VIDEO: Dallas Diocese Raided by State Investigators

DALLAS (ChurchMilitant.com) – The Dallas diocese — long wracked by clerical sex abuse scandals — was raided by Dallas police officers wielding a 42-page search warrant at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Police investigators conducted searches of three facilities, including a warehouse, St. Cecilia’s parish and the diocese’s headquarters. The warrant became necessary, said Dallas Special Investigations Division Major Max Geron, because of perceptions the diocese was withholding information critical to their outside investigation.

The police investigation was prompted by an affidavit from last August in which credible accusations of sexual abuse were leveled against Fr. Edmundo Paredes, the pastor at St. Cecilia Catholic Church in the Dallas diocese city of Oak Cliff.

According to the affidavit, Paredes allegedly molested at least three boys in the 1990s. Paredes is also accused of stealing from the parish. Paredes’ location has been unknown since last August, but some sources say he may have returned to his native home in the Philippines.

Thirty-one men appeared on a list of priests credibly accused of sexual molestation in the diocese since 1950 that was publicly issued by the diocese last January. However, Dallas police said they weren’t allowed to coordinate their efforts with the investigation team hired by the diocese, leading Dallas detectives to conclude that the diocese wasn’t fully cooperative.

Detectives are also seeking information related to five other priests suspected of sexually abusing minors, said Geron in a Wednesday afternoon press conference.

As reported by The Dallas Morning News:

The affidavit says Parades “groomed him by taking him and other altar servers out to eat between masses and bought them things.” But in 1994, when the victim was a juvenile, the sexual assaults begin: The victim told police “Parades touched him on his genitals and Parades placed his mouth on [his] genitals.”

Police interviewed several parishioners, officer staff members and priests, all of whom corroborated that Paredes brought “several juveniles” into the rectory during evenings and weekends. The affidavit says, too, that “some office staff members met with now-retired Chancellor Edlund, in 2006, regarding their concerns over Parades having juveniles inside the church offices and inside his residence.”

Church Militant will offer updates as news continues to break on this story.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant column with videos is republished with permission.

Trump Seeks to Unify GOP Around Immigration Goals

President Donald Trump hopes to unite Republicans behind new immigration goals that focus on border security and a merit-based system that keeps legal immigration at current levels.

The president is set to deliver a Rose Garden address on the plan at 2:30 p.m. Thursday.

Trump wants more people coming to the country to fill new jobs in the expanding economy, and is concerned that Democrat lawmakers routinely stick together, especially in the Senate.

Senior administration officials contend Trump’s plan will make legal immigration more fair and is in the national interest. They contend that it will bring in, and keep, the best and the brightest legal immigrants.

The number brought in because of family already here—so-called chain migration—is expected to decline under the plan.

Senior administration officials noted Wednesday that Democrats already have come to the table with their non-negotiables, while Republicans still have several points of disagreement.

The president aims to find points that almost all Republican lawmakers can agree on.

The officials estimated that the merit-based changes would shift the immigration population from 13% employment-based to almost 60% employment-based.

Three categories would focus on “extraordinary talent” visas and vocation visas, and on keeping “extraordinary students” from abroad after they graduate from U.S. colleges.

The visas would be issued on a point-based system, more in line with Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and other countries, officials said.

While moving immigration policy toward a meritocracy, the plan still would prioritize spouses and children to achieve family reunification. But, senior administration officials said, the plan would not give an immigrant an unfair advantage to enter the United States simply because he or she has a relative already here.

Because the immigration-neutral, merit-based plan is aimed at uniting the president’s party, it doesn’t include language about the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or about a guest worker program.

Republicans have been divided on both issues.

The White House hopes to push Democrat opponents of the plan either to negotiate or argue for the status quo.

The border security portion of the plan includes a border wall and closing loopholes to end the policy known as catch and release.

Trump is frustrated with the current system, which releases hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossers pending a hearing because of a shortage of federal immigration judges.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY


EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.

PODCAST: Should Incarcerated Prisoners & Terrorists Vote?

The short answer is simple, No. Let us not forget that in the beginning of our Republic, only land owners could vote in elections. The premise here was that only RESPONSIBLE people should vote as they would do what was best for the country overall. This was expanded over the years to all citizens, including former slaves, women, and younger people (when the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1972). Nonetheless, it was assumed these people would vote RESPONSIBLY, but this hasn’t proven to be the case as we have a relatively poor turnout during elections, and many of those who vote are misinformed about history, current events, and how our government works.

Then along comes radical socialists like presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders who, in a recent CNN Town Hall meeting, insists convicted prisoners and terrorists, like the Boston Marathon bomber, should have the right to vote from prison. He said, “Yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away and you say, ‘Well, that guy committed a terrible crime, not going to let him vote. Well, that person did that. Not going to let that person vote,’ you’re running down a slippery slope.”

The fact people are incarcerated means they are a danger to society and, as such, forfeits their rights, such as freedom, owning a gun, and, Yes, voting. Consider this, will the imprisoned terrorist or prisoner vote as RESPONSIBLY as the hard working person who pays taxes, obeys the law, and supports his/her family, not to mention their community? Come on, honestly, who would vote with the best interests of the community and country in mind? It’s a no-brainer.

Let’s be clear about something, if a person has served his/her time and is released free and clear (no probation or supervision), then I personally see no problem returning to society and allowed to vote.

Are the Democrats so desperate for votes, they would give convicts and terrorists the same voting privileges as everyone else? Unfortunately, Yes. In fact, their ultimate voting scenario would be to allow illegal immigrants to vote, prisoners to vote, and 16 year olds to vote. What’s next, voters who have died but somehow manage to mysteriously cast votes? Oh, yea, that’s already been done. Sorry. All of this is designed to rig elections, not to do what is fair and RESPONSIBLE for the country.

From my perspective, we already have too many IRRESPONSIBLE voters, people who couldn’t pass a simple civics test if their life depended on it. I am still convinced people should pass such a test to be allowed to vote. (It wouldn’t hurt if they were land owners as well.)

So, should incarcerated terrorists and convicted prisoners be allowed to vote? Of course not. We all know it is a silly question. Only someone wanting to undermine our country would insist on it.

Keep the Faith!

EDITORS NOTE: This Bryce is Right podcast is republished with permission. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

Virginia: Somali Uber Driver Accused of War Crimes

It is all over the news so I’m sure you’ve seen it, but what struck me was a CNN cable news report this morning (you know I watch them for a little bit every day) and a female reporter asked Yusuf Abdi Ali“Do you deserve to live here?” 

Wow!  CNN actually asked that question a couple of times (of course he didn’t answer).  What is going on with CNN?  The lengthy report actually tells us how he came to be living in the US and it involves fraud in the US refugee program.

As I said on several previous occasions, if you want to find a topic to satisfy a yen to write a blog, write a blog and call it New American Somali Watch?’

 Material is available on a daily basis!
From CNN,

Accused of War Crimes and Torture, Uber and Lyft Hired Him

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Where does an alleged war criminal accused of torture and directing mass executions look for work while living in the United States? For Yusuf Abdi Ali, there was an easy answer: Uber and Lyft.

Within a couple of days of applying to be a ride-share driver, Ali said he was approved to shuttle passengers from place to place. He’s been doing it for more than 18 months, according to his Uber profile.

“I do this full time,” said Ali, who drives in suburban Virginia. He explained that he prefers to drive during weekends because “that’s where the money is.”When CNNreporters recently caught a ride from Ali, the former Somali military commander was listed on Uber’s app as an “Uber Pro Diamond” driver with a 4.89 rating.

Ali said he has driven for Lyft, too, but he prefers working for Uber. His white Nissan Altima had only an Uber sticker on it. Asked if the application process was difficult, Ali replied that it was a breeze.

“They just want your background check, that’s it,” said Ali, who was unaware that undercover CNN reporters were riding with him and recording the trip on video. “If you apply tonight maybe after two days it will come, you know, everything.”

Ali’s work as a ride-share driver raises new questions about the thoroughness of Uber and Lyft’s background check process and the ease with which some people with controversial pasts can get approved to drive.

[….]

Ali has not been convicted of a crime, but a basic internet search of his name turns up numerous documents and news accounts alleging he committed various atrocities while serving as a military commander during Somalia’s civil war in the 1980s.

His past was detailed in a documentary by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that featured eyewitnesses in northern Somalia who described killings allegedly committed under the direction of Ali, also known as “Colonel Tukeh.”

[….]

Uber and Lyft’s background checks are mostly performed by a separate company called Checkr, which uses applicants’ names and Social Security numbers to search for information in a national sex offender database, federal and local court records and databases used to flag suspected terrorists and others, representatives from the companies said.

A Checkr spokesperson told CNN that its background checks “rely on public criminal records that have been adjudicated in a court of law rather than unverified sources like Google search results. Similarly, most employers don’t request background checks that include pending civil litigation due to its subjective nature.”

This week, Ali is defending himself against a civil suit filed in federal court in Virginia by a man who claims he was one of Ali’s victims in 1988. Farhan Mohamoud Tani Warfaa alleged in court documents that Ali tortured and shot him and ordered bodyguards to bury his body. The guards recognized that Warfaa, a farmer, had not died and accepted a bribe from his family to release him, according to documents.

Now here is what I was most interested in—how did he come to be living among us as a ‘new American?’

According to public accounts, Ali moved to Canada after the Somali military regime he worked under collapsed in 1991. He was deported after news about his alleged war crimes in Somalia became public through that CBC documentary.

Ali entered the United States on a visa through his Somali wife who became a US citizen. In 2006, his wife was found guilty of naturalization fraud for claiming she was a refugee from the very Somali clan that Ali is accused of torturing.

There is much more, continue reading here.

What I would like to know is where is the wife?  If she was convicted of naturalization fraud 13 years ago, did we deport her?  I bet not!

It is even worse! Only a few years ago Ali worked as a security guard at Dulles International Airport

RELATED ARTICLES: 

New York State Luring Refugees to Populate Dying Cities

Jayda Fransen Found Guilty Of Speech “Stirring Up Hatred”

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission.

6 Things to Know About the Prosecutor Investigating Spying on Trump Campaign

John Durham, known for prosecuting FBI agents connected to infamous mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, is now a fourth attorney general’s pick to lead a special investigation into suspected government misconduct.

The Justice Department confirmed to media outlets that Attorney General William Barr named Durham, now U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, to look into why and how department and FBI officials began investigating associates of President Donald Trump before the 2016 election.

Durham’s resume includes investigating the mafia and crooked politicians.

Attorneys general from the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations all previously appointed Durham to lead special investigations.

The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >>

Barr reportedly selected him to head the probe weeks ago, as the FBI came under intensified scrutiny for spying on one Trump campaign adviser and sending a confidential informant to talk to another.

In the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report clearing the Trump campaign of conspiracy with Russia to influence the election, many Republican lawmakers called for an investigation into how the probe of Trump and his team commenced.

Two known incidents loom large: The FBI obtained a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to put Trump campaign aide Carter Page under surveillance. The FBI also sent a confidential informant to talk to George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign aide, in a bar. The woman told Papadopoulos that her name was Azra Turk, and he later described her as “flirtatious.”

Here are six things to know about the prosecutor picked by Barr.

1. Career Prosecutor

Durham, 68, began his career as a Connecticut state prosecutor working from 1978 to 1982 in the New Haven State’s Attorney’s Office.

A registered Republican, he next served in nonpolitical positions through 35 years in the U.S. District of Connecticut, based in New Haven.

From 1982 to 1989, Durham supervised the New Haven field office of the Boston Strike Force in the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. For the next five years, he was chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Haven.

From 1994 through 2008, he served as deputy U.S. attorney, and then, through 2017, as counsel to the U.S. attorney.  

Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, appointed Durham as acting U.S. attorney for Connecticut in October 2017, and Trump nominated him for the post the next month. He took office in February 2018.

2. Busting Mafia-FBI Connection

In 1999, then-Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Durham to investigate corruption in federal law enforcement in Boston.

He examined whether two Boston mob figures, Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, had corrupted the FBI agents whom they served as informants.

Durham’s investigation led to a 10-year prison sentence for retired FBI agent John Connolly Jr., found guilty of helping the two gangsters avoid prosecution.

As part of this investigation, Durham produced documents showing four men had been framed by FBI agents and convicted of murder in the 1960s. Two died in prison, but two others won a $100 million civil judgment against the Justice Department.

3. Special Probes of CIA and Terror Detainees

In 2008, then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed Durham as a special prosecutor to conduct what turned into a three-year probe of the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes. He didn’t recommend any prosecutions.

In an overlapping probe, then-Attorney General Eric Holder named him as a special prosecutor to investigate alleged mistreatment of terror suspects by CIA interrogators and government contractors.

The second probe came after the Justice Department released a report noting possible past abuse by CIA interrogators. Durham concluded by closing most of the cases, but called for continued inquiries into the deaths of two prisoners.

4. Devoted Catholic, Red Sox Fan

Despite handling high-profile cases, Durham typically keeps a low profile.

Earlier this year, according to The Day newspaper in New London, Connecticut Deputy Chief State’s Attorney Leonard C. Boyle noted the only reason that Durham would make a public speech to a crowd at the University of St. Joseph, a Roman Catholic school in West Hartford, Connecticut.

“Other than an overwhelming commitment to the cause of justice, the two great devotions of John’s life are his Catholic faith and his family,” Boyle said of Durham.

Durham and his wife Susan have four sons and eight grandchildren. He reportedly is a big Boston Red Sox fan.

The New Republic, a liberal magazine, wrote of Durham in 2011 that he “earned a nonpartisan, camera-shy, ‘white knight’ reputation.”

5. Public Corruption

Durham led some of the biggest public corruption cases in Connecticut.

Among them was the case of Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland, a Republican who resigned in 2004 after federal prosecutors found he illegally took gifts from state contractors. Rowland pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in prison for offenses committed as governor.

Durham also led an investigation of Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, a Democrat, who was convicted on racketeering and bribery charges in 2003. Ganim spent six years in prison.

6. Lauded by Democrats

Democrats recently excoriated Barr for even using the word “spy” to talk about actions by the Obama administration’s FBI and Justice Department against the Trump campaign before the presidential election in November 2016.

However, Democrats could have a difficult time in attacking Durham.

Confirmed as U.S. attorney in February 2018 by a voice vote in the Senate, he had gained praise from Democrats when Trump nominated him.

Among these admirers were two of Trump’s biggest critics, Connecticut’s two Democratic senators—Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy. The two men had recommended Durham to serve as U.S. attorney.

“John Durham has earned immense respect as a no-nonsense, fierce and fair prosecutor, and we are pleased that the White House has agreed with our recommendation that he serve as United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut,” a joint statement by Blumenthal and Murphy said. “As an Assistant United States Attorney, John Durham has proven himself time and time again in some of the most challenging and sensitive cases.”

It looks like Barr has found just such another case for Durham.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.


Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY


EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.

He Tried to Quit His Union. The Law Didn’t Let Him, and He Lost His Government Job Instead.

Francisco Molina, a social worker for more than 12 years in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, grew dissatisfied with his government employee union and tried to resign from it last summer rather than continue to pay dues. State law wouldn’t let him leave the union, and taking a stand cost him his job.

Although he used to be a shop steward for Service Employees International Union Local 668 and lobbied on the union’s behalf in both Harrisburg and Washington, Molina says, he had decided to break with the SEIU in response to actions he viewed as hostile to free speech rights.

Molina, who was a social services aide in the Lehigh County Office of Children and Youth Services, says he also discovered that fellow union leaders did not provide rank-and-file members with accurate information.

“When I joined the union, I didn’t agree with their principles or values,” Molina, 52, told The Daily Signal in an interview. “But I wanted to make a difference with myself and my co-workers, and I felt that if I got involved, I could make some changes from within as a shop steward.”

“But my personal values never matched the union’s,” Molina said. “The further I got up the chain of command, I realized it was all an illusion and that what they were presenting to the rank and file was not true.”

When SEIU Local 668 asked Molina and co-workers to sign a new membership card in January 2018, he balked after carefully reviewing the language on the card.

Molina, who has three daughters with his wife of 32 years, says he refused to sign because he would be obligated to pay dues regardless of his membership status.

“Even if I wanted to go work for someone else, the union would have the ability to take money straight from my personal account if I had signed,” he told The Daily Signal.

SEIU Local 668 declined to comment for this report.

‘A Pre-Emptive Campaign’

It’s not just that leaders of public sector unions in Pennsylvania are reluctant to allow Molina and other members to resign, but that a state law locks in government employees to pay union dues against their will.

Now a federal court could rule that unconstitutional, or state legislators could amend the law to secure free speech rights.

A section of state law specifies that public employees may resign union membership only during a 15-day window before their contracts expire.

Public sector unions such as the Service Employees International Union stipulate that Molina and other members must submit a resignation letter by certified mail within that 15-day window.

But this “maintenance of membership” provision of Pennsylvania’s Public Employees Relations Act 195 doesn’t require unions to inform workers of the resignation window. And the state’s public payroll systems automatically deduct union dues from paychecks until employees, including Molina, find a way to unwind themselves from membership.

Even then, government workers who choose not to belong to unions have been required to pay “fair share” fees to keep their jobs.

What this means for Pennsylvania civil servants such as Molina—who differ with union leaders on a range of policy questions—is that they must spend part of their work day paying for political activism by the union that they don’t support.

“They had this emergency mandatory meeting in January [2018], where they said the old [membership] cards were invalid and we had to sign new ones,” Molina said of Local 668. “What they were doing was a pre-emptive campaign to avoid the legal ramifications of an unfavorable ruling in the Janus case.”

In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2018 that “agency shop” laws requiring nonunion government workers to pay union fees violate the First Amendment rights of those who object to the political agenda of the union.

Justice Samuel Alito, author of the court’s opinion in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, cited the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of association in his ruling.

Alito made the point that individuals are not just free to speak, but also free to “refrain from speaking” and to “eschew association for expressive purposes.”

The labor laws at issue in the Janus case violate the “constitutional command” protecting citizens against government coercion, Alito argued: “Compelling individuals to mouth support for views they find objectionable violates that cardinal constitutional command, and in most contexts, any such effort would be universally condemned.”

Lawmakers Respond

Rep. Greg Rothman, a Republican state lawmaker from Pennsylvania’s Cumberland County, introduced a bill to amend the law to allow government employees to resign from a union anytime they like, without a window to do so or any other restrictions.

“The public sector unions in Pennsylvania are extremely political, and collectively they are probably the biggest spender on political campaigns in the state,” Rothman said in a phone interview, adding:

They take political positions, which may not in a lot of cases represent the political views of their workers. Part of the First Amendment isn’t just about what I can say, but what someone says on my behalf, and you shouldn’t have your money going towards opinions that aren’t your own. You should also have a right to resign from an organization that doesn’t reflect your views, and you should not be required to be part of an organization in order to have a job.

Rothman’s bill, HB 506, is one of several that seek to turn the Supreme Court’s Janus ruling into law by amending existing Pennsylvania statutes.

State Rep. Kate Klunk, a York County Republican, introduced a measure, HB 785, that would require public sector employers to notify workers of their rights.

“The notice requirement is very simple and the onus is all on the public sector employer—be it the school district, municipality, or state government—to inform nonunion members that they are not required to make a payment to the union unless they affirmatively consent to do so,” Klunk told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

“The unions have no express duty in any of these notices, as it’s only the employer that’s required to send out these notices. This is not pro-union or anti-union. This is just about telling employees what their rights are.”

As an attorney, Klunk has expressed concern that Pennsylvania will continue to face costly litigation until state laws are changed to conform with the Supreme Court ruling that struck down mandatory union dues.

Pennsylvania at Epicenter 

The Janus ruling provided Molina with the opening he had sought to make a clean break.

In letter dated July 16, 2018, Molina resigned from SEIU Local 668. Although he wanted to quit the union before the high court’s decision, he knew he would have been compelled to pay “fair share” fees as a nonmember.

In his letter, Molina informed the SEIU that he wanted the deductions of dues to stop immediately. But they didn’t.

“Even after the Janus ruling, they continued to take dues out of my paycheck,” Molina said of the union. “According to their definition, after I resigned, I would been a nonunion member. There were others who resigned, but I was the most outspoken. I encouraged other workers to read the new cards carefully.”

The SEIU rejected Molina’s resignation letter, arguing that he had to remain a member under the “maintenance of membership” provision that applies to his contract.

Molina continued to protest, and was dismissed from his Lehigh County government job last summer, a few weeks after resigning from the union. Before 2004, he had worked in the private sector but didn’t belong to a union.

In January, Molina filed a lawsuit against SEIU Local 668, challenging the union’s refusal to allow him to resign and alleging that the union violated his constitutional rights under the First and 14th amendments.

“Under my contract, it says if I don’t pay my dues, the union can ask for my termination,” Molina told The Daily Signal. “That’s what I believe ended up happening in the end. I was terminated. I cannot work as a civil servant again for the state of Pennsylvania until this case is resolved.”

The Fairness Center, a nonprofit, public interest law firm based in Harrisburg, represents Molina.

“What Francisco [Molina] did for himself here was wonderful because he refused to sign a card that would have locked him into paying union dues regardless of his membership,” said David Osborne, president and general counsel of the Fairness Center. “He read the language and decided it didn’t make sense for him. So, what this case is about is a statute in Pennsylvania called ‘maintenance of membership’ that gives unions the right to keep members from resigning for years at a time.”

The Legal Landscape

The Fairness Center filed a separate but related class action lawsuit against Local 668 on behalf of public employees, challenging the “maintenance of membership” law on constitutional grounds. Both cases fit into a larger national picture.

The Daily Signal sought a response from SEIU Local 668 on the specifics of this article. The union responded to the request, but declined to comment.

Two other organizations—Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit, public interest law center based in Illinois, and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation—also entered the fray in Pennsylvania to challenge the legality of the continued deduction of union dues that have cost government workers thousands of dollars.

This was a significant development because the two legal advocacy groups partnered to represent Mark Janus, a child support specialist for Illinois state government, in the Supreme Court case that overturned mandatory union dues for government workers.

Liberty Justice Center has filed two lawsuits, one in Lebanon County on behalf of four mental health workers, and another in Philadelphia on behalf of a caseworker for the state’s Department of Health and Human Services.

Both of the center’s lawsuits cite the high court’s ruling in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees in arguing against the deduction of unions dues on First Amendment grounds. Both cases also challenge the unions’ current standing as the exclusive representative of the government workers who sued.

For its part, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation took up the case of a school bus driver in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District who is asking for a refund of union fees that were withdrawn from his paycheck after he resigned his union membership.

The foundation filed suit against Teamsters Local 312 and the school district on behalf of the bus driver, who resigned from the Teamsters after the Janus ruling. The foundation also set up a website called MyJanusRights.org.

‘A Real Pushback’

The lead plaintiff in the Janus suit has some advice for unions that he shared with The Daily Signal.

“The public sector unions have been spending money on litigation, fighting the Janus decision and fighting workers that are resigning,” Janus said in an email. “Wouldn’t that money be better spent on representing their membership in matters that would better provide for the unions’ original purpose?”

Janus added:

It is cumbersome to resign from public sector unions. Now there is a real pushback by the public sector unions to prevent workers from leaving, in spite of the Janus ruling. What they are doing is denying these workers their First Amendment rights.

Meanwhile, the Fairness Center continues to cut its own path with active Janus-related litigation against AFSCME Council 89 and AFSCME Council 13, both in Pennsylvania.

Another active case that could have reverberations across Pennsylvania concerns a liquor store clerk, John Kabler, who alleges that Local 1776 of the United Food and Commercial Workers gave him false information and misled him into joining the union. Kabler also claims union leaders resisted his efforts to resign, and in March the center filed suit against the union on his behalf.

The public interest firm also settled some Pennsylvania cases in which the union agreed to allow their client to resign without paying more union dues. But these settlements were reached before the constitutionality of the “maintenance of membership” statute faced judicial scrutiny.

Charles Mitchell, president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, a free market think tank based in Harrisburg, said he thinks he knows why.

“There’s a reason why unions like AFSCME and SEIU are relying upon maintenance of membership rules and the window periods in Pennsylvania,” Mitchell said in a phone interview. “It’s because it’s the next obvious piece of coercion available to them.”

“I think it’s very clear that these restrictions are not consistent with workers’ rights and with the First Amendment,” he said. “I also believe one of the many people in Pennsylvania challenging these restrictions will be successful. The Janus opinion is extremely important, and Mark Janus is a hero.”

While the Fairness Center continues to apply pressure in court, Mitchell sees another ace in the hole available to proponents of labor reform in the form of the new legislative proposals.

“There are many lawmakers who are now standing up and saying our laws are inconsistent with the Janus decision and we need to fix them and inform workers of their rights,” he said. “They are doing this despite all the money and influence available to public sector unions, and that’s a very positive development.”

Klunk, the Republican lawmaker from York County, would like to see her bill become law this year. Although Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has received political support from organized labor, Klunk says she is hopeful the governor will allow the bill to move forward.

Even if Wolf doesn’t the sign the measure, it could become law without his signature if it passes both houses of the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

“Right now, we are clogging up our courts with additional cases over an issue that has already has been settled at the federal level before the Supreme Court,” Klunk said. “This benefits no one, and my bill in its current form repeals an unconstitutional provision of our state law. Wolf is the governor of all the people, not just the unions, and he could sign the bill or choose not to sign it and let it become law.”

The Daily Signal contacted Wolf’s office by phone seeking comment for this story and emailed his press secretary, J.J. Abbott, asking whether the governor has a position on the legislative proposals to amend Act 195.

The Daily Signal also asked Abbott whether the governor had any concerns about the costs of litigation attached to a labor issue that already had been settled at the federal level. Abbott had not responded by publication time.

SEIU Local 668 has filed a motion seeking dismissal of Molina’s case. Osborne, head of the Fairness Center, said he expects the court to make a ruling on the union’s motion within the next month.

“The union has to bear a very heavy burden to demonstrate the case is mute and they will no longer violate the law,” Osborne said. “I don’t think there is any way the union can bear that burden.”

COLUMN BY

Kevin Mooney

Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter for The Daily Signal. Send an email to Kevin. Twitter: @KevinMooneyDC.

RELATED ARTICLE: Supreme Court Strikes Down Mandatory Union Fees for Government Employees


Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY


EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.

Did One of the Colorado School Shooter’s Belief in a ‘Big Lie’ About Christians Lead to his Hate-filled Act?

We now know that two people who had serious issues in their lives were behind the shooting at the K-12 STEM school located in Douglas County, Colorado. One was a girl named Maya (a.k.a. Alec) McKinney who was “transitioning” to be a boy. The second was Devon Erickson, an 18-year-old high school student who worked as a “youth actor” in Colorado.

On May 15, 2014 Devon Erickson wrote on his Facebook page:

You know what I hate? All these Christians who hate gays, yet in the bible, it says in Deuteronomy 17:12-13 if someone doesn’t do what their priest tells them to do, they are supposed to die. It has plenty of stuff like that. But all they get out of it is “ewwwwww gays”

Questions:

  1. Did Erickson’s hate of Christians lead him to commit his hate-filled act?
  2. Did Erickson enlist the help of a minor girl Maya McKinney to become a co-conspirator in this hate-filled act?
  3. Is this a religious hate crime inflamed by LGBT propaganda about Christians?

The Big Lie

The big lie is that Christians hate gays.

This horrific shooting happened just one month after the first openly gay candidate for president Democrat Pete Buttigieg’s attack against Vice President Mike Pence, a Christian, for his stance on “same-sex marriage and gay rights.” The “Christians hate us” big lie is something that the LGBT community has been pushing with the help of organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC website states:

A central theme of anti-LGBT organizing and ideology is the opposition to LGBT rights, often couched in rhetoric and harmful pseudoscience that demonizes LGBT people as threats to children, society and often public health.

Learn more about the LGBT efforts to change science, biology and culture by clicking here.

What Do Christians Believe about Gays?

The issues addressed about how Christians approach gays is outlined in a column titled “10 Things Everyone Should Know About a Christian View of Homosexuality” by Glenn Stanton. Stanton lists the following views held by orthodox Christians:

  1. All humans are simultaneously sinful and loved. All people, regardless of their story, are deeply and unconditionally loved by God, each created with profound dignity and worth, not one more than another.
  2. Jesus wasn’t silent on homosexuality. Jesus was unequivocal in saying that to understand marriage and the sexual union, we must go back to the beginning and see how God created humanity and to what end. (See Matthew 19 and Mark 10.)
  3. There is only one option. Both Jesus and all of scripture approve of no other sexual union than that between a husband and wife.
  4. Male and female complete God’s image on earth. It is not just mere “traditionalism” that makes sex-distinct marriage the norm for Christians.
  5. Sex is indeed about babies. It is a new and culturally peculiar idea that human sexuality is all about intimacy and pleasure, but not necessarily babies. Babies and reproduction matter.
  6. Children have a right to a mother and father. Every person ever born can track his origin to a mother and a father.
  7. Same-sex attraction is not a sin. To be human is to have a disordered sexuality. You do. I do. Everyone does.
  8. Sexual intimacy is not a right. Every Christian has limitations placed on his sexuality.
  9. Rewriting God’s rules is never an option. One of the marks of a Christian is his or her desire to be obedient to Christ’s teaching.
  10. People are more than their sexuality. To identify people by their sexuality is to reduce people to their sexuality.

Misusing the Bible

Question: Did Devon Erickson misuse the Bible to justify his hateful act?

Erickson quoted the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy 17: 12-13 on his social media account. Deuteronomy 17: 12-13 reads:

And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not listen to the priest that stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die: and you shall put away the evil from Israel.

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament notes:

If such a case should occur, as that a man or woman transgressed the covenant of the Lord and went after other gods and worshipped them; when it was made known, the facts were to be carefully inquired into; and if the charge were substantiated, the criminal was to be led out to the gate and stoned. On the testimony of two or three witnesses, not of one only, he was to be put to death (see at Numbers 35:30); and the hand of the witnesses was to be against him first to put him to death, i.e., to throw the first stones at him, and all the people were to follow. With regard to the different kinds of idolatry in Deuteronomy 17:3, see Deuteronomy 4:19. (On Deuteronomy 17:4, see Deuteronomy 13:15.) “Bring him out to thy gates,” i.e., to one of the gates of the town in which the crime was committed. By the gates we are to understand the open space near the gates, where the judicial proceedings took place (cf. Nehemiah 8:1, Nehemiah 8:3; Job. Deu 29:7), the sentence itself being executed outside the town (cf. Deuteronomy 22:24; Acts 7:58; Hebrews 13:12), just as it had been outside the camp during the journey through the wilderness (Leviticus 24:14; Numbers 15:36), to indicate the exclusion of the criminal from the congregation, and from fellowship with God. The infliction of punishment in Deuteronomy 17:5. is like that prescribed in Deuteronomy 13:10-11, for those who tempted others to idolatry; with this exception, that the testimony of more than one witness was required before the sentence could be executed, and the witnesses were to be the first to lift up their hands against the criminal to stone him, that they might thereby give a practical proof of the truth of their statement, and their own firm conviction that the condemned was deserving of death, – “a rule which would naturally lead to the supposition that no man would come forward as a witness without the fullest certainty or the greatest depravity” (Schnell, das isr. Recht).

However, Jesus said this in John 8: 1-12 about stoning those who were found criminally guilty in the New Testament:

1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.
3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group
4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.
7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Selective parsing leads to hate-filled acts. That is today’s lesson tragically learned by those in Colorado.

RELATED ARTICLE: Father of Colorado school shooter Alec McKinney is Serial Felon and Illegal Immigrant

New York Times May Have Broken Law by Publishing Trump’s Tax Returns

The New York Times no doubt considers it quite a coup to have obtained and published President Donald Trump’s tax return information from 1985 to 1994. But doing so violated Trump’s right under federal law to the confidentiality of his tax returns.

The Times—which reported that Trump’s businesses lost $1.17 billion during the 10-year period—has no more right to Trump’s tax returns than it has to mine or those of any of you reading these words.

Confidentiality, as the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held in 1991 in U.S. v. Richey, is essential to “maintaining a workable tax system.”

Taxpayer privacy is “fundamental to a tax system that relies on self-reporting” since it protects “sensitive or otherwise personal information,” said then-Judge (now Supreme Court Justice) Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1986 in another case when she served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Federal law—26 U.S.C. §7213(a)(1)—makes it a felony for any federal employee to disclose tax returns or “return information.” Infractions are punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine as high as $250,000 under the Alternative Fines Act (18 U.S.C. §3571).

Regardless of the accuracy or inaccuracy of The New York Times story, tax returns themselves, as well as tax return information such as these IRS transcripts (which are a summary of the tax returns), are protected from disclosure by federal law. And this provision applies to private individuals as well as government employees, a fact that should be considered by the New York Times’ source.

According to the newspaper, it did not actually obtain Trump’s tax returns but “printouts from his official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts, with the figures from his federal tax form, the 1040, from someone who had legal access to them.”

The Times quotes a lawyer for the president, Charles J. Harder, as saying that the tax information in the story is “demonstrably false” and that IRS transcripts, particularly from the days before electronic filing, are “notoriously inaccurate.” However, that claim is disputed by a former IRS employee now at the liberal Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

The president tweeted Wednesday in response to the Times story: “Real estate developers in the 1980’s & 1990’s, more than 30 years ago, were entitled to massive write offs and depreciation which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases. Much was non monetary. Sometimes considered ‘tax shelter,’ … you would get it by building, or even buying. You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes….almost all real estate developers did – and often re-negotiate with banks, it was sport. Additionally, the very old information put out is a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!

Regardless of the accuracy or inaccuracy of The New York Times story, tax returns themselves, as well as tax return information such as these IRS transcripts (which are a summary of the tax returns), are protected from disclosure by federal law. If the newspaper obtained this information from an employee of the IRS, that employee will be in big trouble if he or she is identified.

Could the editors and reporters at The New York Times be prosecuted for publishing this information?

Section (a)(3) of the law makes it a felony for any person who receives an illegally disclosed tax return or return information to publish that return or that information. But it’s unknown if the bar on publication by a media organization could survive a First Amendment challenge.

What we do know is that in previous incidents, the government did not attempt to prosecute the publisher of tax return information. In 2014, the IRS agreed to pay the National Organization for Marriage $50,000 to settle a lawsuit after an IRS clerk illegally disclosed the organization’s tax return.

The clerk gave the tax return to Matthew Meisel, a former employee of Bain & Company, who gave it to the Human Rights Campaign (a political opponent of the National Organization for Marriage). The tax return was then posted on the Human Rights Campaign website and published by The Huffington Post.

Although the IRS paid to settle the lawsuit, none of the individuals or organizations involved in the illegal disclosure and publication were prosecuted.

If such a prosecution were attempted, there is no doubt that a First Amendment challenge would be filed.

The courts would then have to answer an important question: Are the interests of the government in an effective tax system and that of citizens in maintaining the confidentiality of their financial information outweighed by the First Amendment right of the press, and by and the public’s interest in obtaining financial information on elected officials?

In the midst of this illegal disclosure to The New York Times, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced Monday that he would not comply with a demand by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., to provide the committee with copies of tax returns filed by Trump and eight of his companies for the last six years.

Mnuchin sent a letter to Neal telling him that “the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution requires that congressional information demands must reasonably serve a legitimate legislative purpose.”

The treasury secretary is correct. Numerous court decisions hold that legislative investigations must have a legitimate legislative purpose. Mnuchin says that Neal’s request “lacks” such a legitimate purpose.

The court decisions supporting Mnuchin’s decision include the 1957 decision in Watkins v. U.S., in which the Supreme Court told the House Un-American Activities Committee that “there is no congressional power to expose for the sake of exposure” the “private affairs of individuals.”

Neal has claimed that the legislative purpose of getting the Trump tax returns is to examine how the IRS audits presidents. But as Trump’s legal counsel has pointed out, Neal didn’t ask for the tax returns of any other presidents and hasn’t asked any questions of any kind about IRS policy and procedures for such audits.

Mnuchin tells Neal in his letter that he is willing to provide the congressman with complete information on “how the IRS conducts mandatory examinations of Presidents, as provided by the Internal Revenue Manual.”

If examining how the IRS audits presidents is really Neal’s legislative purpose—as opposed to simply wanting to expose anything embarrassing the committee finds in Trump’s tax returns—IRS information on its policies and procedures would be the only information the House committee would need.

So the Treasury Department has put House Democrats in check for now. It will probably be up to the courts to see who achieves checkmate when it comes to the Trump tax returns.

Now the interests of protecting the privacy of taxpayers warrants the opening of a government investigation to find the leaker who provided the Trump tax information to The New York Times.

The IRS and the Justice Department should investigate how this disclosure happened, find out who did it, and prosecute anyone who violated the law.

COMMENTARY BY

Hans von Spakovsky

Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. Read his research.Twitter:  .


Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY


EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.

MUELLER WITCH HUNT/RUSSIA COLLUSION: An analysis of Robert Mueller and his motivations.

Let us start with the qualifications, or lack thereof, of Robert Mueller to be a special prosecutor investigating the alleged “collusion with Russia” by one Donald J. Trump.

We will progress from there to the real collusion with Russian elements engaged in by our own CIA in an attempt to interfere in the U.S. presidential elections of 2016.

How about Uranium One?  Think it was just Hillary Clinton who was involved?  Nine members of the Obama administration, including Eric Holder, and former FBI director Robert Mueller (in the CFIUS committee) voted in favor of allowing the Russians to control 20% of America’s Uranium.  I always said, wouldn’t you just love to see the bank accounts of those nine people during the time surrounding that event?  Do you really believe that the Clinton’s kept all of the $145 million dollars the Russians paid them?

According to Wikileaks, in 2009 Sec. State. Clinton commissioned FBI director Mueller to deliver a 10-gram sample of enriched (weapons grade) Uranium to Russian intelligence.  The transfer was made during a Tarmac meeting in Moscow in the fall of 2009 (Love those Tarmac meetings).   Clinton apologists have insisted that this transfer of Uranium had nothing to do with the Uranium One deal, or with Clinton’s role in the CFIUS deal.

As a former intelligence officer myself, I find it strange that the FBI director would be tasked with a job that one would expect should have been handled by either the CIA or the Department of Energy.  The CIA at that time was headed by Bush holdover Gates, a straight shooter, which might explain why Clinton turned to Mueller, a long-time deep state swamp critter with an extensive history of shady deals.

When Russian bribery efforts in the Uranium One case came to light, guess who Mueller put in charge of the investigation?  Fellow deep state swamp critter Rod Rosenstein, the physical and ideological clone of Nazi Deep State operative Heinrich Himmler (don’t believer me?  Google the photos).  Mueller and Rosenstein then suppressed knowledge of the Russian bribery case.

But it now appears that 2012 was the banner year for Mueller and company to engage in criminal and treasonous activities.   Remember the HSBC bank case where said bank was accused of (and admitted to) engaging in money-laundering activities for Drug cartels and terrorist groups?   Guess who was a member of the HSBC board of directors during the time these crimes were committed?  Mr. purer-than-driven-snow James Comey.  HSBC was let off the hook by the payment of a fine.  Guess who handled the case?  US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch, who was then rewarded by Obama with the post of U.S. Attorney General replacing Eric Holder, who was AG at the time of the Russian bribery scandal and this HSBC scandal.  Does the swamp take care of its own?

The above can be found in Jerome Corsi’s new book “Killing the Deep State,” as well as a variety of other sources.

But now for the treason.  Former Air Force intelligence officer Stephen Coughlin in his book Catastrphic Failure:  Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad documented that in February of 2012 both Robert Mueller and John Brennan colluded and collaborated with elements from the Muslim Brotherhood to rid America’s intelligence and law enforcement entities of valuable data bases, books, and training manuals connected with the war on terror (p. 379).  Former DHS officer Phil Haney speaks of the same thing in his book See Something, Say Nothing:  A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad, p. 141).   But neither Haney nor Coughlin connected all the dots, linking these acts to treason.  So I will do it here:

In 1991 the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) produced a document titled:  An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.

This document, in Arabic, was obtained by the FBI in a raid on a safe house in Northern Virginia, in 2004.  It was later used in the Holy Land Foundation trial of 2008 when Muslim Brotherhood elements connected with CAIR were found guilty of supporting terrorism.  I have in my hands a copy of the original 1991 Arabic, and a copy of the English translation used in the 2008 Holy Land trial.

This so-called “memorandum” is more like a “manifesto,” it is essentially a declaration of war on the United States and Canada.  It does not shy away from using the term “Civilizational Jihad.”

A key passage on page 4 of the Arabic original of this long, multi-page document calls on MB brothers and sympathizers in America to destroy and uproot our civil society and civilization, so it can be replaced by Shari’a law.

Egypt’s state-sponsored al-ahram newspaper on 30 August 2016 also carried a long multi-page essay on this same MB document, reaching the same conclusion as above, e.g. that the goal of the MB was to destroy the civil society and civilization of America and replace it with Shari’a law.  Civilizational jihad.

In other words, in this document the MB essentially declares war on our constitution.  So, now to connect the dots, Both Mueller and Brennan not only violated their oaths of office (to defend and protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic) by collaborating and colluding with a declared enemy of the United States and its constitution, but also aided and abetted that same enemy by obeying that enemy’s command to destroy Counter Terrorism training materials and data bases.  And, that, folks, is the definition of treason:  Article III, section 3.

Russia, though a competitor and an irritant, is not an openly declared enemy of the U.S., therefore collusion with it is not a crime.  However the MB is a declared enemy, therefore   aiding and abetting it is a crime . . . the crime being treason.   Now, does anybody out there seriously believe that Mueller and Brennan deleted all of these data bases and burned and shredded all of these books and training manuals in every intelligence and law enforcement agency down to the local cops . . . without Obama’s knowledge and approval?

In May of 2012 the Obama administration also issued “hands off” orders to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and US Customs and Border Protection officers pertaining to Muslims of all strips–even radicals.  So, this “hands off” policy imposed by the Obama administration allowed Muslim Brotherhood leaders and others with Islamic supremacist beliefs and affiliations to travel freely in and out of the United States (Haney, p. 132).

So, in other words, we have not only Brennan and Mueller committing treason, but also Obama.  So, what were the results of their treason?

After all these CT data bases were deleted, and executive orders given, allowing terrorist to roam freely in our country, the following terrorist acts were committed between  2013 to 2016:

Boston Marathon Bombing, Tennessee Military Recruiting Stations, Oregon Junior College, San Bernadino, and Orlando.  The toll:  82 Americans killed, and 353 Americans wounded on American soil.  No one has been held accountable.

(There is more than enough evidence here for the injured survivors and the families of those killed by these terrorist acts to launch very successful class action lawsuits against Mueller, Brennan, and Obama.  All three of these men should spend the rest of their lives in Ft. Leavenworth for the damage they have done to the United States–a damage that has long outlived their years of “service” in the government.)

The Russians even gave us direct warnings about the Tsarnaev brothers (Boston), and about the Oregon shooter.  Obama gave orders to ignore Russian warnings because “Russia is not valid at this time.”  (Translation:  Obama was peeved at Putin).

NOW FOR THE RUSSIA/TRUMP DOSSIER

While Sean Hannity and others screech about a tiny mouse in the room (the Dems paying Fusion GPS $12 million for dirt on Trump), they totally ignore the 20-ton elephant that takes up 99% of that same room.

In the first place, we don’t know how much, if any, of that $12 million GPS received from the Democrats were paid to Christopher Steele.  Certainly GPS would have wanted to keep some (or all) of it for themselves.  And, even if Steele received some of it, we would have no evidence he paid even a dime to unknown Russians for the production of the salacious material in the dossier.  No, we’re talking about much bigger fish than the Democrat’s $12 million dollars.

Ever wonder why John Brennan has been so strident, almost psychotic, about demonizing Trump publicly in tweets and on TV?  Check this out:

London-based EYE SPY  magazine, which is close to Britain’s MI6 organization,  reported (April 2017 issue, pp. 20-22) on two Russian cyber Geeks whom their employer, Russia’s FSB spy organization, had arrested for “violating their oaths of office and collaborating with a foreign intelligence agency” (Later identified as the CIA).

These two cyber geeks were apparently the ones who put together much of the salacious (and probably doctored) material (videos, audio tapes, and other “hacked materials”) which were used in the Steele dossier.

The equivalent of $14.1 U.S. dollars was found by the FSB in the residence of Dimitri Dukuchayev, one of the cyber Geeks, a major in the FSB.  The Russians swear that the money came from the CIA.  It can be assumed that the other geek, Sergei Mikailov, a  Col. in the FSB, must have received at least that much himself.  Plus, they used at least one middle man, an ex KGB general named Oleg Erovenkin (who was chief of staff to an oligarch close to Putin), to get the materials to Steele (and/or the CIA).

So, we are talking probably dozens of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars paid by Brennan’s CIA to Russian operatives to produce materials that (Brennan hoped) could be used to interfere in the U.S. presidential elections of 2016 and/or bring Trump down were he to actually win the election.

Ever wonder why, if the whole purpose of the Mueller investigation was “Russia collusion” based on the Trump/Steele dossier . . . ever wonder why Mueller and his merry gang of over a baker’s dozen Trump haters have never raised a finger to actually investigate . . . what their whole premise is base upon–the Dossier?

As a footnote, the alleged Middle Man Erovenkin (surprise, surprise) turned up dead (slumped over in the back seat of his car) before the FSB could question him.  Though the hospital he was taken to pronounced the cause of death, a heart attack, just about everyone in Russia suspects foul play.  Foul play . . . but by whom?

The timeline of this is interesting:  The existence of the Dossier was made public to the media in October 2016–but only after Brennan personally gave DNI James Clapper the okay to release it to CNN.  Two months later, in December, middle man Erovenkin is taken out before he can be questioned.  Then, one month after that (after FSB officials had combed Erovenkin’s computers, phone data, etc. for contacts) the FSB arrested the two above-mentioned cyber geeks in January of 2017.

And, so, these are the clowns (Mueller, Comey, Rosenstein, and Brennan) who have spearheaded the plot to: 1.  Clear Hillary Clinton, and 2. To bring down Trump.

And we’re supposed to assume, as Trey Gowdy said, that everything is being handled correctly, that the FBI did exactly as the American people would want them to?

(Several news sites on the net are now reporting that FSB Col. Sergei Mikailov has been sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Russian court.  His partner, Dimitri Dukuchayev is awaiting trial.  Dukuchayev, I believe, was the ringer leader of this scandal from the Russian side.)

MUELLER PLAYS DEFENSE

There is an old adage I think that came from football:  The best defense is a good offense.

If you have a ball-hogging offense that can eat up the clock and score lots of point, you won’t need much of a defense because the other team won’t have the ball in their hands with enough time to score any points of their own.

For the last two plus years we’ve seen the Democrats play that game, launching countless investigations into everything related to Trump.  Their game plan is to stay on offense, keep Trump (and the Republicans) on the defensive constantly so they don’t have time to launch counter investigations on such things as FISA abuse and who really paid for the Dossier.

And, of course, Robert Mueller was a large part of the Democrat game plan.  He knew at least 19 months before he issued his report (if not from the moment he was brought on board) that the Dossier was false, the FISA warrants were illegal, and there was no collusion between Trump and Russia.  And, yet, knowing all of that, Mueller persisted in perpetuating a $35,000,000 fraud against the American people.  Why?

SEMPER FIE FI FO FUM

Apologists for Mueller always point to the fact that Mueller was a marine.  He served in Vietnam, was wounded, and honored with a medal.  Well, Adolph Hitler also served his country in wartime, was wounded during WWI, received a medal.  Then went on to “public service” where he was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people.

The only qualities of the Marine Corp that Mueller has retained, is his dogged persistence.  Put him on a case as a prosecutor, and he will get a conviction.  It does not matter whether his target is innocent or guilty, he will get that conviction.  Another notch on his gun handle.  No boy scout he.

Which is why the Democrats and the Deep State were overjoyed to see Mueller picked as special prosecutor–and why fellow swamp critter Rod Rosenstein hand-picked his old fellow traveler to do the dirty.

Mueller’s job was not to prove Russian collusion, because the only collusion was by the Democrats and Mueller’s buddies in the Deep State.  No, Mueller’s job, pure and simple, was to destroy Trump.  So, knowing that there was no Trump/Russia he perpetuated the fraud for as long as he could hoping that Trump would slip up, say something that  Mueller could use as a secondary charge.  A face-to-face interview would have served that purpose had Trump fallen for it.

Mueller has a long history of getting people to admit to crimes they didn’t commit just so he could get a prosecution.  And, he has a long history of destroying the lives of innocent people and their families . . . in his quest for yet another knotch on his tainted pistol handle.  Dirty cop, he.

(Remember the anthrax scandal where Mueller’s false accusations and pursuit ended up costing the U.S. taxpayers millions).

Thankfully, Trump didn’t fall for the face-to-face with pit viper Mueller, but Trump being Trump, there was always the chance that he’d say something, or tweet something that Mueller could use as a secondary charge of “obstruction” or something.

And, Mueller and his Trump-hating psychopaths dutifully recorded every one of Trump’s Trumpisms, and thinking outloud-isms.  But, in the end they couldn’t make the case.

At this point, when Mueller finally decided to give up the charade, he had a duty to make a decision not only on Trump/Russia, but on the issue of “obstruction of justice.”  Mueller’s failure to do so left the door open for the Democrats to continue playing offense.  If not Trump/Russia, then “obstruction of Justice.”  If not obstruction of justice, then it’s Trump’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, or his not being friendly enough with Qatar (to paraphrase California Representative Adam Schiff, and New Jersey senator Robert Menendez).

Qatar, BTW, is one of the world’s top three state sponsors of terror, and is the primary state financier of the Muslim Brotherhood, which in turn financed numerous other subsidiary jihadi terrorist groups.  So, I do believe that Schiff’s and Menendez’s fondness for Qatar needs to be investigated.

MUELLER COLLUDES WITH DEMOCRATS

Isn’t it ironic that the Democrats are demonizing Trump for “being cozy with dictators,” and even using that allegation as a basis for additional investigations into the possibility of beginning impeachment proceedings?  This, from a basket of political bullies who cheered Trump’s predecessor for kissing up to the murderous Castro regime in Cuba, for submissively telling the then Russian president that “he’d be more flexible after the elections,” for granting Iran the right to pursue nuclear weapons in the 2030s while turning 150 Billion dollars over to them to use for terrorist purposes, and not to mention his “coziness” with Egypt’s former Muslim Brotherhood dictator Muhammad Mursi.

With this background on the Democrat’s obsession with investigating everything Trump, Mueller timed the release of his so-called testy letter to Attorney General Barr, just prior to Barr’s testimony before Congress, so as to give Congress some red meat to use on Barr.  The only motivation for that, on Mueller’s part, is to allow Congress to remain on the offensive.

And, so, then the Democrats attacked Attorney General Barr because they can’t get to Trump since there is no collusion and no obstruction of justice.

WHY MUELLER, THE DEMOCRATS, AND DEEP STATE NEED TO STAY ON OFFENSE

If the FISA applications and the Steele dossier origins and funding were ever investigated, it would bring down and possibly send to jail some of Mueller’s best friends.  Not to mention any names such as James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, and John Brennan.

But even worse than that, opening up those investigations could lead to a larger investigation including several other crimes committed during the Obama years.  These could include the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal, and Mueller’s own treasonous actions in 2012 vis-à-vis the Muslim Brotherhood.  Investigating these scandals in turn, would lead right back to the Obama White House and could put dozens of other deep state swamp critters behind bars–including Mueller himself.

Bottom line, Mueller, and his fellow “Deep State” swamp creatures, are fighting for their lives, and will do anything to keep their opposition on the defensive–and to make the public so sick of “investigations” that launching any counter investigations against the real criminals now becomes nearly impossible.  That was the Democrat Party, Deep State objective all along, and they have been hugely successful following that strategy because they have a very corrupt national media playing ball with them.

My evaluation is that if these investigations are either not started, brushed aside, or not followed to their logical conclusions (i.e. responsibility being place on those who deserve it), then the United States is well on the way to becoming a third-rate banana republic.

(Note: Much additional information on this so-called “Spy Gate” is contained in a 65 page opus by Jeff Carlson, and posted on The Epoch Times on 28 March 2019.  This includes such morsels as Britian’s GCHQ collecting intelligence on then Candidate Trump as early as late 2015, and then transmitting that intelligence to entities in the United States.  And, an indication that Brennan had an advance knowledge of the Steele dossier a month prior to the FBI’s reaching out to Steele asking for any and all the information he had on team Trump.  This would seem to support the above-mentioned EYE SPY  Reporting on CIA payments to rogue Russian cyber geeks to compile at least a portion of the dossier.)

Mr. Attorney General William Barr, you and your Department of Justice have a lot of work cut out for you.

Trump Pardons Army LT. Michael Behenna, Convicted of Murdering Al-Qaeda Detainee

President Donald Trump issued a full pardon Monday to former Army First Lieutenant Michael Behenna, who served five years in prison after being convicted of murdering a suspected Al-Qaeda terrorist.

In May 2008, Behenna was questioning Ali Mansur Mohamed, a suspected terrorist who had allegedly been involved in an IED attack that killed two U.S. soldiers. The interrogation ended when Behenna fired two rounds into the terrorist — which the 1st Lt. claimed was in self-defense after Mansur lunged for his pistol.

A military court convicted Behenna of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone in 2009. The prosecution said Behenna was not acting in self-defense, but in retaliation for the deaths of his fellow soldiers, and killed Mansur while returning him to his hometown.

In a statement released Monday announcing the pardon, the White House noted that Behenna’s 25-year sentence was greatly reduced following certain concerns about the case. Behenna was released from prison on parole in 2014.

“After judgment, however, the U.S. Army’s highest appellate court noted concern about how the trial court had handled Mr. Behenna’s claim of self-defense.  Additionally, the Army Clemency and Parole Board reduced his sentence to 15 years and paroled him as soon as he was eligible in 2014—just 5 years into his sentence.”

Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter has repeatedly petitioned the White House for clemency, writing to Attorney General Bill Barr last month that Behenna’s conviction was predicated on improper procedure by prosecutors.

The White House cited Hunter’s support in its announcement, adding, “while serving his sentence, Mr. Behenna was a model prisoner. In light of these facts, Mr. Behenna is entirely deserving of this Grant of Executive Clemency.”

Some of Trump’s other high-profile pardons include Scooter Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, and Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff.

In March 2018, the president pardoned Kristian Saucier, a Navy sailor who served a year in prison for taking photos of classified areas of a submarine.

COLUMN BY:

Amber Athey

White House Correspondent. Follow Amber on Twitter

VIDEO: Project Veritas & Lies in the Media (James O’Keefe Full Interview)

Facebook “deboosting.”

Twitter “shadow banning.”

Dave Rubin and I had a great conversation about Project Veritas’ investigations into Silicon Valley and how Veritas is working with insiders in big tech to show Americans the truth behind these media goliaths.

We spoke about the importance of moral courage and how one person — with a camera and a lot of heart — can make an enormous impact.

Please watch my interview with Dave Rubin below.  It will give you better insight into the big tech investigations we are working and how brave insiders in tech, education, media, and government can work with Project Veritas to change our culture.

EDITORS NOTE: This Project Veritas interview is republished with permission.

VIDEO: The Vortex — Enemies of Truth

TRANSCRIPT

I’m Michael Voris coming to you from Jerusalem on our final day in the Holy Land as we wrap up production from here on our documentary on the Eucharist — and quickly, because so many have asked, you can preorder a copy of the final production by just clicking on the provided link.

It was here, in Jerusalem, about a 10-minute walk from where we are right now, that Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate asked his question of Our Lord: What is truth?

Enemies of Christ deny truth, they deny its existence as anything beyond whatever is expedient. Pilate denied it, even having truth Himself standing right in front of him.

Caiaphas denied it when he tore his robes in response to Our Lord’s truthful acclamation that He was, in fact, the Messiah and the Son of God.

And so it has gone down through the centuries even to our own day. And it doesn’t even matter what given waters the enemies of Christ may swim in — politics, media, religion — all His enemies are liars.

Which of course stands to reason because it was right over there, on the Temple Mount, where Islam’s Dome of the Rock now stands, that Our Lord brutalized the Jewish leaders for their rejection of truth in His own person.

He railed at them, naming them as offspring of the serpent and saying they were enemies of the truth because their father was the devil, who is the father of lies.

That is pretty severe language all by itself, but when coming as a judgment pronounced on you by the Son of God, it is a horrifying condemnation. Those who lie, who participate in lying to obscure or deny the truth, are the offspring of the devil.

And this isn’t just some historical or even biblical reality rooted in nostalgia or biblical scholarship. This is real today.

Consider CNN with its constant stream of fake news — meaning lies and distortions to get at Donald Trump. And that includes MSNBC, or The New York Times and so forth, the lot of them that want to get at it Him.

And why do they want to get at him? Because he represents to them — rightly or wrongly, a moral America — the head of a political grassroots movement that if successful would completely undo their liberal 1970s America which has ruled the country for nearly half a century. That vision of America was built on lies.

Roe v. Wade was built on the lie that Jane Roe, whose real name was Norma McCorvey, was gang raped by black men. Only decades later did it come out that that was a lie invented by Roe lawyer Sarah Weddington.

Weddington recently sat next to Andrew Cuomo as he signed the most wide-ranging abortion law in world history into effect earlier this year — more lies.

Joe Biden’s entire political career is built on lies — perhaps the biggest one coming to light is he is a creeper, not just friendly “Uncle Joe.”

He has manhandled so many women in public and done creepy things, like smelling their hair, that he has earned the nickname “The Handyman.”

Yet, the hypocrisy of the Left in giving him a pass because he supports child slaughter is revolting — revolting, but telling. They are willing to sacrifice some of their pretended sacred principles in order to keep abortion the sacrament they have raised it to.

So too the news media will do anything to avoid calling Islamic terrorists, Islamic terrorists — more lies.

The horror of what happened in Sri Lanka on Easter was dutifully reported by the fake news corrupt media as being the fault of “religious extremists” — oh yeah, which religion? To simply pin it on “religious” extremists, condemns all religions.

Why would the media not report the full truth of this, especially when they know it. Because it’s better for them to lie by omission if they want to keep up the pretense that Islam is the religion of peace.

They need to keep that narrative going so they can use it against Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.

So too, those on the Left who keep yammering on and lying about man-made climate change. The climate changes. It has since creation. Man does not make the climate change.

The Left — the media, politicians, elitists and so forth — are all engaged heavily in lies because they want to bring about a new order for the world where Jesus Christ is excluded from it.

Islam is based on a lie, Freemasons lie, socialists and Marxists lie, the media lies, Democrats lie, Planned Parenthood lies, all of them enemies of Christ because He is the truth, and they reject truth and the world and civilization created in the West by His Catholic Church after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Pilate, a representative of that empire, you might say got this whole ball rolling, this denial and rejection of truth for the sake of political expediency. It happened right over there, on the Temple Mount the first time, and as we know, it wouldn’t be the last.

Those dedicated to Christ say the truth. You cannot love Christ and not also love the truth, for He is the truth. Truth is sometimes hard to hear. Dealing with its consequences is often hard to bear.

But if you want to spend eternity with truth, you better start living in correct association with Him here on earth. Call out lies. Call out falsehoods. Do it every time you encounter them.

Calling out the enemies of Christ is really, after all, only calling out their father, the devil. That’s what children of the light do. They attack the darkness.

Ending our time here in the land where Our Lord instituted the sacrament of His body and blood, for our whole crew, and Church Militant supporters who made this trip possible for the production of our documentary on the Eucharist, this is Michael Voris.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video is republished with permission.

The Department of Justice’s Brazen Cesspool of Criminal Activity

If that body (Congress) be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. President James Garfield

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever persuasion, religious or political. President Thomas Jefferson at first inaugural address

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. President James Madison, Federalist No. 51, February 8, 1788


The Russian collusion investigation was a coup…brought to us by those within the Obama administration and his Department of Justice (DOJ).  Indications point to Obama as the director of this insurrection. It was a conspiracy, it was criminal activity with several violations of U.S. Title 18 code; the most shocking violation of the Constitution in criminal activity in the history, not just of America, but of a western government.

Much of this rises to the level of treason, as well as sedition, as it was a clear conspiracy.  There should be indictments especially when the reality is that the collusion was on the Democratic side and the contrived dossier came from Russian intelligence. These people need to be indicted, charged, and sentenced.  If they’re not, then our Constitution is nothing more than a sham.

The Marxist movement within the DNC is in control right now.  The “regressive” goals of the Marxists fully match what the democrat left is promoting today.

Eliminating our sovereignty is one of their top goals. In order to turn this country into a globalist Marxist government, three things must be destroyed. They have to change the Constitution, especially the first and second amendments.  As Marxists, they despise and target Christianity and want it destroyed because it underlines our Constitution and faith in our Creator mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.  And, they must destroy the very founding principles of America…our culture.

All three of these goals are coming to fruition and this rises to the level of treason.

Mueller Shouldn’t Have Taken the Job

Robert Mueller should never have accepted the appointment of Special Counsel for an investigation into Russian Collusion.  He knew from the very get-go that the dossier was a pile of schmutz, yet it is never mentioned in the final Mueller report.

Victoria Toensing, of diGenova and Toensing Law Firm, stated in her recent WSJ article that, “Justice Department regulations authorize appointment of a special counsel when the attorney general ‘determines that criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted.’”  She goes on to say that Rod Rosenstein who was then attorney general because of AG Sessions’ recusal, disregarded the criminal conduct requirement and authorized a broad and vague counterintelligence probe, directing the special counsel to investigate “any links” between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.  This was unprecedented and gave a blank check to Mueller, and his gang of Hillary supporting democrat attorneys, the right to go after anyone or anything related to President Trump.

Toensing explains in detail the changes that are needed in the regulations governing the appointment of special counsels. “The rules were written by the Clinton Justice Department in 1999 after Congress declined to renew the law providing for the appointment of independent counsels.”

Her final statement in this important article is, “Mr. Barr’s Justice Department can amend the regulations without Congress, just as Janet Reno’s department wrote the rules two decades ago.  The democrats will scream and yell, but when they control the executive branch, they’ll love the clarity.”

The weaponization of the intelligence community and other government agencies created an environment that allowed for obstruction in the investigation into Hillary Clinton and the relentless pursuit of a manufactured collusion narrative against Trump.

A willing and complicit media spread unsubstantiated leaks as facts in an effort to promote the Russia-collusion narrative.  Link

Rosenstein Retiring

Rosenstein is retiring as of May 11, 2019, and Barr has said, “Rosenstein served the Justice Department with dedication and distinction. His devotion to the Department and its professionals is unparalleled. Over the course of his distinguished government career, he has navigated many challenging situations with strength, grace, and good humor.”

Oh, Right AG Barr, the man who gave a blank check to Mueller and who allowed this improper, illegal, and unparalleled investigation of a sitting president is a devoted professional. This is the same man who protected the Clinton/Obama people, silent on her illicit emails and who signed off on FISA warrants from the bogus Trump dossier, who wanted to use the 25th amendment against the President and offered to wear a wire to record our President.

Excuse the hell out of me, but this is pure hogwash and I hope Barr knows it.

Mueller Targets

Lt. General Michael Flynn was the first of their targets for good reason and was set-up by the FBI, by Obama, Sally Yates, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and others.  He never lied to anyone, including VP Pence who I believe was instrumental in working with the FBI to eliminate General Flynn.  Fear of Mike Flynn was of top concern.  He is an expert on China, Iran, Islam and our intelligence community and had to be dispatched. Many were involved in eliminating this brilliant veteran from helping our President.  He should be freed of this horror his family has lived through for over two years.  Please help defray the millions in legal debts by donating to the Mike Flynn defense fund whatever you can.

Paul Manafort was investigated by the DOJ in 2014 and they found his conduct not prosecutable.  But the resurrection of the evidence by Mueller’s team has destroyed him because of his four-month position as campaign manager with candidate Trump.  He spent nine months in solitary confinement because of democrat appointed judges when apparently multiple murderers, Charles Manson and Richard Speck, weren’t even put in solitary confinement.

Investigators accused Manafort of lying in court despite the fact that he denied candidate Trump’s prior knowledge of the June 9th, 2016 meeting he attended with Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya.

The same goes for Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone who have been pressured to sign a plea deal falsely attesting to being conduits to Julian Assange.  Roger also needs help with his legal defense fund.  Both he and General Flynn have lost their homes.

Democratic Disappointment

The end of the special counsel’s probe shattered the Democrat’s claim of Russian conspiracy.  Of course, we all know where the real Russian conspiracy lies, but main stream media will never divulge the truth.  Americans are more interested in the economy, illegal immigration and health care than this spurious investigation of our President.  Don’t forget that the left not only hates Trump, but they hate everyone who voted for him.

And what is in this final report is as revealing as what is not in the report…there is nothing whatsoever regarding a mention of the fraudulent and manufactured Steele dossier.

The dossier, characterized by Former FBI Director James Comey under oath as “salacious and unverified,” consisted of opposition research compiled by a former British intelligence officer and commissioned by the Hillary Clinton campaign.  This piece of garbage was created by Hillary Clinton and the DNC; and Hillary’s campaign manager was pushing the fake Russia story at the DNC convention the very same day the FBI launched the Trump/Russia investigation. Link  And yes, DNC lawyers met with the FBI on Russia allegations before the surveillance warrant.

At this point everyone should know about the involvement of Obama, Sally Yates, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce and Nellie Ohr, James Baker, Bill Priestap, James Clapper, John Brennan, Susan Rice, Loretta Lynch, former Director of National Security Agency Michael Hayden, and far more, including Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller himself, along with his 17 democrat attorneys who went after President Trump.

Comey was the catalyst that started this when he showed the Steel dossier to the President and then leaked it to the press.  When James Comey was questioned by Congress, he answered, “I don’t know,” “I don’t recall,” and “I don’t remember” 236 times while under oath. But he remembered enough to write a book where he comes off as sanctimonious despite Amazon’s five-star promotion.

James Comey claimed that the Mueller report was deficient.  However, Comey’s statement on Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized home email server that allowed the Chinese to intercept Clinton’s server and classified documents in real time was more than deficient!

The FBI has admitted that those illicit emails from Clinton’s server were also found in the Obama White House.  Yes, Obama knew!  E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, made the disclosure to Judicial Watch as part of court-ordered discovery into the Clinton email issue.

Where Were Whistle Blowers

Apparently, no one in the FBI thought it crazy that former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe said “F Trump” many times in a meeting with agents.  And apparently no one in the FBI thought it absolutely insane for Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein to offer to wear a wire and record the President!  But wait, there’s more.  Strzok and Page both discussed sending a counter-intelligence officer to Mike Pence’s first transition briefing as Vice President elect.  Where’s the investigation?

VP Pence says that he was deeply offended by Strzok and Page for their talk of infiltrating his transition team.  I don’t hear him being deeply offended by what has happened to the President, to General Flynn, to Paul Manafort, to Roger Stone, to Papadopoulos, or to Jerome Corsi.  This “shadow president” wants more than anything to be the leader of the free world.  Surely the Koch brothers and Dick and Betsy DeVos will fund his campaign for President, just as they’ve funded him from the beginning of his political days.

AG Barr

Our new former Bush attorney general is being excoriated for standing by the President, when in fact, he seems to be standing by the law.  Do I trust this long-time friend of Robert Mueller?  Not yet.  I want to wait and see what he does legally.  So far, he’s been honorable, but I cannot give him credence as a man who would stand by the “rule of law” until the perpetrators of this conspiracy are brought to justice and until those who committed crimes are indicted.

The leftists are accusing AG Barr of a “coverup” and “exoneration,” but the real coverups lie with all of them and Obama’s DOJ, not to mention Robert Mueller who never investigated the dossier pack of lies.  He obviously had no interest in the coup perpetrated by the very FBI which he led from 2001-2013…the last two years under Obama who kept him past the 10-year term via Congressional approval.

Mueller avoided opening the true can of worms…the Steele dossier, and actually covered for his FBI.  He even kept Strzok on his investigation payroll for six months after the Strzok/Page emails became known.  As Kimberley Strassel said in a recent Fox interview, Mueller was to investigate Russian interference in the election, but he never looked at the fact that the fake dossier may have been disinformation from the Russian government.

Strassel asks in her WSJ article,

“How did Mr. Mueller spend two years investigating every aspect of Russian interference, cyber hacking, social media trolling, meetings with Trump officials, and not consider the possibility that the dossier was part of the Russian interference effort?”

Let’s pray that the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz and our new Attorney General William Barr actually answer the questions Mueller refused to touch!

Conclusion

Todd Starnes reports that many advanced placement students across the fruited plain will be using an American history textbook that depicts President Trump as mentally ill and his supporters as racists. The textbook, published by British owned Pearson Education, is titled, “By the People: A History of the United States.” It was first exposed by radio host Alex Clark in 2018.  Pearson promotes common core testing and corporate school-to-work education.

And all of this was brought to us by the Democratic Party’s nominee, Hillary Clinton, who stole the nomination from commie Bernie, stole debate questions, had the FBI bury evidence against her, financed a fake dossier, weaponized the FBI by spying on her opponent, outspent her opponent, and still lost to a man she called incompetent.

Why isn’t she in prison?

Yemeni Man gets Prison Time for Extortion Plot Involving a Child Bride

This story has been in my queue for a couple of weeks and am finally getting to it.

What is so galling about the news is that our law enforcement has spent time and (our) money to investigate a crime and now incarcerate a man for something that has nothing to do with us.

We apparently ‘welcomed’ a Yemeni family to live in the Buffalo, NY area who brought all of their cultural/religious baggage to America (and even went ‘home’ for awhile) and we get to straighten out the mess the ‘new Americans’ created.

By the way, Yemen is one of the countries now on Trump’s so-called Muslim ban list!

I first saw this short press announcement at the U.S. Justice Department website and then looked for more news.

BUFFALO, N.Y. – U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy, Jr. announced today that Yousef Goba, 45, of Yemen, who was convicted of making extortionate threats to harm and kidnap a minor, was sentenced to serve 41 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy C. Lynch, who handled the case, stated that between February 2015 and April 2015, Goba contacted an individual who resided in Western New York (the victim) through both telephone and text messages. During those communications, Goba threatened to kidnap and injure the victim’s minor child. The minor child went to Yemen with her mother in September 2013. While in Yemen, the minor child, her mother, and siblings lived with Goba for a period of time. When the mother wanted to move from Goba’s residence, the defendant refused to let the minor child leave and threatened that he would have the minor child marry a Yemeni man, if money was not paid to him. On April 8, 2015, during a call recorded by the FBI, Goba demanded that the victim pay him $11,000 as well as money for other expenses for the release of the minor child.

I checked around and found this story from Buffalo News that includes additional information….

….including the fact that Goba is the brother of a Yemeni man convicted on terrorism charges right after 9/11.

Child extortion plot stretching from Lackawanna to Yemen sends man to prison

The girl’s mother, who has since divorced her husband and remarried, took the children to Yemen in September 2013 to live temporarily so the father could save money while working here. [And, we are expected to believe that?—ed]

The following summer, after spending time with the father’s family in Yemen, the mother and children moved in with Goba. When they tried to leave, the defendant allowed the mother and other children to depart, but not the girl, the prosecution maintains. [So this woman moves in with a man not her relative, but the brother of a convicted Islamic terrorist?—ed]

The government also claims Goba threatened to marry off the girl to a Yemeni national willing to pay for her, and that Goba sent the father a photo of the girl pointing to a wedding cake and a second picture of her with a ring on her finger.

In pleading to extortion, Goba said he was just trying to get the father to reimburse him for the money he spent providing for the family while they lived with him in Yemen. He was arrested in New York City in 2015 as he returned to the United States.

Goba is the brother of Lackawanna Six member Yahya Goba, but sources said there appears to be no connection between Goba’s case and his brother’s involvement with the Lackawanna Six.

More here.

Again, why not just leave Yemenis in Yemen?

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EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission.

Texas: Five People Sentenced for Multi-million Healthcare Fraud; Nigerians Among Them

As I have said on many previous occasions, I hope the Trump Administration is gathering their successful fraud-busting cases together to use as examples of what the Trump team is doing for us—finding and punishing those ripping off the US taxpayer!

At every rally he should be giving an update on how much fraud he is uncovering and busting!

The Medicaid fraud, Medicare fraud, Food stamp fraud have been doing great damage to the US Treasury and often there is a ‘new American’ component that makes it even more egregious.

We welcome immigrants and then they rip us off!

Normally we are never told if a convicted criminal is a new American, but this story has a mention at the end.

More news about how we lost $4.5 million (this time!) to Medicaid/Medicare fraud.

From KRGV TV Rio Grand Valley,

5 People Sentenced in Health Care Fraud Case

MISSION – Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit assisted the feds to convict five people in two health care fraud cases.

Five people cheated Medicaid and Medicare out of nearly $4.5 million.

“By billing Medicare and Medicaid for services never provided, these individuals and their companies diverted healthcare dollars from the most vulnerable among us and defrauded taxpayers,” Attorney General Paxton said.

The owner of A&C Medical Supply LLC in Mission pleaded guilty to health care fraud and aggravated identity theft for stealing over $900,000 from Medicaid.

Andres Aly Alvarez was sentenced Thursday to two and a half years in prison.

The unit worked together with the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General on the case, which was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in McAllen.

Four people with Garland-based Elder Care Home Health Services were convicted for defrauding Medicaid and Medicare of more than $3.5 million.

This includes owner Loveth Isidaehomen, the director of nursing Tutu Kudiratu Etti, co-owner Celestine Tony Okwilagwe.

All were given a prison sentence of at least five years – Okwilagwe was sentenced to nearly 16 years in prison followed by an immediate deportation to Nigeria.

The four co-conspirators were ordered to pay more than $3.5 million in restitution. [What are the odds that the money is long gone—to Africa!—ed]

Celestine Tony Okwilagwe will spend 16 years in the slammer before being deported to Nigeria.

No time for more details, but you can learn more here and here about these crooks.

By the way, some involved in the fraud were Nigerian Olympic athletes.  And, if you check out those two links you will see that some of the Nigerians were barred from participating in the Medicare/Medicaid programs and figured a way around it (until they were caught by the Trump healthcare fraud busters.)

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission.