Tag: Trump

Digging into both the Biden top secret documents and the Trump documents


Reminder: Vice President Biden had no authority to declassify secret documents he took to his think tank

The Daily Wire reported on what they thought was a breaking story on 9 January 2023 (although other sources — such as the next article below — reveal the Department of “Justice” knew of these files before the midterms).

Attorney General Merrick Garland has reportedly assigned U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch to review classified material from President Joe Biden’s time as vice-president that was discovered at a Biden think tank.

CBS News reported that the approximately 10 documents were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington.

The files were discovered by Biden’s personal attorneys when they “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.”

The attorneys said that the information was found in a box with other materials that were not classified.

CNN reported that some of the classified materials that were discovered included top-secret files designated as “sensitive compartmented information,” which means that the materials include highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.

(Read more at the Daily Wire)

President Trump could declare documents to be unclassified or classified. Vice President Biden clearly broke the law by taking these classified documents

According to NBC News a limit to the presidential power to classify and declassify documents rests in the Atomic Energy Act.

Sitting presidents do have “unilateral and complete authority” to declassify material, though it doesn’t fully extend to information classified under the Atomic Energy Act, said national security attorney Bradley P. Moss.

Oddly, just as Byron York (published in Northwest Georgia News) pointed out that the Democrats’ “nuclear code” excuse depended on the Democrats’ “secret evidence” argument.

Think back five years to the frenzy of news reporting and commentary over what was called Trump-Russia “collusion” — the allegation that the 2016 Trump campaign conspired with Russia to fix the presidential election. Most of the coverage, and especially the commentary, seemed predicated on the belief that collusion did, in fact, take place. But later, in one of history’s great never minds, the extensive investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller was unable to establish that Trump-Russia collusion — prosecutors called it conspiracy or coordination — ever occurred at all. The Mueller team spent years investigating an alleged crime and in the end concluded they could not establish that the alleged crime even took place, much less who did it.

The striking feature of the media’s collusion talkathon in 2017 and 2018 was that much of it was based on secret evidence. There were super-secret recordings of Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, talking to the Russians. There was secret evidence gathered by a secret FBI investigation. There was secret testimony to Mueller’s prosecutors. And there was, famously, a secret dossier of Trump allegations. (Unlike the other examples, the dossier was actually revealed early in the investigation, which led fair-minded observers to suspect, correctly, that it was a fraud.)

Why re-tell that story? Because there is a new special counsel investigation of Trump, now a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Attorney General Merrick Garland instructed the new counsel, Jack Smith, to investigate two matters: Trump’s alleged role in inciting the Jan. 6 riot and the “investigation involving classified documents and other presidential records, as well as the possible obstruction of that investigation.” What is notable about the second topic, the documents investigation, is how much, like earlier probes, it is based on secret evidence.

(continued)

It is in the “public interest.” This is not just a legal case, Garland was saying, but one in which the public has a significant interest, and therefore one the DOJ must treat differently from other cases. The department must take steps to ensure public confidence in the investigation.

The heart of the documents case appears to be allegations that Trump improperly handled classified documents. But, of course, there are different degrees of classification, and beyond that, there is a widespread consensus that the government classifies too many documents to begin with. So to make Trump’s offense, his memento-collecting, sound as serious as possible, there have been leaks suggesting that he mishandled the most sensitive documents that the government has.

In the early weeks of the investigation, there were leaks that Trump’s papers were “classified documents relating to nuclear weapons,” in the words of the Washington Post, and also documents involving clandestine human sources who could face death or imprisonment in foreign lands if their identities were released through Trump’s actions. There were papers that “could reveal carefully guarded secrets about U.S. intelligence-gathering methods,” causing “grave concern” in the intelligence community, the Post reported. “At least one of the documents seized by the FBI describes Iran’s missile program,” the Post continued. “Other documents described highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China.”

Here is the problem. The investigation is in the “public interest,” according to the attorney general, but no one in the public knows what the documents are. Other than the broadly worded reports based on leaks, the public has no idea what they might be. Yes, the Justice Department released a staged photo of documents and cover pages that said TOP SECRET/SCI lying on a carpet at Mar-a-Lago, but no one in the public knows what they are. There is no way for any member of the public to evaluate the evidence.

(Read the rest at Northwest Georgia News)

Secret evidence and secret trials goes against everything in American jurisprudence. Being able to face your accusers and review the evidence against you stand as central rights.

Even if this were Biden, that should not be allowed to stand.

When it comes to a fellow conservative, it really will not stand.

…

Biden’s secret documents were known before the midterms

MarketWatch revealed that Biden’s secret documents were found before the 2022 elections. (Bolding is mine for emphasis.)

The Justice Department is reviewing a batch of potentially classified documents found in the Washington office space of President Joe Biden’s former institute, the White House said Monday.

Special counsel to the president Richard Sauber said “a small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered as Biden’s personal attorneys were clearing out the offices of the Penn Biden Center, where the president kept an office after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign in 2019. The documents were found on Nov. 2, 2022, in a “locked closet” in the office, Sauber said.

(Read more at MarketWatch)

This could have been a headline for an honest press and an honest Department of “Justice”

One has to ask these questions of the Biden team:

  • Since there were complaints by Democrats of security around the Secret-Service-protected Mar-a-Lago (where they speculated that just anyone could get past the Secret Service and into the locked safe in Trump’s closet), who had access to that closet at the University of Pennsylvania?
  • Since we know that the CCP provided $54.6 million in donations to the University of Pennsylvania between 2014 and 2019, could any CCP representatives have intercepted these top secret files on Ukraine?
  • Since this deals with Ukraine (as did the Hunter laptop story that Twitter/Facebook/Google and the main stream media suppressed at the request of Biden’s FBI), does this point toward a further corrupting of the FBI?

…

Biden could consider applying his own words on classified documents to this situation — he might also consider impeachable offenses

The New York Post not only provides us the words of Joe Biden regarding his opinion of classified documents taken by President Trump, but also a window into the payments made by the University of Pennsylvania to Joe Biden. Millions of the dollars to that university came from the Chinese Communist Party.

During a “60 Minutes” interview with Scott Pelley in September of last year, Biden ripped Trump as “totally irresponsible” for keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and residence. 

“When you saw the photograph of the top-secret documents laid out on the floor at Mar-a-Lago, what did you think to yourself? Looking at that image,” Pelley asked Biden.

“How that could possibly happen,” the president answered. “How one –  anyone could be that irresponsible. And I thought what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods? By that I mean names of people who helped or –  et cetera. And it just – totally irresponsible.”

Federal authorities have recovered some 300 classified documents from the Trump presidency at Mar-a-Lago and other storage sites since January 2021, spurring a federal criminal investigation into violations by Trump and his associates of the Presidential Records Act.

(continued)

The Penn Biden Center think tank was founded in 2018 and is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. The center purports to be “completely independent of the Biden administration.”

Biden earned nearly $1 million from the University of Pennsylvania to be an honorary professor from 2017 to 2019, despite appearing rarely at the Ivy League school.

The school has raked in millions in anonymous donations from China since putting Biden’s name on the think tank, including $15.8 million in Chinese gifts in 2017 and one staggering $14.5 million donation in May 2018, records show.

The University of Pennsylvania has received a total of $54.6 million in donations from China between 2014 and 2019, The Post reported in April of 2022.

(Read more at the New York Post)

The worst thing about all of this is that Democrats will condemn the nation to the rule of a tyrant rather than condemn one of their own

Recently, Leslie Stahl complained that Republicans were an “embarrassment to their party and an embarrassment to the nation” by participating in the Democratic process and debating the matters leading to the election of the Speaker of the House. For just a week, they debated. When it came to the autocratically-selected January 6 committee and the long period they spent on their hearings and findings, I don’t remember similar complaints from Stahl.

But she, as do most Democrats, detests the real democratic system.

…

Trump took documents as the chief executive in his case to prove deep state actions against Americans

The Business Insider shares Trump’s belief that the documents he saved would demonstrate the reach of the deep state into American life.

President Donald Trump pushed aides to preserve documents from the Russia investigation that he believed exonerated him, because he believed that Joe Biden would destroy them, Rolling Stone reported.

Trump told multiple people at the end of his presidency, including some who work in the White House, that he was worried that the incoming administration would destroy the papers, the report said.

He was afraid they would shred, bury, or destroy the documents, Rolling Stone reported.

Trump, the report said, believed the documents would reveal a so-called “Deep State” plot against him — a theory he and allies have regularly repeated, which claimed that people within the government were trying to frustrate him and his goals.

__

Biden took top secret documents while he was an underling without clearance and deposited them at a China-affiliated university

Even CNN lays out the top secret nature of the documents pushed away to the “think tank” at the CCP-supported University of Pennsylvania.

The classified materials included some top-secret files with the “sensitive compartmented information” designation, also known as SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.

After the discovery, Biden’s lawyers immediately contacted the National Archives and Records Administration, which started looking into the matter, the source said. Biden’s team cooperated with NARA, which later came to view the situation as a mistake due to lack of safeguards for documents, the source said.

In November, NARA sent a referral to the Justice Department to look into the matter, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN.

(Read more at CNN)

Odd how we can occasionally find truth even in CNN

It is not often, but sometimes truth does leak out in the oddest of places.

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The unethical Department of “Justice” and the immoral Attorney General knew of these top secret documents before the 2022 midterms

The Washington Examiner quotes John Solomon as he outlines the ways the Dodgers of Justice (DOJ) and the top Biden government attorney have sullied their reputations again. (Bolding is mine for emphasis.)

Journalist John Solomon claimed that the delayed disclosure that classified documents were found in an office that used to be occupied by President Joe Biden has turned the political and legal tables on Biden, in an op-ed published Tuesday.

Solomon, the editor-in-chief and founder of Just The News, said that the classified documents that allegedly came from the Obama-Biden administration have raised “troubling new questions,” including whether there are additional documents missing from when Biden was the vice president, whether the delay in relaying the information to the public was for political reasons, and whether any foreign powers had access to the files.

(continued)

At least 10 classified documents were discovered at an office in the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C., in November. The office was used by Biden from 2017 until 2019, when he launched his presidential campaign.

Solomon additionally pointed out that United States Attorney General Merrick Garland knew of Biden’s documents before he announced the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate former President Donald Trump’s handling of the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 18. Garland and the Justice Department were informed of Biden’s documents on Nov. 2, 2022.

(Read more at the Washington Examiner)

As previously noted, Democrats like Garland have always put allegiance to tyrants over allegiance to the people. The actions of Garland noted above only prove it.

Since both Garland and the DOJ knew of Biden’s top secret documents on 2 November 2022, Garland should not have appointed a special prosecutor for the Trump case on 18 November 2022.

If the Department of “Justice” were anything more than an always-on-call legal team for Democrats, then there would have been large-scale resignations from this group of flacks when Garland called for a special prosecutor against Trump.

If Garland were anything but a ticked-off Democrat angling to get even for not getting onto the Supreme Court, he would have refused to come to President Dementia’s defense and would have hung him out to dry.

…

US intelligence materials related to Ukraine, Iran, and UK found in Biden’s private office

CNN explains how Ukraine and Iran again come to the center of another Biden scandal.

Among the items from Joe Biden’s time as vice president discovered in a private office last fall are 10 classified documents including US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has received a preliminary report on the documents inquiry, a law enforcement source said, and now faces the critical decision on how to proceed, including whether to open a full-blown criminal investigation.

(continued)

The documents were discovered on November 2, just six days before the midterm elections, but the matter only became public Monday due to news reports.

(Read more at the CNN)

Memory-challenged Democrats: What might Biden hide regarding Ukraine and Iran?

What little bits of information might Biden want to lay out in an unguarded office for Chinese or other agents to stumble across when it comes to top-secret files with the “sensitive compartmented information” designation concerning Iran and Ukraine?

…

 

How have Democrats provided industrial-level gaslighting?


Budget Gaslighting

Biden tries to brand himself as deficit cutter, not big spender

The Washington Examiner pulls back the curtain on Joe’s reinvention of himself as he tries to brand himself as a deficit cutter (despite all of his deficit spending).

President Joe Biden has been trying to convince voters he is a deficit cutter and not a big spender before November’s midterm elections.

But although Biden’s hyped student loan debt forgiveness announcement this week has energized Democrats, it has also rankled Republicans, independents, and budget experts as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warns the public to expect “some pain” as the central bank attempts to tame inflation.

Biden’s executive order this week canceling $10,000 in federal student debt for borrowers earning less than $125,000 a year and $20,000 for eligible Pell Grant recipients came after the White House Office of Management and Budget‘s midsession review.

The OMB amended its projected budget gap this week to $1 trillion in fiscal year 2022, $1.7 trillion less than last year, $400 billion less than March, and the lowest deficit since 2019 before the pandemic. But that was before the White House bowed to pressure Friday and provided an estimated cost for Biden’s student debt forgiveness proposal. The administration predicts the program’s price tag will be roughly $24 billion a year for the next decade if 75% of eligible borrowers participate. That $240 billion number is short of the Penn Wharton Budget Model’s $300 billion to $980 billion forecast.

Bipartisan Policy Center Senior Vice President Bill Hoagland ripped the OMB’s update, which was due July 15, as unhelpful. That is because it does not account for new legislation, including the $280 billion manufacturing and innovation CHIPS and Science Act and the $430 billion climate and healthcare Inflation Reduction Act, in addition to the student debt cancellation scheme, according to Hoagland.

“I don’t know what value it has other than, as I said, they can check the box that they released this report,” he told the Washington Examiner. “For those of us who follow these things, it’s not helpful but maybe for the PR purposes out there having another opportunity to say the deficit’s coming down. I just don’t know how they get away with that today when they turn around and potentially add back another $300 billion.”

For Hoagland, who did credit the OMB for “being more honest with the economic assumptions,” the next-best deficit projection would be published by the Congressional Budget Office in January.

“It’s come down, but I would be a little bit skeptical of how much of that reduction was associated with actual policy,” he said. “It was associated with not doing another stimulus package to deal with COVID.”

More broadly, Cato Institute’s tax policy studies director, Chris Edwards, dismissed Biden’s deficit messaging as “idiotic” and “bulls***,” agreeing with Hoagland that this summer’s legislative flurry will exacerbate it in the coming years.

Edwards, who similarly criticized former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) spending, compared the current political moment to the 1980s and ’90s, when lawmakers “feared running big deficits” in case they contributed to high inflation and interest rates. Consumer prices rose by 8.5% in the 12 months ending July 31, and Powell foreshadowed another 50 or 75 basis-point rate hike in September on Friday during a speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

“The landscape has changed so much in Washington now that, even with 9% inflation, politicians are opening the floodgates to spending,” Edwards said, contrasting Biden with former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. “That’s politically remarkable.”

“It’s completely wrong for the executive branch to take such a big spending action without the legislature being involved,” the Downsizing Government editor continued on student debt. “This is going to put $300 billion on the federal government’s tab that young people are going to have to pay back in the future in the form of higher taxes.”

Biden repeated his deficit talking points this week during his first Democratic National Committee fundraiser and rally of the 2022 midterm cycle after his summer vacation.

“You hear Republicans always talking about the deficit, right? About big-spending Democrats?” he said Thursday night during the Maryland rally. “Well, guess what? When the last guy was president, he increased the debt by $2 trillion in tax cuts, not a penny of it paid for. OK? Well, guess what we did? We’ve reduced the deficit.”

(Read more at the Washington Examiner)

If you are voting for Biden, something other than everyday reality has your mind

If, after almost two years of Biden disaster, you are still considering Democrats, then what reasoning stands for you? Is it that you depend on government subsidies? Are you a self-loathing Fetterman-clone who lives off the family trust fund and bought your house for a dollar from your sister? Are you a single-issue voter that has decided to zone in on transgenderism, destroying the police, abortion through all nine months in all states, or some other nebulous Democrat cause?

Why, at this point, does anyone put any credit in the Democrat message? 

…

Gaslighting by affixing names

Biden calls on the mob

The American Thinker exposes the way Biden started his name-calling trend by dubbing the opposition as “fascists.”

The Dems decided they needed a little presidential revival before the midterms to fire up their base — which isn’t looking very motivated at the moment. They gave President Gremlin a few days of vacation to rest up, a couple of shots of Adderall to switch on long-dormant brain cells, and a few hits of oxygen so he could walk out onto the stage without collapsing.

They trotted Biden out to a friendly audience in a suburb of Washington, D.C., and he gave a real barn-burner of a speech. He was angrier than an old coot screaming at the neighborhood kids to get off of his yard. Apparently, the Democrats think that is a good look for them. I wonder if they’ve considered that this speech may come to define the Biden presidency?

The speech was about those that voted for Donald Trump, but it revealed a great deal more about our presidential sock-puppet himself. We learned that Joe has an advanced case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. He said:

We’re seeing now either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA agenda. It’s not just Trump… It’s almost semi-fascism.

Our uniter in chief believes anyone who could be counted among the MAGA movement is a fascist — sorry, semi-fascist, if that makes any difference. He doesn’t just hate Donald Trump. He hates anyone who doesn’t hate Donald Trump. And the Democrats endorse this attitude because they’re no longer in the business of winning the competition of ideas. They’re in the business of amassing and applying raw governmental power.

(Read more at the American Thinker)

The only thing I have not seen so far has been a side-by-side video of Joe and Adolf

As you can see from the following tweets, the idiocy of Joe’s “Red Speech” was not well received by any but the dyed-in-the-wool (or would that be “died-in-the-wool” for the die-hards?).





…

Democrats acknowledge their gaslighting over President Trump’s claim that the documents had been declassified

The affidavit acknowledges the Trump administration official’s claim that President Trump had previously declassified the seized documents

One America News Network outlines how the documents at the center of the Mar-A-Lago raid were already declassified.

Lawmakers are outraged at the heavy redactions in the highly anticipated affidavit used to obtain a search warrant for the raid on Mar-a-Lago.

20 of the 38-pages that were released on Friday were either significantly or fully redacted. However, page-19 of the affidavit may point to the can of worms that the Department of Justice (DOJ) knows it opened by ransacking the 45th President’s Florida home earlier this month.

Page 19 cited a Breitbart article from May 5, 2022. That article stated that former Trump administration official, Kash Patel, said the 15-boxes of documents had already been declassified but that the classification markings had not been updated.

Patel maintained that President Trump retained and declassified those documents in anticipation of leaving government. He said that Trump did this because he thought the American public should have the right to read it for themselves.

“The President, by law, is the ultimate arbiter of the classification authority. If he says it, it’s declassified,” stated Patel. “It doesn’t need to go through the bureaucratic rigmarole (and) be written down in appropriate style. That’s not what the constitution says.”

Patel also vocalized that reports claiming that Trump took classified information are completely false and is just another disinformation campaign against him.

Trump appointed Patel alongside John Solomon in June as his representative for access to Presidential records. As the former Pentagon Chief of Staff, Patel explained that all previously classified documents have classification markings on them. This simply means they used to be classified. He added that “government simpletons” did not follow the President’s orders to have them marked as “declassified,” which he did and has the unilateral authority to do.

“When these rubes get in the way because they say ‘ohh well you know so-and-so didn’t sign the letter, White House counsel didn’t do this’ that’s a farce,” remarked Patel. “And not only did the President do it by writing in October of 2020, he did it verbally at least, to the best of my recollection, multiple times in the whole sets of documents.”

Patel did not go into specifics about the document, but he said they contain information on Russiagate and the Ukraine impeachment fiasco which Trump wanted the public to have access to. The former Pentagon Chief of Staff suggested that the documents may have selectively be leaked to advance a false political narrative. Patel posted a statement on Truth Social shortly after the redacted affidavit was released.

(See the closing tweet at OANN)

A passing acknowledgement is not enough for most

Because the press has continued to push the “Russia” angle for years after it was disproven by Mueller, just one admission in an affidavit will not be enough.

…

Joe Biden mocks President Trump’s ability to declassify documents while in office and, when challenged, responds with “I don’t know.”

The New York Post caught Joe Biden gaslighting on presidential powers to declassify — until he gets a challenge.

President Joe Biden on Friday mocked Donald Trump’s claim to have declassified all of the documents targeted in an FBI raid on his Florida estate earlier this month.

Biden — asked about his predecessor’s stance after a judge released a heavily redacted version of the feds’ affidavit seeking the search — scoffed to reporters, “I just want you to know I’ve declassified everything in the world.

“I’m president, I can do — c’mon,” Biden said as he was leaving the White House for the weekend.

Pressed further about the case, he quickly added, “I’m not going to comment because I don’t know the details.

“I don’t want to know,” Biden added. 

(Read more on Biden’s ignorance at the New York Post)

If Biden includes any documents in his library, then we will need to investigate

Obviously, the “procedures for declassifying” mentioned by “experts” must be believed (at least according to the Biden-supporting group).

Never mind that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled in March 2012 (and it has never been challenged in any higher court):

Under the statutory scheme established by the PRA, the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the President’s term and in his sole discretion.

(continued)

Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records.

Yep. Never mind legal precedent that has never been challenged. Just go with what these idiots say and apply it fully to them for eternity.

…

 

One more strike against the empire?


Democracy dies in darkness. So why hasn’t it died?

All the news that’s print to fit

Your daily dose of federal propaganda filtered through a conservative outlet – with a twist

FBI special agent who opened Trump investigation reportedly escorted out of bureau

Just the News reports how the story has changed from the architect of the Hunter Biden cover-up “abruptly resigning” to his being “forced to leave his post” (likely with wheelbarrows of government pensions in tow).

Former FBI Washington Field Office Assistant Special Agent in Charge Tim Thibault was reportedly escorted out of the bureau Friday, amid whistleblower allegations that he showed political bias in his handling of politically sensitive investigations.

The Washington Times reported eyewitness accounts that “Thibault was seen exiting the bureau’s elevator last Friday escorted by two or three ‘headquarters-looking types.'”

The article appears to have been updated and now states that Thibault “abruptly resigned” but that he was “forced to leave his post” and cites two unnamed former FBI officials.

CBS News reported Tuesday that two U.S. officials have confirmed that Thibault resigned and was escorted from the building.

“But these officials also said that Thibault had reached retirement age,” reported the network’s Catherine Herridge, “and they added that all of those who retire hand over their badge and gun and are escorted out of the building.”

Just the News has not independently confirmed the Times and CBS reports.

(Read more at Just the News)

I sure am glad the government overlords offer liberals like Lois Lerner and Timothy Thibault the chance to leave their posts

Somehow, I don’t remember that offer being made to General Flynn, Roger Stone, or Paul Manafort.

Still, so far, this FBI has gotten away with:

Take in mind that the FBI/Biden regime got all of the above and only had to give up one lackey (Tim Thibault). They probably think they got a great deal.

I think it’s up to us to prove them wrong on election day.

One more thing: this post requires a hat tip to Bunkerville.

…

Stories not broadly reported on the Trump raid


Former Supreme Court law clerk shreds the reasoning of the intelligence czar’s review of the Mar-a-Lago documents

Townhall lays out the reasoning of Mike Davis (former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch) regarding the specifics behind the Trump raid.

The circus over the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago on August 8 continues with this latest development: our intelligence czar told Congress her office would review the seized documents. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines announced yesterday that the records taken from the home of the former president would undergo a thorough classification process (via CBS News):

The director of national intelligence is preparing to review the items recovered during the FBI search of at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month, CBS News has learned. 

In a letter sent to congressional leaders Friday, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said her office would conduct a “classification review of relevant materials.” 

“The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) are working together to facilitate a classification review of relevant materials, including those recovered during the search,” Haines wrote. “ONDI will also lead an Intelligence Community assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents.

This raid has become an ever-degrading hurricane in the news cycle. 

Federal agents ransacking the home of a former president over the fact that he wasn’t turning over documents to the National Archives fast enough is a historic moment. The obstruction of justice allegations is once again proven false. Trump’s lawyers worked with government officials to review and send records back. They sent 15 boxes to the agency in January. The allegations that nuclear secrets were strewn about the residence were also false. At least there’s no mention in the affidavit that provided probable cause for the raid.  

Mike Davis, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, has been active and informatory about classification, the presidency, and how the liberal media is focusing on things that don’t matter in this case. He’s continued to inform the public that the classification statutes and regulations do not apply to the presidency’s office, that government always over-classifies materials of any post-presidency, and that Trump taking the documents is a declassifying action. Trump already declassified documents relating to Crossfire Hurricane—the FBI spy operation against his campaign.


(Read more at Townhall)

Why the press wasn’t focusing on Crossfire Hurricane or the declassified Hillary documents is beyond me

It would seem that at least the Republican-leaning press (possibly Fox or NewsMax) might mention the declassified Crossfire Hurricane.

Elsewhere, I have heard of the papers on Hillary being declassified. If that, in fact, is the case — I cannot understand the press ignoring that also.

…

Judge announces “preliminary intent to appoint a special master” to review seized Trump records

The Washington Examiner details U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon’s announcement that there will be a “special master” to review the Trump documents.

A federal judge in Florida announced the court’s “preliminary intent to appoint a special master” to review the documents seized during the FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon said in a Saturday order that she was providing “notice” of the decision to the parties involved, noting that the decision was made due to the “exceptional circumstances presented.” On Monday, lawyers for the former president filed a motion requesting the appointment of a special master to assess the records, arguing that the raid of his Palm Beach, Florida, golf club and winter residence was a “shockingly aggressive move.”

“Pursuant to Rule 53(b) (1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Court’s inherent authority, and without prejudice to the parties’ objections, the Court hereby provides notice of its preliminary intent to appoint a special master in this case,” Cannon wrote in a filing Saturday.

A hearing on the motion to commission a special master, also known as a third-party attorney, will be held this Thursday in West Palm Beach.

The District Court judge ordered the Justice Department to file a response by Wednesday providing, “under seal,” a “more detailed Receipt for Property specifying all property seized pursuant to the search warrant executed” on Trump’s Florida golf club. The judge also ordered Trump’s legal team to respond to the defense’s response before Thursday’s hearing.

(Read more at the Washington Examiner)

If the main stream media is not lying again, then this judge may turn back on this request

The judge at the center of this request for a “preliminary intent to appoint a special master” may be rethinking her request (according to a pre-drive-time report on Houston’s ABC affiliate).

…

Search warrant affidavit for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate: Five things to know

Fox News addresses five things about the Trump raid that seem to be left out of the affidavit. Here are portions of the first three points:

1. Lots of black ink

Approximately 20 pages of the 38-page document were either significantly or fully redacted. Twenty-four pages had at least some information blacked out. 

Significant redactions were expected, given the Justice Department’s argument about the sensitivity of the case. 

“Premature disclosure of the contents of this affidavit and related documents may have a significant and negative impact on the continuing investigation and may severely jeopardize its effectiveness by allowing criminal parties an opportunity to flee, destroy evidence (stored electronically and otherwise), change patterns of behavior, and notify criminal confederates,” the Justice Department wrote. 

2. Lots of pages

The length of the affidavit was also notable. An average search warrant affidavit from federal law enforcement is significantly shorter than the 38-page document the FBI submitted to Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart. 

Prof. Mark W. Smith, a professor at the Ave Maria School of Law and senior fellow in law and public policy at The King’s College told Fox News Digital the length still raises questions. 

“The length of the probable cause affidavit is not unprecedented, but it is a bit odd. The more explaining an attorney must do in writing often that translates into a longer legal document and frequently signifies a weaker legal position,” he said. “The reference to multiple federal statutes and detailed discussion of confidential designations makes the document look a bit like an educational tool for the public or perhaps for the Florida federal courts.”

(continued)

3. Affidavit cites other documents Trump possessed with classified markings

The affidavit refers to nearly 200 documents with classified markings that Trump had previously handed over. It said that the FBI in May inspected 15 boxes of documents Trump gave to the National Archives and Records Administration earlier this year, which contained a trove of documents marked classified. 

“A preliminary triage of the documents with classification markings revealed the following approximate numbers: 184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET,” the affidavit said. “Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain NDI.”

(Read the rest and see the illustrations at Fox News)

I don’t care who we have as the next Republican president. That president had better play tough

The next Republican president had better use some law enforcement wing to instill fear in Democrats — just as the Democrats have done since Johnson. Otherwise, nothing will change.

Note that I am not necessarily advocating lawlessness. However, we either need to go full lawfulness or full lawlessness. Nothing else will get the attention of the politicians.

…

DOJ leaves “unanswered questions” with blacked out Trump raid affidavit

Townhall discusses the unanswered questions left by the affidavit and the raid on Mar-A-Lago.

As Spencer reported, the Department of Justice has released a highly redacted version of the affidavit used by the FBI to raid President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. 

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley looked it over and says it leaves a number of unanswered questions.

(Read more at Townhall)

The black of the redactions only shows how deeply into the muck of the swamp we have waded

When we ask for clarity and get pages of nothing but black ink, we do not have clarity. That constitutes one pure and simple fact.

So, when did we go from a country “of the people and by the people” to a country of secrets? I would say it was well before some old, demented guy could brag to European elites about getting his son out of a fix by threatening to withhold billions of American taxpayer dollars from going to a backwater nation.

…

Key details are lacking in the DOJ’s Trump raid affidavit

Townhall points out how the affidavit only builds the case that the FBI raid was merely political.

The day has arrived. Parts of the Biden Justice Department affidavit that provided probable cause for the FBI to raid the home of a former president have been released. Spencer and Katie wrote about this supposed bombshell that was predictably a dud when it comes to corroborating the most explosive allegations against Donald Trump and the dispute over missing documents with the National Archives. Judge Bruce Reinhart, who also signed off on the equally shoddy search warrant, wasn’t convinced by the government’s arguments for keeping the entire affidavit under seal. He allowed the Department of Justice to redact portions that could harm the integrity of the investigation, the security of its sources, and here’s the kicker: the safety of Donald Trump. 

It’s a sea of black ink that does very little to support the narrative that this federal raid, which occurred on August 8, was justifiable. There’s no smoking gun here; Trump isn’t even mentioned in the affidavit in a way that gives the impression that he was targeted for criminal acts. All it did was bolster the argument that an over-politicized goon squad at the FBI and DOJ ransacked Trump’s home as a warning to Trump to stay at home in 2024. Federal agents have threatened those who might paint the Biden White House negatively. This raid is a Trump-media-DOJ story. The point is if there were something genuinely criminal—we would have known about it by now; the same applied to the Russian collusion hoax. 

Some are focused on the classified documents that the FBI discovered on the Mar-a-Lago property, but there are no specifics about the nature of these documents. Also, there is nothing about nuclear secrets, a comical DOJ leak that further exposed this raid as part of a political persecution campaign. Brett Tolman, executive director for Right on Crime, noted that the affidavit does not contain evidence that supports the federal mens rea requirements, which is a burden of proof benchmark the government must meet to show criminal intent. There was no evidence to provide probable cause to search the safe. In other words, it’s quite a nothingburger that shows the DOJ cobbled together a bunch of fake law violations to make for incomprehensible legalese to bust down the doors of the home of an ex-president. That’s not law and order; that’s a rogue DOJ that’s become increasingly engulfed by paranoia, vindictiveness, and political animosity.






(Read of input from Katie Pavlich, Spencer Brown, and Matt Vespa at Townhall)

…

A pattern of lies and deceit in our installed president


Yes, Biden called for the “unmasking” of General Flynn while in a meeting in the Obama oval office

The New York Post provides a little insight to the instance where Joe Biden suggested using the Logan Act against General Flynn during the transition to the Trump administration.

Former Vice President Joe Biden appears to have “personally raised the idea” of investigating Michael Flynn for potentially having violated the obscure Logan Act during his phone calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, according to newly filed court papers Wednesday.

The previously sealed document also says that former President Barack Obama told top members of his administration that “the right people” should investigate Flynn.

But then-FBI Director James Comey acknowledged during the meeting — which also involved Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and possibly national security adviser Susan Rice — that Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak “appear legit,” according to the Washington, DC, federal court filing by Flynn’s defense lawyers.

The revelations are contained in handwritten notes prepared by disgraced ex-FBI Agent Peter Strzok that Flynn’s lawyers called “stunning and exculpatory evidence” in the government’s since-abandoned case against President Trump’s former national security adviser.

A partially blacked-out copy of Strzok’s notes is attached to the filing and includes a mention that appears to say: “VP: ‘Logan Act.’”

“According to Strzok’s notes, it appears that Vice President Biden personally raised the idea of the Logan Act,” defense lawyers Jesse Binnall and Sidney Powell wrote.

”That became an admitted pretext to investigate General Flynn.”

The revelation contradicts Biden’s claim of total ignorance regarding the Flynn probe when he was vice president, which he was asked about during a May 12 interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

“I know nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn,” he said at the time.

Biden later claimed he misunderstood the question, adding, “I was aware that there was — that they asked for an investigation, but that’s all I know about it, and I don’t think anything else.”

The Logan Act, which dates to 1799, bars unauthorized Americans from engaging in “any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government.”

The law has only led to two indictments — in 1803 and 1852 — but neither resulted in a conviction.

Strzok’s notes, apparently written on Jan. 4, 2017, were “previously withheld from General Flynn” until finally being turned over on Jan. 23 of this year, his lawyers wrote.

(Read about the court filing and the effect of the notes at the New York Post)

Wouldn’t a little turn-about work well here?

As Democrats exit office, surely a little oversight might be done. Maybe Republicans might prepare for a big oversight to occur soon in the oval office.

…

Unveiled memos raise questions about Biden’s role in President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate

The Washington Times reports how newly-disclosed memos show that Joe Biden seems to have requested the FBI raid on President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

A newly revealed letter shows that President Biden authorized the National Archives and Records Administration to reject any executive privilege claims that former President Donald Trump might use to stop the Justice Department from accessing classified documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

A letter posted late Monday on the website of conservative journalist John Solomon — one of the few people authorized by Mr. Trump to review National Archives records — revealed that Mr. Biden ordered the National Archives to share all materials it had requested from Mr. Trump to be shared with the Justice Department and the FBI.

The letter, written by National Archivist Debra Wall to Trump attorney Evan Corcoran, says the president cleared the way for her to rule on Mr. Trump’s executive privilege claims. That opened the door for the National Archives to allow the FBI and the Justice Department to review the missing documents, which culminated in this month’s raid on Mr. Trump’s residence.

“The counsel to the president has informed me that, in light of the particular circumstances presented here, President Biden defers to my determination, in consultation with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal counsel regarding whether or not I should uphold former the former President’s purported ‘protective assertion of executive privilege,’” Ms. Wall wrote. “I have therefore decided not to honor the former president’s ‘protective claim of privilege.’”

Ms. Wall also wrote in her letter that Mr. Biden has the authority to nix Mr. Trump’s privilege claims based on a 1977 Supreme Court decision against former President Richard M. Nixon in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal.

She wrote that the decision “strongly suggests that a former president may not successfully assert executive privilege ‘against the very Executive Branch in whose name the privilege is invoked.’”

The letter raises questions about the White House’s claims that Mr. Biden was caught off guard by the FBI investigation into his predecessor before the Aug. 8 raid. Mr. Biden was aware of “the particular circumstances” surrounding Mr. Trump’s claim of executive privilege, according to Ms. Wall’s letter.

A memo by White House Deputy Counsel Johnathan Show, also posted on Mr. Solomon’s website, shows that the administration was engaged in conversations with the FBI, the Justice Department and the National Archives as early as April after Mr. Trump voluntarily returned 15 boxes of classified material to the Archives after they had been sent to Mar-a-Lago in the waning days of his administration.

Mr. Show also wrote that Mr. Biden would not object to waiving Mr. Trump’s privilege claim.

The memo and letter are the strongest evidence to date that the White House was involved in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Mr. Trump.

(Read more of Biden’s FBI fishing trip at the Washington Times)

This is exactly what was at the center of Watergate (except that we now have proof of presidential involvement)

If you would like to see the memos broken by John Solomon, go to Just the News.

After reading them, you might ask “Why hasn’t the press been all over this?” But you can’t forget: at the Washington Times, they’re Democrat journalists protecting Democrat politicians.

…

 

Six stories centering on the FBI’s dishonest dealings with Trump


FBI took three passports in raid of Mar-a-Lago

The Washington Examiner reports on how President Trump has claimed to have had three passports taken by the FBI.

Former President Donald Trump accused FBI agents of taking three passports in their search of his Mar-a-Lago home one week ago.

The accusation, made in a Truth Social post on Monday, comes four days after a judge unsealed a search warrant, including an inventory of items taken from Trump’s residence in Florida, which showed some classified materials.

“Wow! In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else,” Trump said. “This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!”

There is some speculation surrounding the multiple Trump passports, as some individuals may possess more than one for diplomatic or official business travel.

(Read more at the Washington Examiner)

I do not inherently trust anyone. However, when it comes to the FBI’s Russian collusion hoax, the Democrat’s January 6 “insurrection,” or the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid — I will trust the words of Donald Trump over FBI Leftists

The Leftists in the FBI have proven to be more subversive and less trustworthy than Donald Trump and his associates. When the “golden showers” tale and the story from Christopher Steele came out, the FBI spent $32 million investigating before announcing Trump innocent of the accusations.

Although the 6 January inquiry has not come to an end (and will likely never do so), nothing has come out in a formal fashion that has implicated President Trump of involvement in wrongdoing.

Moreover, as the following article illustrates, when Trump suggested that passports were taken, the FBI (despite initial denials by the agency and its apologists in the media) soon admitted that they had taken those passports.

…

CBS says Norah O’Donnell’s tweets denying FBI confiscation of Trump passports do not measure up to CBS standards

The New York Post delves into the story of how CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell has so consistently gotten the story against President Trump wrong.

“CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell is rankling journalists at CBS News with her tweets about former President Donald Trump’s passports, with some griping that she played it fast and loose according to CBS News’ reporting standards.

O’Donnell tweeted Monday that she had been told by a “DOJ official” that the FBI was “not in possession” of Trump’s three passports, which contradicted the former president’s statement that his travel documents were taken by FBI agents who searched his Florida home last week.

But the anchor attributed the information to a single source — a big no-no at CBS News, which has a strict two-source protocol, angry CBS sources told The Post. They added that the tweets also made it sound like O’Donnell was calling the former president a “liar.”

“This is an embarrassment for CBS that the face of your network can’t even make a second call to a Justice Department rep,” one livid source said. “It’s Journalism 101.”

The FBI had returned the documents earlier in the afternoon, according to now-public correspondence between Trump’s camp and the DOJ.

(Read more at the New York Post)

Of course, the inherent trust of the Left with anything that advances their narrative leads us to the next two stories

The Leftists in the newsroom of CBS would rather believe the worst about Trump; therefore, they don’t bother to check their single sources for accuracy. Likewise, they want to believe the best about a group that has done nothing but attack Trump from his first days of campaigning; therefore, they support this agency (as shown in the next article).

…

Only liberals trust the FBI in significant numbers

The New York Post tells us how only liberals trust the FBI in significant numbers.

It is curious that the biggest fans of the FBI today are liberals. You hear them on MSNBC, singing from the same song sheet as former disgraced CIA and FBI operatives who have been transformed into esteemed and well-paid TV experts, shilling for whatever unseen forces motivate them, or creating confusing narratives to cover their tracks. 

At the same time, a majority of Americans, 53%, view the FBI as “Joe Biden‘s personal Gestapo,” according to a new Rasmussen poll out Thursday. 

The agency’s standing is at rock bottom among Republicans and conservatives, and not too healthy with independents and moderates. 

The poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, one week after the extraordinary FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida mansion, shows just 50% of all voters hold a favorable view of the federal law-enforcement agency, down from 60% in May 2020. 

But while just 30% of Republicans and 45% of independents feel positive about the FBI, 75% of Democrats and 81% of liberals are big fans. 

Since the Mar-a-Lago raid, 70% of Republicans say they have less trust in the FBI than they used to, while 50% of Democrats trust it more. 

(Read more at the New York Post)

…

Trump and Obama both had procedures that reclassified documents taken as part of executive work

In the following issue of Facts Matter, Roman Balmakov points out that the Trump team issued the following regarding the accusation that Trump held classified documents:

The very fact that these documents were present at Mar-a-Lago means they couldn’t have been classified …  As we can all relate to, everyone ends up having to bring their work home from time to time. American presidents are no different. President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents including classified documents from the Oval Office to the residence. He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified.

Back in 2009, Obama issued Executive Order 13526 in that order, he laid out a process by which all federal officials would follow to declassify documents; however, in that executive order, he explicitly exempted himself:

Information originated by the incumbent President or the incumbent Vice President, the incumbent President’s White House Staff or the incumbent Vice President’s White House Staff that solely advise and assist the incumbent President is exempted from the provisions of paragraph (a) of this section.

Likewise, John Ratcliffe, former Director of National Intelligence, said:

The president does have ultimate declassification authority. He can literally declassify — and President Trump had that authority, and could declassify anything you want while he was president.

Of course, the liberal-left portion of the Obama regime produced an ideologue who contradicted Obama’s own exemption for the President in the declassification process when he (Richard Immerman) said:

He can’t just wave a want and say it’s declassified. … There has to be a formal process. That’s the only way the system can work. … I’ve seen thousands of declassified documents. They’re all marked ‘declassified’ with the date they were declassified.

Luckily, it seems that the Trump team had a response for the Leftist’s banality:

The power to classify and declassify documents rests solely with the President of the United States. The idea that some paper-pushing bureaucrat, with the classification authority delegated by the President, needs to approve of declassification is absurd.

It would seem that Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s ruling on Bill Clinton’s sock drawer might have some effect

As recorded in an article at Just the News, a 2012 ruling by Judge Amy Berman Jackson on secret documents found with Bill Clinton.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington D.C. ultimately rejected Judicial Watch’s suit by concluding there was no provision in the Presidential Records Act to force the National Archives to seize records from a former president.

But Jackson’s ruling — along with the Justice Department’s arguments that preceded it — made some other sweeping declarations that have more direct relevance to the FBI’s decision to seize handwritten notes and files Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago. The most relevant is that a president’s discretion on what are personal vs. official records is far-reaching and solely his, as is his ability to declassify or destroy records at will.

“Under the statutory scheme established by the PRA, the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the President’s term and in his sole discretion,” Jackson wrote in her March 2012 decision, which was never appealed.

“Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records,” she added.

(Read the full article at Just the News)

Tweets that illustrate the dishonest cooperation between the Democrat media, the political Democrats, and the Democrat FBI

By the way, these tweets were shamelessly stolen from Bunkerville during the light of day. Each of these illustrate the cooperation between the Democrat media, the Democrat FBI, and the Democrat politicians.

…

 

This Biden-commented story will now disappear; HOWEVER, …


Biden jumped into the middle of what he thought would be the persecution of Muslims in redneck America

Reuters applauded Joe Biden’s sidling up to the Muslim community by way of pushing for an investigation of four murders of Muslim men.

Police in New Mexico on Sunday asked for the public’s help in locating a “vehicle of interest” in their probe of four fatal shootings of Muslim men whose slayings in Albuquerque over the past nine months are believed by investigators to be related.

Mayor Tim Keller said state authorities were working to provide an “extra police presence at mosques during times of prayer” as the investigation proceeds in New Mexico’s largest city, home to as many as 5,000 Muslims out of some 565,000 total residents.

The latest victim, police said, was gunned down on Friday night, in a killing that local Islamic leaders said occurred shortly after he had attended funeral services for two others slain during the past couple of weeks.

All three of those men, as well as the very first victim who was shot dead in November, were Muslim men of Pakistani or Afghan descent who resided in Albuquerque.

Police have given few details of the latest murder but described the first three killings as ambush shootings. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has characterized them as “targeted killings of Muslim residents.”

U.S. President Joe Biden posted a message on Twitter on Sunday expressing solidarity with the Muslim community, adding, “These hateful attack have no place in America.”

(Read more tripe at Reuters)

Of course Dementia Joe channeled Obama

Dementia Joe has done his best to continue the failed portions of the Obama years. Why not return to this?

…

The first problem is that the murderer wasn’t who Joe Biden suspected

A 51-year-old Sunni Muslim has been arrested in connection with the murders

The United Kingdom’s Metro reports that Muhammad Syed, an Afghan Sunni Muslim, has been arrested.

A ‘primary suspect’ has been charged in two of four killings of Muslim men in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Muhammed Syed on Tuesday night was charged with murder for two of the killings. He was also identified by police as the main primary suspect in the other two cases.

When police arrived to search Syed’s house in Albuquerque, he drove away in a Volkswagen Jetta that they believe was used in one of the ‘ambush-style’ shootings.

Police followed Syed from the home before eventually arresting him in Santa Rosa – about 118 miles west of Albuquerque.

Syed was charged with the July 26 murder of Aftab Hussein and the August 1 murder of Muhammad Afzaal Hussain.

‘The gun used in both of those shootings was discovered during the overnight search of his home,’ stated police.

Police Chief Harold Medina said they are still working to charge Syed for the deaths of Naeem Hussain on August 5 and Mohammed Zaher Ahmadi on November 7, 2021.

He did not know whether the deaths would be classified as hate crimes, serial killings, or both.

(Read more at Metro)

Any speculation on how long it will take Biden and the Democrats to act like this never happened?

Will you be able to measure the shortness of time?

…

However, we cannot let them sweep the Trump raid under the rug

Despite the tendency of the main-stream-dupe Democrats to swing their cameras away from the real story of the Trump raid, we cannot let it go.

Standing for Trump’s rights not to be raided and even eliminating the FBI are not a matter of opposing “defund the police.” The police that I support are local and must answer locally for their actions. Accountability remains a central part of any structure that I want to use to invest power.

The FBI, on the other hand, does not answer to a local control (or any control outside of the Democrat National Committee). That presented quite a conflict of interest (or at least should have) when the House, Senate, and presidency were held by the other party. And, now that the American gestapo has installed their own brand of demented leader, it compounds the problem.

Therefore, we cannot afford to let this go, since, as we were reminded by The Federalist‘s Margot Cleveland:

If we have the attorney general come out, we have the FBI director come out and say, “We had evidence. We had evidence that he had classified documents. We went to court. We did this the right way. We got a warrant” — why should we believe them? They already proved to us that they were willing to lie and that a judge was willing to rubber-stamp something in the past to get Trump.

…

 

Good news during Joe’s apocalypse


Realize that your politicians are humans, not idealized generalizations

Thomas Klingenstein illustrates through his speech, Trump’s virtues (posted at the American Mind), how we must accept the humanity of our leaders.

Because it influenced me so greatly, I have posted the speech in its entirety here.

Many leading Republicans and conservatives want someone other than Donald Trump to run for President in 2024. But this judgment requires an assessment of Trump’s vices and virtues in the context of our current political and cultural circumstances, as well as an assessment of other prospective Republican presidential candidates. Among the talked-about alternatives to Trump, I have not yet seen anyone who possesses either his virtues or his backbone. I am not suggesting that everyone make way for Trump; rather that it is too early to throw him overboard.

I regularly ask Republican politicians what they think of Donald Trump. The most frequent response is some version of, “I like his policies but don’t like the rest of him.” But this formulation gets it almost backwards. Although Trump advanced many important policies, it is the “rest of him” that contains the virtues that inspired a movement.

Trump was born for the current American crisis: the life and death struggle against the totalitarian enemy I call “woke communism.” The “woke comms” have seized every political, cultural, and economic center of power in the country from where they ruthlessly push their agenda. That agenda rests on the conviction that America is thoroughly bad (systemically racist) and must be destroyed.

If there is one thing that patriotic Americans know about Trump it is that he, like them, is unequivocally pro-American and willing to fight to defend the American way of life. When Collin Kaepernick and his ilk knelt before the American flag, Trump called them “sons of bitches.” As always, he was being forceful, authentic, and unmistakably clear.

Trump stood up for America every time he violated the strictures of political correctness. Trump has said over and over exactly what political correctness prohibits one from saying: “We have our culture, it’s exceptional, and that’s the way we want to keep it.” Trump’s contempt for political correctness showed patriotic Americans that its ever-tightening grip could be loosened. As Trump and his supporters know, political correctness cripples our ability to think clearly and act decisively.

Trump said Haiti is a “shithole” and that Representative Maxine Waters has a low IQ. These were not racist lies but uncouth, politically incorrect observations that most people would agree with but not dare say. Most of us, conservatives no less than liberals, are reluctant to criticize black Americans for fear of being called a racist. Trump, on the other hand, is an equal opportunity criticizer. This is what we used to call “colorblindness.”

Trump treated the woke media with the same contempt he treated political correctness, provoking their outrage and revealing their utter corruption.

Trump made no apologies for America’s past. His unlimited confidence in America is, in this time of national doubt and self-loathing, just what the doctor ordered. Trump thinks America can vanquish all comers if we just put our mind to it and he is right.

Trump is a man of action, guided by facts and common sense. He has no use for theories. He knows that slavish devotion to theory can lead to nonsensical beliefs; for instance, that children should be able to undergo “gender conformation”; that police forces should be defunded; or that biological boys should be able to compete against girls in athletics.

Trump knows it is time to make a stand, and for that we need strong men. Weak men do anything to avoid admitting the hardest truths because they lack the resolve to do what truth demands from them. Trump is a manly man. In present times, when manhood is being stripped of its masculinity, traditional manhood, even when flawed, has much appeal.

Trump is also comfortable in his own skin, a prerequisite for independence and courage. Trump ripped apart people he thought were weak. Sometimes he went overboard, but his supporters forgave his excesses because strength is in such short supply. Trump plays to win. And he knows that in war reaching across the aisle is usually a sucker’s game

A large part of Trump’s appeal was that he is a bona fide outsider who distrusted the expert class, which comprises so much of the “swamp.” Although his own administration sometimes made it difficult for him to get done everything he promised, his supporters knew he was on their side and was trying his damnedest not to let them down. Culturally, Trump, fueled by Big Macs, understands, as does the outsourced American worker, that a cheap smartphone is not a replacement for a meaningful job and the life it supports. Trump also understands that what Americans of all races and creeds desire are stable communities, and the opportunity to raise their families in a culture that values industriousness, self-reliance, patriotism, and freedom.

Trump revealed—not “caused”—the divide in this country. He awakened the public to the dangers of woke communism and, as good leaders do, gave his supporters the breathing room to voice their discontents. This may have been his most important achievement, made possible by qualities independent of policy. You cannot win a war unless you know you are in one.

This enumeration of Trump’s virtues does not fully capture his uncommon courage and firmness of purpose. Trump is the most towering political figure in living memory. He has, like it or not, defined the politics of our age. In 2016 and 2020 he was the political leader most fit for war-like circumstances. Yes, he has vices; even so, we should pause before we move on to someone else.

If Republicans do choose another candidate, they must do so in full confidence that he will embody Trump’s virtues. If not Trump himself, his positive qualities must be the standard by which we judge other candidates.

…

Democrats hand Republicans a new weapon

The BBC lays out these features in Manchin’s new bill

The BBC tells us about these portions of the new bill:

Would devote $369bn to climate policies such as tax credits for solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles, and to tackling the impact of pollution on low-income communities.

“By a wide margin, this legislation will be the greatest pro-climate legislation that has ever been passed by Congress,” Mr Schumer said.

Mr Manchin and Mr Schumer also maintained the measure would pay for itself by raising $739bn (£608bn) over the decade through hiking the corporate minimum tax on big companies to 15%, beefing up Internal Revenue Service tax enforcement and allowing the government to negotiate prescription drug prices.

(Read as much drivel as you can stand at BBC)

Politico similarly provides these details

Politico says this about the Manchin bill:

The Manchin-Schumer deal includes roughly $370 billion in energy and climate spending, $300 billion in deficit reduction, three years of subsidies for Affordable Care Act premiums, prescription drug reform and significant tax changes. Manchin said the bill was at one point “bigger than that” but that’s where the two Democrats settled.

(Read the full-on article at Politico)

…

The Epoch Times likewise lays out these tricks

According to The Epoch Times, these items should be considered:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced on July 27 that he has reached a deal with Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on energy, taxes, and health care to advance what appears to be a revised, alternate version to the Build Back Better (BBB) bill.

The new spending package (pdf), now dubbed the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,” will “address record inflation by paying down our national debt, lowering energy costs, and lowering healthcare costs,” Manchin said in a lengthy statement.

(continued)

“The revised legislative text will be submitted to the Parliamentarian for review this evening and the full Senate will consider it next week,” Manchin and Schumer said in a joint statement on July 27.

Schumer seeks to pass the measure through a procedural tool that allows a bill related to taxes, spending, and debt to be passed in the chamber by a simple 51-vote majority rather than having to pass the 60 vote filibuster threshold. The process also limits debate on the bill to 20 hours. That could allow the bill to be passed with only Democratic votes, if necessary—if every Democrat is on board.

Hours after Manchin announced the deal, a spokesperson for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), a moderate Democrat, told news outlets that her office does not have a comment on the proposed legislation and that she will need to review the text.

Bill Claims to Reduce Federal Deficits by $300 Billion

The two senators said the bill “will make a historic down payment on deficit reduction to fight inflation, invest in domestic energy production and manufacturing, and reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030.” It will also allow Medicare to negotiate for prescription drugs and lower health care costs for Americans, they added.

A one-page summary (pdf) from Manchin’s office show that the deal will see a total of $433 billion in investments: about $369.75 billion in energy security and climate change programs over 10 years, and $64 billion to extend the expanded Affordable Care Act program for federal subsidies of health insurance, for three years through 2025.

(Read all of the article at The Epoch Times)

 

A contrast between Democrats and Statesmen


Moments after the shooting, Biden starts politicizing the event

Breitbart chronicles how the first words out of Biden’s mouth worked to push the assault-gun-ban movement.

President Joe Biden addressed the shooting at Uvalde, Texas, Robb Elementary School, talking again about deer in Kevlar vests and suggesting an “assault weapons” ban.

Biden began his comments with a soft tone, talking about loss, then he erupted with, “As a nation, we have to ask when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby. When in God’s name are we going to do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?”

He went on to claim that there have been “900 incidents of gunfire reported on school grounds” since the December 14, 2012, attack on Sandy Hook Elementary school. He talked of shootings in theaters, churches, and grocery stores.

Biden said, “And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage … When we passed the ‘assault weapons’ ban, mass shootings went down. When the law expired, mass shootings tripled.”

He criticized being able to walk into a gun store and buy more than one “assault weapon,” never mentioning that purchases from gun stores require background checks.

Biden said, “What in God’s name do you need an ‘assault weapon’ for except to kill someone? Deer aren’t running through the forest with Kevlar vests on, for God’s sake.”

(Read more sickening history of Biden at Breitbart)

Not a great uniter or someone to invoke God now

As mentioned yesterday, these words of gun control were the first to hit Biden’s lips. There were no words of condolence for the families. There was no consideration of bringing Americans together by “the great uniter.”

Moreover, in response to Biden’s three-time intonement of “God’s name” and “God’s sake,” let me point out that it was Biden has pretty much pushed God out of the arena. It was the Democrat party that cut “under God” from their recitations of the pledge of allegiance. It was Dementia Joe that demonized parents for standing against his transgender agenda. As I write this, the trending tweet with Democrats is to condemn anyone who sends thoughts and prayers to families in Uvalde. So don’t give me any of this now.

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After police save the day at Uvalde, Biden goes around Congress with police reform executive order and then blames Republicans

The Daily Wire digs into how Biden nonsensically signed a police reform executive order just after a border patrol policeman saved the day at Uvalde (and, of course, then blamed Republicans).

President Joe Biden used an executive order on Wednesday to circumvent Congress and unilaterally impose police reforms, blaming Republicans who he said had “stood in the way of progress.”

“I’ve called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, but Senate Republicans have stood in the way of progress,” Biden tweeted. “That’s why this afternoon, I’m taking action and signing an Executive Order that delivers the most significant police reform in decades.”

The White House streamed the event, which included remarks from Vice President Kamala Harris.

(Read a summary of the Harris statements and see more tweets from the dictator at the Daily Wire)

We live in a dictatorship

When DACA cannot be overturned by Trump and this dictator goes unchallenged, there is no democracy. We may have some freedom to move about at the current time; however, that will probably evaporate as the forces behind Dementia Joe tighten their grip.

Therefore, it does not surprise me that Canada has started preparing for the collapse of democracy in America. However, for the following reasons, Canadians might just look in the mirror:

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Beto crashes Governor Abbott’s meeting with parents

Breitbart reports on the political gate crasher “Beto” O’Rourke who interrupted a meeting between Governor Abbott, Lt. Governor Patrick, and the grieving parents of Uvalde.

Texas gubernatorial hopeful Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (D) took the opportunity to inject himself during Governor Greg Abbott’s Wednesday press conference covering the Robb Elementary mass shooting in Uvalde.

Beto appears to wait until the governor’s remarks are complete before he stands in front of the stage to interrupt Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s presentation. Patrick attempts to shut down the Democratic Party candidate for Governor, saying, “Excuse me, you’re out of line and an embarrassment.”

O’Rourke continued to talk over the Lt. Governor to address Governor Abbott. “You’re doing nothing,” the failed presidential and senatorial candidate said.

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin was most vocal in trying to shout down the interruption. Texas Senator Ted Cruz can also be heard trying to hush Beto.

“He needs to get his ass out of here,” the Uvalde mayor said regarding the disruptive candidate. “Sir, you’re out of line! Sir, you’re out of line! Please leave this auditorium.”

“I can’t believe… you’re a sick son of a bitch,” the mayor continued, “that would come to an event like this to make political issues.”

Law enforcement officers surrounded O’Rourke and attempted to move him out of the arena. O’Rourke stopped again and attempted to address the governor.

“It’s on you,” O’Rourke said pointing at Abbott. McLaughlin responded, “It’s on assholes like you. Why don’t you get out of here?!”

Police finally escorted O’Rourke from the room where he carried out an impromptu press conference.

(Read more on the confrontation at Breitbart)

Journalistic pretenders ABC and CBS zoomed in on Beto and pretended he interrupted a political statement

If you go to Breitbart and watch the video, you will see that the mayor of Uvalde (a Democrat) does the most to show how “out-of-line” this political grifter has become.

Not even a day after the mostly 10-year-old victims die in terror, Beto tries to make political hay and ABC and CBS try to cover for him.

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Candace Owens takes AOC apart over outright lie about school shootings

The Western Journal notes the way Candice Owens dismantled the lies of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (or, as some like to call her, Alexandria Occasional Cortex).

It took about a nanosecond for liberals to take aim at the gun lobby after news of the tragedy at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, broke on Tuesday.

The gunman ended the lives of at least 19 children and two teachers before being gunned down himself by a Border Patrol agent.

Few reactions, however, reached quite the level of vacuity as that from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The ditsy, empty-headed Democratic socialist took to Twitter to attack conservatives for “supporting laws that let children be shot in their schools, elders in grocery stores, worshippers in their houses of faith, survivors by abusers, or anyone in a crowded place.”

The statement is ridiculous on its face. There is no law that “let children be shot” any more than there are laws that “allow” pedestrians to be run over by drunk drivers.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Constitution. That is not license for any individual to use a gun to take innocent lives, just like a driver’s license isn’t permission to use a vehicle to mow down children being dismissed from school.

Conservative commentator Candace Owens responded to the congresswoman in signature style challenging her to “name the law” she was referring to.

“You won’t name it because it doesn’t exist,” Owens wrote.

“You are [a] shameless, bought-and-paid for politician, standing on the bodies of dead children to score political points.”

(Read the two other conservative reactions to AOC’s idiocy at the Western Journal)

Oddly, when a Chinese illegal alien attacked a Taiwanese-American church, AOC did not comment

If Ms. Cortez cared a whit about those she listed for effect, she would have made an appropriate wish of condolence to the church members when the event happened. She didn’t.

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In contrast, President Trump stayed out of the way of those in elected position and issued one statement

As posted on MAGA Hub, President Trump made the following statement.

“So hard to think or report about anything else after watching the Texas school “massacre” which took place yesterday. Thank you to the great wisdom and bravery of our Law Enforcement Professionals, and condolences to all who are suffering so gravely with the loss of those incredible souls so close to you. No words can express the sorrow and grief of this absolutely horrible event. It is a moment in time which will never be forgotten!”

Although Dementia Joe ran on “bringing the adults to office,” Trump looks more presidential

This is just one more reason to want Joe out.

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6 January 2020 trials — will they go away or go to center stage?


Judge acquits 6 January defendant after the video he presented shows police allowing him into the Capitol building

The Western Journal tells us of the acquittal of one 6 January 2020 defendant who got off due to a video showing that the police did escort him into the Capitol.

A federal judge on Wednesday acquitted a New Mexico man of misdemeanor charges that he illegally entered the U.S. Capitol and engaged in disorderly conduct after he walked into the building during last year’s riot.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden issued the verdict from the bench after hearing testimony without a jury in the case against Matthew Martin. McFadden, who was nominated by former President Donald Trump, acquitted Martin of all four counts for which he was charged.

Martin did not dispute that he joined hundreds of other people in entering the Capitol building during the riot. The judge said Martin’s actions were “about as minimal and non-serious” as anyone who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Martin is the third Capitol riot defendant whose case has been resolved by a trial. He is the first of the three to be acquitted of all charges that he faced.

Martin, whose bench trial started Tuesday, testified that a police officer waved him into the building after the riot erupted. A prosecutor dismissed that testimony as “nonsense.”

The judge, however, said video shows two police officers standing near the Rotunda doors and allowing people to enter as Martin approached the doors. One of the officers appeared to lean back before Martin placed a hand on the officer’s shoulder as a possible sign of gratitude, the judge said.

McFadden described Martin’s testimony as “largely credible.” The judge said it was not unreasonable for him to assume that officers allowed him to enter the Capitol, even though alarms were blaring and broken glass was strewn about the floor.

(Read more at the Western Journal)

If any of those under investigation by the Durham probe of the Russian collusion hoax get the same treatment as those held in solitary for over a year for wandering on the capital, I will be surprised

If Hillary’s lackies get even a modicum of the treatment doled out to the 6 January 2021 protesters, I will be stunned. If they have to sit for even two months in solitary confinement, there will be an uproar on the Left. If they get beaten to the point that any one of them loses an eye, it will work as a “get out of jail free” card (unlike the 6 January protester).

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Guess who is on the January 6 committee? Would you guess it includes a signer of the “Intelligence community” letter that discounted the Hunter Biden laptop?

The Washington Examiner provides a key name of one who signed the letter saying (aka lying) that the Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation” and now “serving” on the January 6 committee.

The former intelligence officials who signed an October 2020 letter baselessly claiming Russian involvement in the Hunter Biden laptop stories are largely remaining silent, though some have continued to defend their signatures, while a few recently returned to government service.

The laptop saga has burst back into public view a year and a half after the New York Post published emails belonging to now-President Joe Biden’s son, with the New York Times and the Washington Post finally joining a number of right-leaning outlets that had confirmed the authenticity of emails on the laptop.

(continued)

David Buckley, a former CIA inspector general who signed the infamous laptop letter, is now the staff director for the Democratic-led House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

(Read more at the Washington Examiner)

One reason that the swamp never gets punished is that the swamp has been charged with law enforcement on the swamp

When the FBI (or is that FIB?) and the CIA (put there to Cover liberal @ss) get implicated in liberal schemes to subvert the Constitution, they find a way to make it go away. By now, the track record of these agencies has been made evident through their employees (James Comey, Peter Strozk, Lisa Page, John Brennan, et al).

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Hidden in Biden’s budget request: An effort to whip the 6 January “riots” into a top priority

The Independent Journal Review outlines how Biden wants to make the 6 January 2020 “riots” even a bigger show.

Democrats believe that when something isn’t working, they simply must do more of it.

After more than a year of mining the political fool’s gold of the Jan. 6 incursion at the U.S. Capitol, the new Department of Justice budget proves they’re still not ready to give up on that narrative.

According to the White House budget release, the DOJ requested $37.7 billion in its discretionary funding, an increase of more than $4.2 billion that amounts to 13 percent more than what it received in 2021.

Moreover, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco made it clear that Jan. 6 will remain on its list of priorities.

“The Jan. 6 investigation is among the most wide-ranging and most complex that this department has ever undertaken,” Monaco said while answering a question after giving her remarks about the Fiscal Year 2023 Funding Request.

“It reaches nearly every U.S. attorney’s office, nearly every FBI field office,” Monaco said. “We’ve charged more than 750 cases, and we’ve charged unprecedented conspiracies and the use of rare tools like the seditious conspiracy statute,” she boasted.

(Read more at the Independent Journal Review)

This might explain the latest quote from Kamala on inflation

Early in his presidency, Ronald Reagan quipped:

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”

Now (in response to run-away inflation, spiking crime, an out-of-control border, and corruption by Democrats) we have this from Kamala:

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