-gps-research
“George Soros gave $1M to group that paid for Fusion GPS research”
“Democratic billionaire George Soros has given $1 million to a group which has paid for research from Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that commissioned the infamous Trump dossier.
The money was given to the Democracy Integrity Project, according to a Soros representative who spoke to the New York Times. Soros is mulling donating even more.
The $1 million figure appears to be newly revealed information. It was reported earlier this year by the Washington Post that Soros had given a grant to the nonprofit group.
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The globalist wing of the R party will not be pleased.
That makes me happy.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/20/border-wall-funding-house-1070940
“Ryan’s announcement came after an hour-plus meeting in the Oval Office between Trump, Ryan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and two members of the House Freedom Caucus, Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Jordan and Meadows had led a revolt on the House floor on Wednesday night because the bill did not fund Trump’s border wall, a call that was taken up by conservative commentators in the media. All of this proved too much for Trump to resist, leading to an embarrassing setback for Ryan, McCarthy, Scalise and other top House Republicans. Once again, the Freedom Caucus is the tail that wags the dog.
“The president informed us he will not sign the bill that came from the Senate last evening because of his legitimate concerns for border security,” Ryan told reporters after meeting with Trump at the White House. “So what we’re going to do is go back to the House and work with our members.”
Ryan, McCarthy and Scalise had been urging Trump to avoid a shutdown and agree to a stopgap funding measure that would keep the government open until Feb. 8. The party leaders initially argued that Senate Democrats will never approve Trump’s demand for another $5 billion in wall funding.
After the meeting, McCarthy embraced Trump’s position.
“We had a great discussion with him now,” McCarthy said. “The president said that what the Senate sent over is just kicking the can down the road. We want to solve this problem, we want to keep the government open.”
Meadows and Jordan had argued that once Democrats get control of the House on Jan. 3, incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her colleagues will never approve any money for the president’s border wall project so they had to act now.
Meadows, the Freedom Caucus chairman, along with more than a dozen other conservatives, took to the House floor Wednesday night in a series of protest floor speeches demanding more money for the wall.
“My president, we’re going to back you up, if you veto this bill, we’ll be there.” Meadows said on the floor. Hours earlier, Meadows tweeted that a punt into February would be a “Valentine’s Day gift” to Pelosi and her deputies.”
——————
Once again Trump sides with the majority of voters.
The globalists? Not so much…….
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I watched the president’s presser. He made many good points about how this is a national security issue. I can’t find it on youtube yet, but I’ll post it when I find it.
One of his central points was how 80% of the heroin/fentanyl in this country comes across the southern border. He also blamed it for 80,000 deaths a year. I thought that was a bit of hyperbole to make a point. Everyone knows about the heroin epidemic, but few know the real numbers, myself included. The sobering reality is, he’s not exaggerating. If this isn’t a national security issue, nothing is.
And that’s without even touching on the cost of human trafficking, crime, murder, and the rest that cost us as well. Illegal immigration costs us billions a year. So a 5 billion tab to ease the flow will pay for itself in about a week.
“A class of synthetic drugs has replaced heroin in many major American drug markets, ushering in a more deadly phase of the opioid epidemic.
New numbers Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that drug overdoses killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2017, a record. Overdose deaths are higher than deaths from H.I.V., car crashes or gun violence at their peaks.”
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And later when you watch the news and they try to tell you the market volatility is because of the shutdown, know you’re being sold a bogus premise. The market was already heading down due to The Fed announcing 2 coming interest rate jumps and a declining tech sector, where a valuation correction has been long overdue. While Trump’s actions contribute as well, it’s not one of the main reasons. Anyone who says otherwise is being dishonest.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/20/us-futures-following-wednesdays-sell-off.html
“Dow drops 470 points to 14-month low in second day of big losses following Fed rate hike”
“U.S. stocks swooned for a second day Thursday after the Federal Reserve raised benchmark interest rates and said that it would continue to let its massive balance sheet shrink at the current pace. Fears of a government shutdown also sent stocks tumbling to new lows Thursday afternoon.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 464.06 points to 22,859.6, bringing its two-day declines to more than 800 points and its 5-day losses to more than 1,700 points. The S&P 500 fell 1.5 percent to finish at 2,467.41 as technology stocks underperformed. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.6 percent and closed at 6,528.41, briefly dipping into bear market territory amid big losses in Amazon and Apple. The Nasdaq is 19.7 percent below its recent high. Companies in the S&P 500 have lost a total of $2.39 trillion in market cap this month. The Cboe Volatility Index — one of the market’s best gauges of marketplace fear — rose above 30.
The Dow and Nasdaq posted their lowest closes since October 2017, while the S&P 500 finished at its lowest level since September 2017.
The Dow and S&P 500, which are both in corrections, are on track for their worst December performance since the Great Depression in 1931, down more than 10 percent each this month. The S&P 500 is now in the red for 2018 by 7.7 percent.”
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Half way there.
Now it will be up to the Senate. Should be interesting to see were some come down on this, especially Flake and his fellow members of the soon to be out the door gang.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-government-shutdown-looms-trump-insists-wall-funding-000710790–business.html
“The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a Republican bill to provide President Donald Trump $5 billion to start building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border along with funds to keep several federal agencies operating beyond Friday.
By a vote of 217-185, the House approved the temporary funding bill.”
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