Tag: Obama

Need to Know 8/7/18

Yesterday we wrote about a California politician saying the state needs to regulate every aspect of our lives.  Today it’s Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy applauding the removal of Alex Jones from the internet.  I’m not an Alex Jones fan, I think half the stuff he puts out is fake news and the other half is sensationalized news.  He’s on par with CNN.  But Murphy went on to say something scary.  Murphy tweeted that the censorship of internet sites by the major corporations like Facebook and Youtube is what our democracy depends on.

I’m going to disagree with Murphy and suggest that freedom of speech, political expression, and freedom of association are what our democracy depends on.  Our founders seemed to agree when they wrote the bill of rights.  Companies can do whatever they want with their own internet platforms.  But it’s scary to see a US Senator cheer on big corporate censorship of political views.

Democrat Senator suggests internet censorship will save our democracy

It’s always fun to go back and read the climate change predictions from the past and see how they have failed to materialize.  On the first Earth Day, everyone figured climate change would wipe out the planet by 2000.  Obviously that didn’t happen, but the predictions went on.  Climate change predictions have become a great way for one side to use fear mongering to pass their agenda.  Republicans have been wrongly accused of wanting dirty air and dirty water.  Here’s a link to an article highlighting some of the failed predictions since 2000.

2018 and the planet is still here

We are back to not accepting a nuclear Iran.  After canceling the Iranian nuke deal made by Obama, without congressional approval, Trump gave Iran months to come to the table and renegotiate.  After Iran’s refusal, Trump is now reinstating the Obama era sanctions in two stages.  the first stage went into effect yesterday, the second is coming in November.  Trump has also issued an ultimatum to our trading partners that the US will not deal with countries who deal with Iran.  The pressure is back on for Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions, although they now have billions more to work with thanks to Obama’s attempt at a legacy.

Trump reinstates Iranian sanctions over Iran’s refusal to negotiate new nuke deal

Several states go to the polls today for the midterm primaries.  Media outlets like CNN have chosen a special election in Ohio to focus on as their indication of how the blue wave is doing.  The special election is for a state senate seat and will be re-decided in November, so frankly we don’t care.  I’m looking more closely at the Missouri primary.  This will be an indication of any strides made by the Libertarian party in influencing the future of conservative politics.  Libertarian-turned-Republican Austin Petersen chose to run within the Republican primary rather than as a third party candidate.  A long shot win by the champion of liberty could set the tone for future incursions into the GOP by Libertarian hopefuls.  The Freedom Caucus has shown it can be done, and many Libertarians have grown wary of their own party that nominated perpetually high Gary Johnson and old school RINO Bill Weld in the 2016 Presidential race.

Libertarian candidate hopes for upset in GOP primary

Need to Know 8/6/18

While CNN’s Jim Acosta continues to suffer PTSD from being yelled at at a Trump rally, Carlos Bayon was just arrested in New York for threatening the families of Republican Representatives Steve Scalise and Cathy McMorris Rogers.  Bayon was apparently responding to the fake news reports detailing Obama’s era of putting illegal immigrant kids in cages as Trump era policy.  Bayon said in his threatening phonecalls that he would “feed them lead” referring to Scalise and McMorris Rogers’ families.  “Ojo por ojo, diente por diente. [“An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.”] That is our law and we are the majority. Have a good day.”  This comes as CNN commentators continue to fear that Trump calling fake media reports fake news will lead to violence against the press.

The threats from the anti-immigration enforcement terrorist come just over a year after Steve Scalise was shot at a Congressional soft ball game practice.  And only weeks after the Left led by Maxine Waters and Ocasio-Cortez began calling for ICE to be abolished.

Leftist terrorist threatens families of Republican lawmakers over immigration 

David Hogg was at it again.  Hogg showed up at the NRA headquarters to protest, among other things, America.  One one side he had Therese Okuomo, who he calls one of his biggest inspirations.  Okuomo is known for getting protesters together and chanting about America being fascist and horrible.  On the other side, Hogg ironically had armed guards.

David Hogg inspiration calls America a fascist KKK nation.

Twitter is in hot water after suspending the account of Candace Owens, a conservative commentator with Turning Point USA.  Owens crime was taking one of New York Times editorial writer Sarah Jeong’s many violent, racist tweets and replacing the word “white” with “Jew” and “black”.  While Jeong was left alone by Twitter when her attacks were towards white people, Owens was blocked despite the rest of the verbiage of the tweet being the same.  Twitter has since unblocked her account after the uproar and apologized.

Twitter thinks Sarah Jeong’s tweets were racist.  But only when someone else says it.

Need to Know 8/4/18

CNN has stepped up it’s nasty rhetoric towards American voters.  Jim Acosta, who was verbally assaulted by elderly Trump supporters at a rally, said things about those voters he would never say about Antifa crowds throwing urine and rocks at police officers.  David Gergen stated that if something happens to someone in the media the blood will be on Trump’s hands.  That’s interesting, I suppose he’s sort of admitting that Steve Scalise’s blood is on CNN’s hands.  It took until August 17, 2018 before a mainstream media outlet would actually call out Antifa as a violent group, even though they constantly physically confronted media members at their mob rallies.

Jim Acosta still crying about being insulted at a Trump rally

Speaking of media “whipping up violence”, the NYT’s new editorial board member Sarah Jeong had quite the opinion about cops.  In addition to calling for killing all men, Jeong also said equality and fairness would require homeless people to be able to murder cops with no repercussions.  In fact, Jeong didn’t just fantasize about violence against cops, but actually called for it on a couple occasions too.  I wonder if Jim Acosta has ever met Sarah Jeong?  I wonder if that would change his thoughts about how it’s conservative media ginning up violence because they occasionally use the phrase “fake news”?

New York Times editorial board member calls for killing all men and violence against cops

Another liberal judge, DC District Court Judge John Bates, has ruled that Obama’s DACA executive order cannot be repealed.  While he granted the administration time to come up with alternatives, this sets a very dangerous precedent.  The idea that executive orders could be made the eternal law of the land through judicial fiat removes the constitutional form of government that the United States was built on.  People who are afraid of Trump being a tyrant or dictator should have more fear of the precedent set here.  What protects us from tyranny is laws being written in Congress.  If Congress doesn’t want to replace the DACA executive order with a real law, the courts cannot just step in and make the DACA executive order the irreversible law of the land.   Both sides of the aisle should be upset about this ruling.  Or at least anyone who opposes tyranny and supports our constitutional form of government.

Need to Know 8/2/18

More winning for the Trump economy.  Incomes rose at the highest rate in over a decade this past year.  Generally in an economic recovery wages lag behind.  But with the fast drop in unemployment, it’s become harder to find good workers without paying a premium.  The free market is once again showing that minimum wages don’t need the strong arm of government to go up.

Trump economy gives workers a raise

The Paul Manafort trial is off to a rough start as the judge found himself chastising the prosecution on several occasions.  In one case, they continued to go on about Manafort’s lavish lifestyle before Judge Ellis reminded them that being wealthy isn’t a crime.  At another point, the prosecution teased that their star witness Rick Gates might not testify, eliciting another eruption from the judge.  Gates is thought to be a keystone witness for the case against Manafort.

Prosecution earns judge’s ire hours into Manafort case

Ocasio-Cortez just got snubbed by former President Barack Obama.  Obama released a list of endorsements for the 2018 midterm.  She’s not on the list.  The former President and political godfather may include her in future endorsements, but it’s pretty telling that he wouldn’t include her in the first round.  As Ocasio-Cortez continues to produce more gaffs than Joe Biden, more and more moderate Democrats have let go of her coattails and even openly criticized her.  Personally, I’m rooting for her.  It’s not often you see a Democrat candidate just come out and admit that they want to double taxes in America.

Obama releases list of endorsements, Ocasio-Cortez isn’t on it

Need to Know 8/1/18

Ontario, Canada is scrapping a basic income program after discovering that it was unsustainable.  The plan, which provided $17,000 to individuals whether they worked or not and half the benefit if they did work, was started in 2017 and meant to be a three year program.  There was shock and anger from the beneficiaries who will soon see those government provided checks dry up.  Universal basic income in the US would cost $3.8 trillion a year, or twice our current annual tax revenues.

Canadian universal basic income trial run fails miserably

Speaking of admitting failure, Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro is joining a proud history of socialist dictators who finally realize their economic model doesn’t work.  However, unlike Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Maduro is vowing to press on.  While blaming outside forces, he called on his comrades to figure out a way to make the economy work.

Venezuela President admits failure, but not defeat

Speaking of economic failure, I wonder how many people think Obama had something to do with the economy getting better?  What actually helped during the second half of Obama’s Presidency was a GOP congress wrangling out of control deficits mixed with quantitative easing from the Fed.  The Fed bought up trillions in US private equities to artificially jumpstart the economy, and lowered interest rates to almost nothing.  Now, in the Trump era of American prosperity, the bill is coming due.  That is the biggest thing that keeps JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon up at night.  He sees it as the biggest economic threat currently.  It’s like Obama put America’s economy on a zero interest credit card, and now Trump has to pay it off.

American economy is great, time to pay off Obama’s credit card

How Obama Saved Trump

Ok, let’s be honest.  Anyone who says Trump committed treason in Helsinki is a moron who doesn’t know how our government works.  Yes, John Brennan – former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, you are a moron who doesn’t know how the constitution works.  It’s so bad, left leaning Politifact had to fact check your claim. Politifact had to fact check a claim by the former CIA director of whether the President of the United States had committed treason.  And you lost.

Maybe that’s why Trump is revoking Brennan’s security clearance.

Brennan wasn’t alone.  Representative Adam Smith, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, also called Trump’s statements treason.  The soon to be irrelevant New York Daily News led with the cover title “Open Treason”.  A recent poll shows that nearly half the country (guess which half) think Trump committed treason.

But here’s the best part: Trump didn’t commit treason because Obama never treated Russia’s cyber attacks as an act of war.

One of the key essentials to treason, as pointed out by Politifact, is that we be at war with the “enemy” that the traitor provided aid and comfort to.  We aren’t at war with Russia, Trump can’t be a traitor for saying nice things about them.

So then you might ask, if Russia issued a cyber attack against us and tried to influence our elections in 2016, why aren’t we at war with them?  Because when Russia used cyber attacks to steal DNC emails and try to influence our election, President Obama issued a stand down order to cyber security chief and told him to back burner any action against Russia. 

In other words, if Trump committed treason by fumbling with his words and saying he couldn’t understand why Russia would meddle (never mind what he thought he meant to say), then Obama committed treason in 2016 by secretly issuing the stand down against Russia.  Otherwise, Russia is not our enemy and Trump can say whatever he wants.

Maybe Democrats should knock off the bull crap and follow through with what they claim to believe.  Maybe Democrats should introduce a declaration of war on Russia in Congress.  If Russia actually was our enemy, maybe they could start tossing around legitimate treason claims that stick.  But given the cozy history between major Democrats and Russia in the past, they’d probably end up regretting it.

Need to know 7/23/18

Iran, in trouble with their people and staring down the barrel of new US sanctions, began a tweet war with Trump over the “mother of all wars”.  Trump responded in all caps that Iran’s leaders would suffer consequences few others have.  In the end it’s likely all blowing smoke.  Iran doesn’t have nuclear capabilities and the US isn’t about to go invade another Middle Eastern country.  But the developments continue to show that despite the rhetoric and narrative, Trump has been tougher on Russia allies than Obama was.

Rouhani warns Trump about mother of all wars

Speaking of rhetoric on Russia, Trey Gowdy had a warning for Trump administration officials that they should steer Trump to take Russia more seriously or consider leaving their posts.  Gowdy has consistently chided the Trump administration for not being tough enough on Russia’s election interference, however he has also acknowledged the extreme prejudice shown by Obama’s intel apparatus. In addition to noting that James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan continue to show their anti-Trump bias in editorials, Gowdy recently took Inspector General Michael Horowitz to task over his failure to call out anti-Trump bias deeply rooted in the FBI.  Texts from Peter Strzok reveled that the Russia/Trump collusion investigation was an “insurance policy” to “stop Trump”.  But so far, nothing has actually tied Trump to Russia or proven collusion.

Anti-Trump bias in the FBI can’t be put aside

Speaking of bias, the FISA court warrant to spy on Carter Page and the Trump campaign has been released through a Freedom of Information Act request.  This extraordinary release marks the first time a secretive FISA warrant has been released.  It proves two things.  The first is that Hillary Clinton’s paid for political propaganda dossier played a major role in getting the warrant.  Second, that the secret warrant to spy on a US citizen during the Obama administration was obtained simply because there was suspicion that Russia was trying to recruit him.  It’s also important to know that the warrant was issued after Page was no longer with the Trump campaign. Spying on a US Citizen because there is a belief that a foreign power might try to recruit them is likely a violation of the 4th Amendment.

For some good reading, here is Andy McCarthy’s argument why suspicion that someone is being recruited by a foreign government is not good enough to secretly spy on a US Citizen.

If you want to read through the FISA Warrant, you can do that here.

What do Sacha Baron Cohen and James O’Keefe have in common?  Both used hidden cameras to expose the other side.  It’s interesting to see how many lend credence to what Cohen exposes compared to those who dismissed O’Keefe’s videos out of hand  because they felt he was using trickery or deceptive editing.  O’Keefe’s undercover operations exposed massive Democrat voter fraud and routine illegal activities being carried out by Planned Parenthood.  Cohen got a racist Georgia politician to drop his pants and shout the N word.  I wonder if the Left will dismiss Cohen so quickly.

Sacha Baron Cohen gets former GOP lawmaker to make racist jokes 

 

Need to know 7/22/18

“The administration has implemented an ‘Insider Threat Program’ in all government departments to urge federal employees to monitor their colleagues for possible unauthorized information disclosures. Administration employees suspected of leaking classified information are given lie-detector tests and subject to reviews of their telephone and e-mail records”

No, this isn’t Trump era policy.  This is a flashback to a 2013 USA Today article about an Obama crackdown on the press.  “This (The Obama administration) is the most closed, control freak administration I’ve ever covered,” – David E. Sanger, chief Washington correspondent of The New York Times.

Flashback: Obama often blocks Press access to information

Even as Democrats publicly say that #walkaway is simply a ploy by Russian bots to weaken their party, the split between moderates and socialists is deepening.  Centrists are definitely showing concerns over the rise of Ocasio-Cortez, who seems to be the perfect representative for the politically ignorant millennial generation.

Centrist Dems arguing against far leftists 

Want some fun? The Russia/Trump connection was an “insurance policy” to “stop Trump” according to operatives in the FBI.  Their own tweets give this away.  But the Media Research council has highlighted this even better by putting together a compilation of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama talking quite differently about Russia before the election.

“This election will not be rigged.”  “We want Russia to be strong.”

Need to know 7/20/18

Fact checking the factcheckers: Politifact had an article out yesterday giving Kamala Harris a “True” rating for her statement that “nearly 2,600 children who are separated from their parents” on June 17th.  Harris also said “these children are in prison”, a completely false statement that wasn’t fact checked by Politifact.  In fact, the very reason children are separated from their parents at the border is the Flores decision which says you can’t put kids in jail.  Obama ran afoul of this ruling and we ended up with the now infamous photos of kids in cages from the Obama era.

Back to Politifact.  The first problem with with their analysis is that this number is a moving target.  The number Harris is using is from July 13th testimony, but since family reunification has been ordered by Trump and the courts, that process continues.  That number was very likely inaccurate when she said it and far less accurate now.

But the bigger problem is that many of the children held by the state didn’t come with their parents or won’t be reunified with their parents because their parents are criminals.  According to Politifact’s own article, nearly 50% of children under 5 were not reunified because they were brought here by traffickers or because their parents were violent criminals.  If you extrapolate that out over Kamala Harris’s figure, we are looking at about 1,250 children who hadn’t been reunified days before she made her statement.  We rate Politifact’s analysis to be 75% biased.

Politifact gives True rating to inaccurate statement about family separation

Rumor has it: Tony Podesta is being offered immunity to testify against Paul Manafort.  If you remember, Manafort is in trouble for laundering Russian money to two US lobbying groups.  One of them was run by Democrat and Clinton ally Tony Podesta.  Podesta and Manafort worked together to lobby for the Ukraine in the United States.  Isn’t it interesting that Robert Mueller and his team of Clinton supporting lawyers would offer immunity to Tony Podesta in order to bring down Paul Manafort for the same crime?

Tony Podesta offered immunity to testify against Paul Manafort

Gallup has a new poll out.  Apparently no one cares about Russia.  The biggest issues on the minds of Americans are the economy, dissatisfaction with government, illegal immigration, and race relations.  Russia garnered less than 1% as a concern in the poll.  Seems like Schumer should consider this since the DNC seems to be running on obstruction, economy crushing tax hikes, open borders, racial division, and Russia.

Gallup poll shows no one cares about Russia

Confirmed: The Fix Was In

The Washington Post is reporting this morning that James Comey knew the Justice Department was protecting Hillary Clinton, drafted a letter exonerating her in early May, then gave immunity to her aides who subsequentially confessed to lying and destroying evidence.

A month later, after Comey wrote the exoneration letter, Loretta Lynch met with Bill Clinton privately where they “talked about wedding plans”. They didn’t. The fix was in. All they needed for the show was to have Hillary be interviewed by the FBI. Bill needed assurances that the Justice Department still had her back and that Comey had already chosen to exonerate her.

Five days later, Comey interviews Hillary Clinton, with her aides who had been granted immunity allowed in the room to serve as her lawyers.  Two days later, Comey goes public with his exoneration letter as though he had just come to that decision.

September 28, Comey tells Congress that he did not make his decision until after interviewing Hillary Clinton.  He states emphatically that he did not make the decision until after interviewing Hillary Clinton.

Here is the Washington Post timeline:

Early March – Comey receives information from Russian sources that the Justice Department is working to ensure Hillary Clinton won’t be prosecuted.  Loretta Lynch had also spoken to Comey and asked him to call the “investigation” a “matter” instead so as not to make it sound so bad.

(Sidebar: why would Russia know anything about the Justice Department’s relationship to Hillary Clinton?  Perhaps because of how the Uranium One deal was covered up?)

May 2 – Comey drafts the exoneration letter

May 3 – Paul Combetta, Clinton computer specialist, admits to lying to the the FBI about knowing the emails should have been preserved and deleting them anyway.  Combetta is given immunity because Comey, apparently, wanted to move up the line to get someone more important.  AFTER he had already written the exoneration letter.

May 5 – The media reports that there is little evidence Clinton committed a crime

May 16 – Comey sends the draft of his exoneration around to other members in the FBI.  This is before Cheryl Mills is interviewed.  Part of the deal to interview Cheryl Mills becomes immunity and the destruction of her laptop, which likely contained evidence.

June 27 – Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton meet privately on his jet.

July 2 – Hillary Clinton is interviewed by the FBI for 3 1/2 hours with her aides in the room serving as her lawyers.  The aides have immunity already.  They can confer and make sure they get their stories straight.

July 5 – Comey exonerates Hillary Clinton.

Anyone with any sense and understanding can clearly see the fix was in.  There was no way the Obama Justice Department was going to prosecute Hillary Clinton.  And Comey worked with the administration to make sure it never happened.  The investigation should be reopened, and prosecution of Comey, Lynch, the Clintons, Mills, Combetta, Abedeen, and Obama should be on the table for obstruction of justice and perjury.