“It is better to have the whole population lining up for food than having the rich having all the food and the poor starving to death”
The film below may go a long way to understanding where Bernie is coming from.
EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column posted by Eeyore with videos is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
Much needed and long overdue. May this be the beginning of successful efforts to make public all the Saudi involvement in jihad terror activity and interference with counterterror efforts.
“With stroke of Trump’s pen, the FBI has 30 days to declassify Saudi fugitive intel,” by Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, The Oregonian/OregonLive, December 20, 2019
President Donald Trump on Friday signed into law a bill that forces U.S. intelligence officials to disclose what they know about the Saudi government’s suspected role in whisking its citizens out of the United States to escape criminal prosecution.
The legislation, introduced by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, was part of a $1.4 trillion spending deal passed by Congress this week to avert a government shutdown.
It requires the director of the FBI — in coordination with the nation’s intelligence director — to declassify all information in its possession related to how Saudi Arabia may have helped accused lawbreakers leave the U.S.
The agency has 30 days to do so, according to newly enacted measure.
President Donald Trump on Friday, Dec. 20, signed the Saudi Fugitives Declassification Act, which was part of a $1.4 trillion spending deal reached by Congress.
“It is long past time to stop treating Saudi Arabia as if it were above the law,” Wyden, a Democrat, said in a statement. “My bill will finally force the federal government to cough up any information it may have about how the Saudi government may have assisted its citizens from fleeing beyond the reach of the U.S. justice system.”
The action in Washington comes nearly a year after an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive found multiple cases where Saudi students studying throughout the U.S. vanished while facing sex crime and other felony charges….
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Posted by Eeyore
This is a little hard to follow but here are the basic points.
Police raided a Swedish journalist’s home and took ALL his electronics.
He was not arrested or charged with anything. But the raid happened because he is investigating someone known to have broken several laws, and avoided arrest himself by hiding out in Tanzania till the statue of limitations ran out on his animal abuse charges.
The man runs an outfit in Sweden that seems an awful lot like “Tell Mama” in the UK, and like Tell Mama, most of its charges against people for Islamophobia are pure invention. They have done a lot of harm to a lot of good and innocent people.
Thanks to Jan Sjunnesson for setting this up for us.
EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column with video is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
In a video interview with Rolling Stone magazine published on Tuesday, documentary propagandist and anti-white racist Michael Moore stated that white men who voted for President Trump were “not good people.”
“I refuse to participate in post-racial America,” Moore said. “I refuse to say because we elected Obama that suddenly that means everything is OK, white people have changed. White people have not changed.
“Two-thirds of all white guys voted for Trump,” he continued. “That means anytime you see three white guys walking at you, down the street towards you, two of them voted for Trump. You need to move over to the other sidewalk because these are not good people that are walking toward you. You should be afraid of them.”
Moore is one of the left’s most hateful demagogues. Apart from the fact that Trump supporters are the ones being assaulted all over the nation, not the ones doing the assaulting, this is pure, ugly racism — the kind only leftists can get away with saying in the media.
76 Known Connections
In his 2001 book, Stupid White Men, Moore proposed that Congress should give Israel 30 days to end its use of military measures against the Palestinians—measures, he neglected to point out, that were in response to the massive wave of terrorism associated with the Second Intifada. By Moore’s reckoning, if Israel failed to put an end to the bloodshed in the region within the 30-day period, the U.S. should promptly terminate all funding for the Jewish state. He also explained that state-sponsored terrorism (a reference to Israel) was worse than the brand of terrorism practiced by the Palestinians. Further, Moore declared that the Palestinians should not only be given their statehood, but should receive twice as much economic assistance from the United States as Israel received.
In 2003 Moore was honored by the Muslim American Public Affairs Council, for “his courageous commitment to social justice and uncovering the truth.” MPAC believes that “Israel was established by terrorism” that “involved the unjust and illegal usurpation of Muslim and Christian land and rights.”
Stumping for presidential contender Bernie Sanders on Saturday at a California rally featuring race-baiting academic Cornel West, socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) claimed that the United States is “not an advanced society” and is devolving into a fascist country.
“Establishing a loving society in the United States of America” isn’t an “irrational, overly feeling, sympathetic statement,” AOC stated. Instead, it’s part of an ongoing mission to achieve “an advanced society,” she argued.
“What we’re living in right now is not an advanced society,” she asserted insanely before being interrupted briefly by a shout from the crowd. “It is fascism, what we have, what we’re evolving into, as well,” she continued.
Rational people recognize that we are not moving toward a “fascist” society, much less living in one. And even if you interpret “advanced” to mean “caring,” we are unquestionably the most advanced nation in history. But AOC and her cohorts are fear-mongering, anti-American, utopian demagogues who want to take this country down the road to — that’s right — fascism.
24 Known Connections
While speaking with Senator Bernie Sanders at a November 2019 “Climate Crisis” summit in Iowa, Ocasio-Cortez said to a raucous audience of impassioned supporters: “Are you all ready for a revolution? I sure am.” “When people try to accuse us of going too far left — we’re not pushing the party left,” she added. “We are bringing the party home.” Also in the course of her address, the congresswoman said: “The reason we are in this crisis is because oil and gas has been one of the most profitable industries of the modern era and when we talk about fighting money in politics what we’re talking about is fighting big oil. We’re talking about fighting Wall Street. We’re talking about fighting big pharma.” Suggesting that the only way to get “get through this moment” [i.e., the Donald Trump presidency] was to “guarantee” health care to every American, she added: “Here’s the thing, is that we can beat him but we have to vaccinate ourselves against something like this [Trump’s 2016 election victory] ever happening again, and the way we inoculate ourselves … from late-stage hyper capitalistic concentration of wealth among the very, very few is with a labor movement.” Asserting also that “the way we inoculate ourselves from continuing to burn up our planet … is by honoring indigenous wisdom and allowing it to guide our climate policy,” Ocasio-Cortez stated: “The way that we preserve our systems is by transitioning to principles of universality. That means I want you clothed, I want you educated, I want you paid a living wage — no ifs, ands, or buts. And what that also means … is directly, consciously, combating white supremacy in the United States of America.”
To learn more about AOC, click on the profile link here.
EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
Ilhan Omar has been much in evidence this past week — Dec. 14 to 20 — in Washington. During the impeachment hearings, when Congressman Kevin McCarthy, at the podium on December 18, quoted, as an example of the level of discourse to which some of his opponents had sunk, Rashida Tlaib’s call to “impeach the motherf—–,” Omar immediately began, and continued repeatedly, to scream out from the back of the chamber, “Stop it! Stop it!,” even though McCarthy had not repeated the phrase, but gone on to other matters. Apparently Ilhan Omar didn’t think that Congressman McCarthy had a right to remind the American people of the crudity to which Rashida Tlaib routinely sinks, and to protect her BFF, tried to shout down, in the House of Representatives itself, the freedom of speech of a fellow Congressman. McCarthy, of course, was not maligning Tlaib, only quoting her verbatim – but that was enough to spur Ilhan Omar into hysterical action.
In another example of Omar’s making her indelible mark in Washington, she joined 16 other Congressmen in a letter deploring the Trump Administration’s sanctions on Iran as “economic warfare.” But why is that wrong? That’s exactly what those sanctions are meant to be – “economic warfare” – in order to persuade the Iranians to modify their aggressive behavior, across the Middle East (in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon), and to slow down their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Why should the Trump Administration not be heartened by the effectiveness of those sanctions rather than, as Ilhan Omar and her 16 colleagues seem to think, be apologetic for their effect? The Administration’s reimposition of sanctions have reduced Iranian oil sales by 90%, from 2.46 mbd to .26 mbd. This has made it harder for the mullahcracy to continue to support the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon; Hezbollah has had to greatly reduce salaries for its members as a result of Iran’s cutting of aid. Nor can Iran offer its previous level of financial support to the Shi’a militias in Iraq. The Iranian rial has sunk in value; Iran’s GDP has actually decreased, the price of gas has had to be increased to raise government revenues; Iran’s people have suffered – that’s exactly what economic sanctions are intended to do.The letter Ilhan signed claims that the sanctions have increased anti-American feeling in Iran. There is no evidence for this; the popular protests in Iran have been directed solely at the Iranian government itself, for its mismanagement, choice of spending priorities, and corruption. Ilhan Omar and her colleagues apparently want those sanctions, that are working so well, to be dramatically reduced, but they offer nothing to take their place. What alternative way to modify the Islamic Republic’s behavior would Ilhan Omar suggest? How would she prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons? Or keep Iran from its foreign aggression?
The report on the letter Ilhan Omar signed is here:
In a letter issued on Tuesday to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the lawmakers wrote that the hefty sanctions the US has imposed on the country was tantamount to “economic warfare.”
The sanctions put in place by this Administration against Iran are nothing less than economic warfare. After years of improving relations between the United States and Iran, the sanctions have devastated that country’s middle class, increased hostility toward the United States, and led to a humanitarian catastrophe. One dire effect has been an entirely preventable shortage of lifesaving medicine.
“This Administration must answer for their attacks on Iranians’ basic human right to affordable medicine,” Rep. Omar said in a statement.
The letter explains that while Iran manufactures 97% of its medicine domestically, the country relies on obtaining the rest through foreign imports.
First, Iran itself makes 97% of all the medicine it needs. That hardly suggests that there is a “humanitarian catastrophe” because of a lack of medicine, unless the remaining 3%, that must be imported, includes medicines that are absolutely critical to the survival of patients, and can be obtained nowhere else. We are not told what those medicines are that need to be imported. Nor is there evidence presented that those imports cannot be obtained from countries other than the U.S., including the U.K., France, Germany, Russia, and China. Ilhan Omar’s letter does not address these other potential sources for these imports. But finally, the main point of the letter – that there is a supposed “humanitarian catastrophe” because of that 3% of Iran’s medicines that the U.S. withholds – is fatally vitiated by the fact that the Department of the Treasury on October 25, 2019 announced a new “humanitarian mechanism” to allow medicine imports into Iran. That didn’t stop Ilhan Omar and her colleagues, nearly two months later, to send their letter to Secretary Mnuchin, ignoring the Treasury’s October 25 announcement. The signatories didn’t want anyone to be confused with facts. Their minds were made up, that “economic warfare” against Iran is a Bad Thing, and they were willing to continue to complain about the withholding of medicine that, if it had ever occurred, now occurred no longer.
The third event of Ilhan Omar’s Washington week in review didn’t require her presence, but she was indispensable to the story. I am thinking of the proceedings in the divorce court, where Dr. Beth Jordan, the wife of her political consultant and lover Tim Mynett, obtained her final decree. The story is here:
It took all of fifteen minutes, but Rep. Ilhan Omar was slammed as an adulteress in a Washington, DC, divorce court on Dec. 19 as her political consultant/alleged lover formally split from his wife, a report said.
Dr. Beth Jordan accused the Minnesota Democrat of having an affair with her now-ex-husband, political consultant Tim Mynett, during a 16-minute hearing before a judge cut her off, the Daily Mail reported.
“I have a statement to make,” Jordan, 55, said, adding that Mynett “had an affair with Ilhan Omar.”
The allegation was first reported by The Post in August, when Jordan claimed in a divorce filing that Mynett confessed to the affair in a “shocking declaration of love” for Omar in April before ditching his wife.
Mynett, 38, a DC-based political consultant who has worked for Omar’s campaign, laughed and clapped his hands with glee as his left the court on Thursday but was tight-lipped when confronted by media.
So her lover “laughed and clapped his hands with glee.” He left his wife and his child for Ilhan Omar, the outspokenly anti-Israel antisemitic Congresswoman, who famously described 9/11 as a place where “some people did something,” who is in all kinds of trouble with the law for failing to correctly report her campaign contributions, and may or may not have married her brother in order to ensure that he could enter the U.S. and receive student loans.
As for Tim Mynett, his relationship with Omar has been disturbing in every sense. She has paid him, as a political consultant, between January and mid-October of 2019, a “consulting fee” of $310,000. That’s $34,444 a month. He must be a very good consultant. The unusually large amounts he has received from her campaign have raised questions, given Omar’s extramarital affair with him, that remain to be answered.
When Beth Jordan charged Ilhan Omar for being an “adulteress,” it seems not to have fazed Omar. Has she, the great Defender of Islam, forgotten what would happen were she living in a Muslim country such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, where the Sharia is fully enforced, and convicted of adultery? One hundred lashes, then death by lapidation. Does she approve? It would be nice if some reporter were to ask her that very question. Consistency is not her strong suit.
There has always been so much going on in Omar’s busy life.
There’s still the question of her brother, as mentioned above. Omar is credibly accused of marrying her brother, Nur Said Elmi, in order to commit immigration and student-loan fraud, and even filed fraudulent tax returns. While married to Elmi, she filed a joint return with another man, Ahmed Hirsi, to whom she was not married at the time.
She is also accused of using campaign money not for political purposes, but on personal travel with Tim Mynett. This is still being investigated by the FEC.
She has already been required by the Minnesota Campaign Board to reimburse her own campaign for money she spent on personal matters, including travel and lawyer’s fees, and to pay a fine as well.
There’s much for an intrepid investigative team to look into.
But just now, let’s limit ourselves to summing up Ilhan Omar’s Washington Week in Review.
She’s been accused of being an adulteress by the wife of her lover and “political consultant” Tim Mynett, to whom she has given unusually large sums from her campaign funds. On the floor of the House, she tried to drown out, by shouting “Stop It! Stop It!,” a Congressman trying to be heard – there is no “free speech” as far as Ilhan Omar is concerned — all because he did nothing more than repeat verbatim a crude remark by her ally and fellow Muslim, Rashida Tlaib. Finally, she signed a letter denouncing the Administration for its “economic warfare” against Iran, deploring the very thing that most of us agree has been a smashing success both in curbing Iranian aggression through proxies (Houthis, Hezbollah, Shi’a militias), and in weakening popular support in Iran for the monstrous regime in Tehran. She thus joined in deploring a supposed “humanitarian catastrophe” in Iran because, although that country produces domestically 97% of all the medicines it needs, that remaining 3% was, the letter falsely implied, cannot be obtained except from the U.S. But even if that were true, two months before Omar’s letter was sent, the Treasury had already announced that it was ending all sanctions on medicine for Iran. It was no longer an issue. But what do facts matter when it’s such fun to bash the Administration?
That was Ilhan Omar’s Washington Week In Review. Let’s hope there are not too many more such weeks featuring the deplorable Omar and her cast of characters – those two Somali husbands, one a possible brother, the consultant/ lover who may yet become her third husband – all part of her scandalous entourage. We can’t take too much more of this. Minnesotans, next November, you will be able to right this wrong. Don’t miss the chance. Do your stuff.
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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
Donald J. Trump released a new political ad on Twitter. The theme is “our best days are yet to come.” It shows the President’s impact on America and Americans. It’s message is simple, America is now great and President Trump intends to keep America great. Since its release it has gone viral.
Watch the ad:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1208494102062477312?fbclid=IwAR2oOP8ZTlj1qI_tW5MCnDpr9Tz5pPEPyHkE3EMpuBg23WrQ1GlQbNJMR8A
© All rights reserved.
Their news may be fake, but their glee over impeachment is not! Liberal members of the media were beside themselves with joy at Wednesday’s “solemn” occasion — the House vote on impeachment. Like Democrats, who celebrated the 218th vote like they’d won the Masters, Washington Post reporters clinked glasses in one photo. They were all smiles until Rachael Bade’s “Merry Impeachmas!” tweet started dropping jaws — reminding Americans what “objective journalism” looks like now.While Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gave revelers an icy stare on the House floor, Bade’s colleagues in the media gave the Post much more. “What… were you thinking when you tweeted this?” Emmy-winning investigative reporter Bill Melugin fired back. “Some of us still care about ethics and unbiased reporting, and this garbage makes it harder for all of us by reinforcing a stereotype. Come on guys.” The Hill’s Joe Concha was just as angry. “[This] isn’t a horrible look for both news organizations or anything,” he said, nodding at Bade’s second employer, CNN. Well, Mollie Hemmingway half-joked, the Post did work hard for this impeachment over the past few years.
But honestly, Americans didn’t need a happy hour selfie to tell them what they already know: this entire impeachment charade isn’t serious — and neither are its advocates. Think about it: This is the first modern impeachment without a scrap of bipartisan support. Not a single Republican voted in favor of the articles — and worse for Pelosi, multiple Democrats voted against them. So the only thing that is bipartisan, it turns out, is the opposition. Congressman Mike Johnson (R-La.), who literally stepped into the cloakroom to join us on “Washington Watch,” talked about this and the behind-the-scenes frustration on both sides of the aisle. This is, he pointed out, “the first time that there has been a literal single-party impeachment, and… that is precisely what the founders feared. They feared that it would come to this… where the majority party in the House would abuse their power and go after the president because they don’t like his policies or the way he communicates.”
“Look, every previous president in this country has made unpopular decisions, especially infuriated their political opponents and the other party. But impeachments for good reason and by specific design are exceedingly rare. So we’ve been a country for 243 years. There [are] only two previous presidents, Andrew Johnson in the 1860s and Bill Clinton in 1998 that have been impeached by this House. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 to avoid this. But in each of those previous impeachments… evidence clearly established that specific criminal acts were committed. [And, based on the votes, both parties agreed.] That is just simply not the case here. And what they’re doing is opening a Pandora’s box that it will be very, very difficult for us to close.”
The bar has been set so low now, he warns, that if you disagree with the next presidents or anything about them, one side will call for impeachment. “This is exactly what the founders wanted us to avoid — [which is] getting to this point where impeachment is weaponized and becomes a common tool. It will destroy a republic.” Mike is absolutely right. This is an attack, pure and simple, on the policies and accomplishments of this administration which undoing what they’ve worked decades to accomplish through the courts and government bureaucracy. If it weren’t, the House would be accusing the president of an actual crime. It hasn’t — something even the Post admits.
His crime, at least to the Left, goes back to the irrational response over what Justice Neil Gorsuch said on Fox: “Merry Christmas.” If you want to know what’s driving this intense liberal animosity toward the administration, those two words sum it all up. This president has unleashed the powers of faith in this country, unlike anything we’ve seen. The Christians in this country, who’ve spent years being mocked and maligned, feel emboldened again. Saying “Merry Christmas” in places like work or school used to mean you’d need a lawyer. If you put a nativity scene in the town square or senior center, you’d be summoned to court. That still happens every once in a while, but by and large, faithful Americans feel understood and protected by this president. After three years of watching Trump beat back the forces of political correctness, people aren’t intimidated anymore. They aren’t frightened by what liberals might do, because this administration hasn’t just stopped the Left — it’s slowly and steadily dismantled the anti-faith policies they stood on.
So when Neil Gorsuch goes on television and wishes people a “Merry Christmas,” the Left isn’t upset about December 25th. They’re upset about every other day of the year that this president is moving faith and the freedom of religion forward. When you get right down to it, liberals don’t have many options. This impeachment is their last-ditch effort to preserve the Left’s secular domination of the culture. And they have everything to lose.
Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
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EDITORS NOTE: This FRC column with podcasts is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
The Democrat-controlled House voted Wednesday night to approve two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump after about 10 hours of debate.
In two historic votes largely along party lines, the House charged Trump with abusing his power by a vote of 229 to 197 and obstructing Congress by a vote of 228 to 198.
Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, elected as a Republican but recently turned independent, voted for both articles of impeachment.
Two Democrats, Reps. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, voted “no” on both articles of impeachment. Van Drew indicated over the weekend that he plans to become a Republican.
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A third Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted “no” on the charge of obstructing Congress.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, voted “present” on both charges.
“Taken together, the two articles charge that President Trump placed his private, political interest above our national security, above our elections, and above our system of checks and balances,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said.
The outcome makes Trump the third president in American history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. President Andrew Johnson was the first in 1868 and President Bill Clinton became the second on Dec. 19, 1998, almost exactly 21 years ago.
Trump was speaking at a rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, as the vote on the first article of impeachment occurred, and cable news networks used a split screen to show both the president and the unfolding votes.
The rally was held in Amash’s congressional district.
“It doesn’t really feel like we’re being impeached,” Trump told the cheering crowd. “The country is doing better than ever before, [and] we did nothing wrong.”
The floor debate began after 9 a.m. and, as day turned into evening, House members from each side howled or applauded, depending on who was speaking. The votes concluded around 8:45 p.m.
Democrats based the charge of abuse of power on Trump’s July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which they allege Trump pressured Ukraine’s new leader to open an investigation into a political rival at a time when Trump was withholding nearly $400 million in congressionally approved military aid. Trump released the aid in September.
According to an official White House transcript, Trump expressed concern that Ukraine, years before Zelenskyy took office, meddled in the 2016 presidential election in the United States.
The two leaders also talked briefly about Trump’s interest in Ukraine’s investigating the activities of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son as a highly paid board member at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma while the senior Biden was President Barack Obama’s point man for Ukraine policy.
“President Trump should have been focused on the interest of the American people in that call,” Nadler said. “Instead, he prioritized his private, political interests.”
Democrats based their charge of obstruction of Congress on Trump’s direction that administration officials not respond to subpoenas for documents and testimony during the House impeachment inquiry.
“Many presidents, including President Trump, have asserted privilege and other objections to specific subpoenas,” Nadler said. “But only President Trump has ordered the categorical defiance of a congressional investigation, the automatic rejection of all subpoenas.”
The two articles of impeachment likely will go nowhere in a Senate trial, noted John Malcolm, director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
“It is the culmination of an impeachment effort by House Democrats that began within days of Trump’s inauguration nearly three years ago. It all seems so anti-climactic,” Malcolm said in a written statement, adding of the coming Senate trial:
Assuming that all 45 Democrats and both independents vote to convict, they will still need at least 20 Republican senators to join them in order to remove Trump from office. This will not happen. … President Trump will not be unseated by this partisan ploy. While [the] vote in the House will, no doubt, anger the president, the ultimate verdict will be rendered by the people when they vote in November 2020.
It requires 67 senators, an unlikely two-thirds majority, to convict and remove a president after a Senate impeachment trial. Republicans hold 53 seats.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters earlier in the day that the House would consider withholding the articles of impeachment from the Senate. This move could stall the trial, providing some leverage to House Democrats on setting the rules.
During the House floor debate, Republican lawmakers argued that the articles of impeachment were vague and did not allege a specific crime.
“I not only serve on the Judiciary Committee, I also serve on the Rules Committee,” Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., said. “I have spent hours and hours and hours reading transcripts, looking at documents, hearing testimony. I can tell you one thing: I believe this is the most unfair, politically biased, rigged process that I have seen in my entire life.”
“There is no proof, none, that the president has committed an impeachable offense,” Lesko added. “Not one of the Democrat witnesses, not one, was able to establish that the president committed bribery, treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors as required [for impeachment] in the U.S. Constitution.”
Lesko noted that 17 of the 24 Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee already had voted to back an impeachment resolution against Trump before the Trump-Zelenskyy phone call.
Five of the nine Democrats on the House Rules Committee also already had voted to impeach Trump, she said.
The Arizona Republican was referring to Reps. Al Green, D-Texas, and Brad Sherman, D-Calif., who used procedures to force three earlier votes on the House floor on whether to table Green’s resolution to impeach Trump. The most recent such resolution was in July.
Van Drew, Peterson, and Golden were the only Democrats to defect among the 31 who won election in 2018 in congressional districts won by Trump in 2016.
Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia is among the “Trump district” Democrats. She invoked her military background, which helped her win election, in arguing for impeachment.
“I rise today in support of the oath I first took at 17 upon entering the Naval Academy and took five more times in my 20-year Navy career, an oath that comforted me in the years that I spent away from my family deployed around the globe,” Luria said, adding: “And today, an oath that gives me resolve, resolve to do today what is right and not what is politically expedient, resolve to stand with the president at the White House last week and resolve to stand up to the president today.”
Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., the No. 3 Democrat in the House, appeared to use the words “domestic enemies” to refer to Trump and invoked religion in describing his vote.
“I rise today feeling the full weight of my duty as a member of this august body, reflecting upon our oath of office to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Clyburn said.
Clyburn, quoting Founding Father Thomas Paine, said: “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”
“Today, we have a president who seems to believe he is a king or above the law,” Clyburn said. “Paine warned us that so unlimited a power can belong only to God Almighty. My faith leads me to take very seriously the final words of our oath, ‘to faithfully discharge the duties of the office, so help me God.’”
Pelosi had resisted impeachment for months, but said Wednesday that she had no choice. As she spoke, Pelosi stood by a prop, a sign that quoted from the Pledge of Allegiance: “And to the Republic for which it stands.”
“If we do not act now, we will be derelict in our duty,” Pelosi said. “It is tragic the president’s reckless actions make impeachment necessary. He gave us no choice.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., gained applause from his caucus when he asserted about 7:45 p.m. that Trump easily would survive impeachment following a Senate trial.
“Donald J. Trump is president of the United States. He is president today. He will be president tomorrow. And he will be president when this impeachment is over,” McCarthy said, prefacing his remarks by saying he knew they would upset Democrats.
Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, noted the previous attempts to impeach Trump and referred to Green’s widely reported comment that Democrats needed to impeach Trump to keep him from getting reelected.
“That is probably the most prescient thing said by the majority in the last year, is, ‘We can’t beat him if we don’t impeach him.’ There is a reason behind this impeachment, and even Speaker Pelosi said it would be dangerous to leave it to voters to determine whether President Trump stays in office. Really?” Collins said, adding:
After we just said the Pledge of Allegiance, we go back to the speaker’s own words, who said it would be dangerous to leave it [Trump’s fate] to the voters. I will tell you right now, Madam Speaker, we on the Republican side have no problem taking our side to the [House] majority and to the people of this country because they elected Donald Trump, and it is a matter for the voters, not this House, not in this way, not in the way this is being done. It has trampled everything this House believes in.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who started what she called the “Impeach 45” movement in 2017, appeared to boast of a mission accomplished.
“History will remember those who were willing to speak truth to power. Yes, I called for Trump’s impeachment early,” Waters said, adding:
This is our country. Our foremothers and our forefathers shed their blood to build and defend this democracy. I refuse to have it undermined. I wholeheartedly support this resolution. I’m proud that in the final analysis, justice will have been served in America and Donald Trump will have been impeached.
Ken McIntyre contributed to this report.
COLUMN BY
Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.
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A Note for our Readers:With the demand for socialism at an all-time high among our young people—our future leaders and decisionmakers—the experts at Heritage stopped and asked a question that not many have asked:
Is socialism really morally sound?
The researchers at The Heritage Foundation have put together a guide to help you and our fellow Americans better understand the 9 Ways That Socialism Will Morally Bankrupt America.They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
“It’s been my experience, Langford, that the past always has a way of returning. Those who don’t learn, or can’t remember it, are doomed to repeat it.” ― The Charlemagne Pursuit
I went to see the Warner Brothers film “Richard Jewell” produced and directed by Clint Eastwood. The film is a docudrama about the July 27, 1996 bombing in Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Olympics. Here is a video about the film:
Here is the official Warner Brothers trailer:
Warner Brothers issued the following after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution took issue with the portrayal of Kathy Scruggs as a woman journalist who traded sex for stories. It was Scruggs who initially broke the story of the FBI’s targeting Richard Jewell as a terrorist:
The film is based on a wide range of highly credible source material. There is no disputing that Richard Jewell was an innocent man whose reputation and life were shredded by a miscarriage of justice. It is unfortunate and the ultimate irony that the Atlanta Journal Constitution, having been a part of the rush to judgment of Richard Jewell, is now trying to malign our filmmakers and cast. ‘Richard Jewell’ focuses on the real victim, seeks to tell his story, confirm his innocence and restore his name. [Emphasis added]
History has indeed repeated itself but in a much more nefarious way.
In the film Richard Jewell’s lawyer Watson Bryant, played by Sam Roswell, says:
His accusers are two of the most powerful forces in the world. The United States Government, and the media.
As I watched the film I could not help but think about how the FBI and media attacked an innocent man named Richard Jewell in 1996. Fast forward to today and we find that the FBI was once again used to attack people involved in the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and even the President of the United States himself.
Oh, the irony of history.
After the release of the Department of Justice report on FISA abuses by the FBI, we see that history has repeated itself, but with a twist.
Richard Jewell was an innocent man who was falsely accused of a crime he did not commit. Today we learn that innocent members of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign were falsely accused by the FBI of colluding with Russia. The twist is that today the FBI has become a weapon to be used against one’s political opponents. This is whole a new, and frightening, level of corruption. Why? Because no American is immune, not one.
In the end Richard Jewell was exonerated when on October 26, 1996 the US Justice Department announced that Richard Jewell was no longer a suspect in the Olympic Park bombing. February 2, 1998 Eric Robert Rudolph was named as a suspect in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.
We have also learned, as was the case with Richard Jewell, that the President of the United States, members of his campaign and members of his administration have been falsely accused of collusion with the Russians. In the case of Roger Stone, who has been convicted and imprisoned, the story is ongoing. The lives of many individuals, like General Mike Flynn, have been ruined.
This is a who new level of corruption. This is a new level of hate. This is something that our Constitutional Republican form of government has never seen.
The FBI and fake news media have been the fuel that has driven the engine of impeachment of President Donald J. Trump.
As I write this on Wednesday, December 18th, 2019 it is expected that the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the Articles of Impeachment against President Donald J. Trump.
As President Trump wrote in a letter to Speaker Pelosi:
I write to express my strongest and most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment crusade being pursued by the Democrats in the House of Representatives. This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history.
The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever. You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!
By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy. [Emphasis added]
Every American is under siege. Every American is at risk.
Every American is a Richard Jewell.
© All rights reserved.
The latest trope against American people who support President Trump is to say they are like ISIS followers, as pointed out by The Daily Caller.
“True believers” said with a depreciating and knowing chuckle, a catch-phrase of the mainstream media to indicate they are akin to members of a cult – “dead enders.”
Watch MSNBC contributor Malcolm Nance on “Hardball with Chris Matthews” say that Trump supporters and ISIS followers are “very similar”:
“I’ve seen a lot of phenomenon in my life. I’ve seen a lot of operations. You know, the behaviors that I am seeing here, and this is anecdotal, are very similar to the way that ISIS members are,” Nance says. “They are true believers — and this is their reality and they will not surrender it. You know, they’re dead-enders.”
Afterwards, Matthews agrees, saying, “Malcolm, I love your attitude. As we say in Philly … you got it. Thank you for coming on tonight.”
At the same time, other media outlets were pumping out the comparison of Trump supporters to cult members. CNN’s Brian Stelter, among others, pushed a new book written by “mental health counselor” Steven Hassan, the author of “Cult of Trump,” who contends that Trump supporters are (you guessed it) part of a “destructive cult.”
Hassan, whose credentials include being a former member of “The Moonies,” opines that the president is using mind control over his “loyal and dependent and obedient followers.”
MSNBC host Joy Reid also pushed the cult trope, saying “There’s a lot of evidence that is a racial and religious cult of personality, in which his base is solidly among the white evangelicals that almost worship him and say that he’s the chosen one of God.”
This follows other mainstream media favorites like Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), who distort reality for political purposes. Remember when AOC took to Instagram Live and Twitter last summer to call the detention centers holding migrant children “concentration camps”?
The mainstream media may think that hyperbole attracts viewers, but the truth is that language – which represents the commonality of our culture – is a powerful tool.
Comparing ISIS followers – some of the worst human rights abusers and gruesome murderers ever seen in the history of the human race – to law-abiding members of the American electorate is not only false, but plainly ridiculous.
Not only does it further divide our already hyper-polarized society, it diminishes the horror of ISIS and ultimately inhibits our ability to fight this very real and truly dangerous “cult.”
Similarly, by comparing migrant detention centers to concentration camps, AOC not only committed a gross distortion of history, but diminished the reality of the horror of the Holocaust.
Most tellingly, when Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg extended an invitation to AOC to visit Auschwitz with him, she declined, saying such a visit would only be used by the Far Right for political gain.
Perhaps Malcolm Nance, Chris Matthews and Brian Stelter would like to take a trip to Syria and visit some real ISIS followers before making such irresponsible pronouncements about half the American public?
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EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project column with videos is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
You would think that after being one of the centers of the election storm in 2000 when the hotly contested Florida recount determined whether George Bush or Al Gore would be president of the United States, Palm Beach County would have gotten its act together.
But as is evident from a recent report from the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which shows problems such as the dead rising from their graves to vote, Palm Beach County still is not properly supervising the election process or maintaining accurate voter registration rolls.
This latest revelation comes on top of the decision last January by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to remove Susan Bucher, the county’s election supervisor, for incompetence and neglect of duty in the 2018 election. The news also follows the recent arrest and removal of the information technology manager of the elections office for shoving a police officer who was investigating child pornography.
The report from the Public Interest Legal Foundation, titled “Calm Before the Storm,” is based on a three-month review of Palm Beach County’s records, practices, and procedures. Unfortunately, that review found numerous problems, ranging from clerical errors in voter records to evidence of double voting and ballots cast by the deceased.
The demand for socialism is on the rise from young Americans today. But is socialism even morally sound? Find out more now >>
The report found 68 voters who were not registered at their home addresses as required by law, but at businesses and even government addresses.
At least 10 used the address of the Boca Raton police station in their registration. Others used addresses of fire stations, city halls, and UPS stores. Using improper addresses on registration forms is another loophole that fraudsters use to erode the safety of elections.
The report found 225 individuals who double-voted across state lines in the 2016 and/or 2018 elections. In other words, 225 voters illegally cast ballots in Palm Beach County and elsewhere in the same election, which is almost half of Bush’s margin of victory in 2000 of 537 votes in the county. More than 400 persons also registered more than once in Palm Beach County.
The names of more than 2,200 deceased voters were still on the rolls, 139 of whom somehow cast ballots after they were dead, a remarkable achievement that obviously is not limited to Chicago. So while dead men may tell no tales, they do cast votes in Palm Beach County.
Perhaps most alarming, the Public Interest Legal Foundation found noncitizens illegally registered to vote, in some cases despite the fact that the county knew these persons were not citizens. Almost 70 noncitizens were still registered to vote after they contacted election officials and asked to be removed from the voter rolls.
The report found that county election officials registered some aliens to vote even when they checked the “No” box regarding U.S. citizenship on the application form, showing a fundamental problem in administrative procedures.
The report illustrates some specific examples, including a Venezuelan who twice admitted on the form to not being a citizen, yet was registered to vote anyway. He voted in the 2012, 2014, and 2016 elections.
Similarly, a Guatemalan citizen was registered to vote in 2015 despite admitting on her registration form that she was not a citizen. She voted in the 2016 presidential preference primary, likely in the Democratic contest, since she identified herself as a Democrat.
Palm Beach County’s failure to prioritize removal of the deceased from voter rolls constitutes a huge flaw in the system and a threat to the integrity of elections.
Absentee ballot fraud also has been such a problem in Florida that in 1998 the state’s Department of Law Enforcement issued a report on the numerous cases that had been prosecuted. In 2012, the “Final Report of the Miami-Dade Grand Jury” found serious problems with the absentee ballot process. Things have not improved much since then.
Unfortunately, Palm Beach County isn’t an isolated problem.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation just filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Detroit for failing to properly maintain its voter registration rolls.
The organization found thousands of deceased voters who remained registered, multiple registrations by the same individuals, and some registered voters who obviously are trying to compete with Methuselah to be the longest living humans in history. That includes the oldest, active registered voter who, according to city records, was born in 1823, before Michigan was admitted to the union.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation also just obtained a decision from a federal judge in Pennsylvania ordering the state to turn over the records of tens of thousands of noncitizens who have registered to vote in the state over the past 20 years. Pennsylvania has been fighting to keep these records secret, to avoid having to disclose the extent of this problem to the public.
The Election Fraud Database maintained by The Heritage Foundation highlights a sampling of cases that demonstrate the flaws in the security of elections across the country. The total number of proven cases stands at 1,241.
Heritage’s database does not yet include other important examples, such as the almost 300 noncitizens who Ohio’s secretary of state recently found were registered illegally to vote in the state, 77 of whom voted in the 2018 election.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation’s report on Palm Beach County calls attention to disturbing vulnerabilities in the election process. State and local officials must do more to prevent these problems.
The citizens of Palm Beach County and other places such as Detroit need to know that local election officials are doing everything they can to ensure that their votes are protected from administrative errors and fraud that could dilute or steal their votes and affect the outcome of future elections.
Democracy deserves no less.
Editor’s note: Hans von Spakovsky is on the board of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
COMMENTARY BY
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: @HvonSpakovsky.
Kaitlynn Samalis-Aldrich is a research assistant in the Meese Center for Judicial and Legal Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
With the demand for socialism at an all-time high among our young people—our future leaders and decisionmakers—the experts at Heritage stopped and asked a question that not many have asked:
Is socialism really morally sound?
The researchers at The Heritage Foundation have put together a guide to help you and our fellow Americans better understand the 9 Ways That Socialism Will Morally Bankrupt America.
They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
Accuracy in Media recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Founded in 1969 by Reed Irvine to combat liberal media bias, the organization has a new leader. Adam Guillette spoke to The Daily Signal about his plans for Accuracy in Media, the threat of “fake news,” and the media’s relentless attacks on President Donald Trump. Listen to the podcast or read a lightly edited transcript below.
Rob Bluey: Your organization has been around from the start of the conservative movement, and you are doing some really transformational things. So I want to delve into a couple of those. But before we begin, share with us the mission of Accuracy in Media and what it is you do.
Adam Guillette: Reed Irvine founded our organization in 1969 because that was a time where you had Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, lying to Americans about what was happening in the Vietnam War. So he set out to use a combination of citizen activism and investigative journalism to create a healthy skepticism of the media. And when he passed away just over a decade ago, The New York Times credited, or blamed, depending on how you view it, blamed him with creating skepticism toward the media today.
Bluey: And of course, it was also just five years after Barry Goldwater had made his run for president, so pre-Ronald Reagan and a lot of the figures that modern conservatives really identify with. You were at the vanguard back then to do the type of work that you were doing.
The demand for socialism is on the rise from young Americans today. But is socialism even morally sound? Find out more now >>
Guillette: That’s exactly right. They were doing investigative journalism before it was cool. They were the hipsters of investigative journalism. They were taking on media bias using citizen activism before the internet. Before you could send out an action alert and get all of your followers to email this person or email this congressman, they would mail postcards to their supporters and say, “Fill this out, send it to the address on there, and tell them what you think about that article in the paper.”
They were doing brilliant stuff at a much more difficult time when there was no real precedent for how to do it or how do you go about exposing media bias. They were making it up as they went along and they did it very well.
Bluey: So you just celebrated this 50th anniversary in Washington. You’re new to the organization as its leader. Tell us about where you want to see and take the organization in the future.
Guillette: I want to bring back our great history of investigative journalism. I think moral outrage is the most powerful force in all of politics and nothing elicits moral outrage better than hidden camera, undercover investigative journalism.
And it is a target-rich environment. There are so many folks in the media and outside the media that should be exposed. There are some incredibly powerful targets in the media that nobody really talks about. People complain about Rachel Maddow or they complain about The New York Times. Most of the people watching MSNBC already are of that political persuasion.
I’m more worried about the influence from sites like Now This and BuzzFeed. People signed up for Now This on Facebook because of puppy videos. Who doesn’t like puppy videos? Fast forward a couple of years, they have 10 million followers and they start putting out news that’s so biased that CNN calls them out for it, and they’re reaching easily influenced young people who signed up for puppy videos and sharing propaganda with them on a daily basis. That’s dangerous.
Bluey: It’s really remarkable to see the growth of some of these sites. If you’re a parent or somebody who doesn’t necessarily keep tabs on what the millennial generation or Gen Z is following, that’s how they are consuming their news. They’re not getting it through the evening newscast or the newspaper. They are turning to sites and platforms like Snapchat and Twitter to consume that news and information.
I want to go back to the investigative reporting piece of it, because you previously were at Project Veritas, so you obviously have some knowledge and experience doing those undercover investigations. Talk to us about how that experience shaped your view and why you think that it’s so important to pursue at Accuracy in Media.
Guillette: I’ve really come to the conclusion that politics is so much more determined by emotion than by fact and logic, for better and for worse. We would argue for worse.
And we can either sit around and bemoan the fact that political voters don’t make their decisions logically and largely make them emotionally, or we can embrace the fact that human beings are creatures of emotion. They make decisions emotionally and then search for logic and facts to back them up.
The most effective method of persuasion is leading with emotion and backing it up with facts. The left, they’re masters at emotion. We resign ourselves to facts and statistics and put people to sleep.
Say we’re debating Obamacare. We’ll stack up all the facts and statistics and prove that it’s a bad idea. And someone might say, “OK, I kind of agree.” The left comes in and says, “Well, what about that single mother over there?” And just like that the battle has been lost.
So one thing I learned at Veritas and previously at the Moving Picture Institute is that when you use emotional arguments to draw people in, that gets them to understand how much you care and that gets them to care, and then you can use your facts and logic and statistics to back up your argument and say, “This isn’t anecdotal. In fact, X, Y, and Z.”
I think it’s a great one-two punch that our entire movement could be utilizing. It’s a much better way to get people to pay attention to policy papers and graphs and statistics and so forth when you lead with the emotional arguments that investigative journalism can bring forth.
Bluey: Adam, I wholeheartedly agree. I hear it often from our president at The Heritage Foundation, Kay Coles James. It’s one of the reasons we started The Daily Signal five years ago was to do a better job of exactly what you’re describing.
It is challenging for conservatives because we too often want to resort right to the facts and the data and the numbers, but those stories are so powerful and can be incredibly helpful in terms of convincing people and persuading them that our solutions really are going to lead to a better life for all Americans.
Guillette: That’s right, and that we’re not just calculated pencil pushers, obsessed with numbers, that we actually care about individuals, that we actually care about you and so forth, and the kind of stuff you’re talking about is what most effectively accomplishes that.
Bluey: Tell us how somebody could go about finding the work that you’re doing as you’re producing this investigative reporting. Where do they go to find it?
Guillette: The website is AIM.org. We’re also on all the social media channels and we literally just relaunched a couple of weeks ago, and we’re working right now to hire investigative journalists and to build a small cadre or small army of them out there working on a variety of fronts in a variety of states.
I can’t specifically name too many of our targets right now, but it is an incredibly target-rich environment that we face. Our movement could use umpteen organizations doing investigative journalism to bring our ideas to light, to expose morally outrageous behavior, and I’m excited for what we’re going to accomplish next year.
Bluey: Prior to The Daily Signal launching, we had an investigative reporting team here at The Heritage Foundation, so that was a precursor to what eventually became The Daily Signal. I admire you. It’s hard work. It’s not easy. It takes time and a lot of effort on the part of journalists who are pursuing investigative reporting. But I give you credit for doing it.
You mentioned social media just a moment ago. It is increasingly difficult for conservatives, it seems, to get their message out using the social media platforms. We have heard all sorts of debates recently about whether or not companies are going to ban political advertising and whether or not algorithms are biased against conservatives. I wanted to give you an opportunity to weigh in on what you think the current state of affairs is with some of these social media platforms.
Guillette: Now, we’re certainly dealing with tremendous difficulties with sites like Twitter and Facebook. Twitter was caught shadow banning. They said they were trying to block Russian bots from taking over their site. When asked what terms they use to flag a Russian bot, they said, “Well, people are tweeting about God, guns, American flag emoji. Then you know it’s a bot.”
These are the people that we’re dealing with, people who think that if you’ve got an American flag emoji, you’re obviously a Russian bot because somebody living in Silicon Valley never confronted anyone in their life who would use an American flag emoji in a non-ironic sense. So that absolutely is a challenge.
I would say we’ve got a lot of self-inflicted wounds with social media as well. We’re very often happy to be in our own echo chamber and share stuff that’s really only of interest to people who share our beliefs. We’ll endlessly virtue signal about pro-life causes as if we’re going to save one baby with every like and five babies with every share, ignoring the fact that everyone in my social network [is] already pro-life. I think that’s a big problem with it.
Other times organizations within our movement create content that really are only appealing to our echo chamber, only appealing to our supporters and aren’t necessarily of interest to the easily persuadable 19-year-olds.
It’s a challenge, because if you’ve got to pitch something to a financial supporter of your organization, it’s got to appeal to them, but obviously what’s going to appeal to a 65-year-old may not be as appealing to a 19-year-old. And I think we can more better balance that and make sure that the content we create in social is going after that actual audience.
Bluey: You’ve had experience doing it even before coming to Accuracy in Media at Project Veritas and the Moving Picture Institute. What advice do you have for people who might be active on social media? How can they do a better job of breaking out of those echo chambers?
Guillette: It’s just like if you’re giving a speech to an audience. The thing is know your audience. Who are you going after? Speaking their language. If your audience only spoke French, you would at the very least have subtitles. But so frequently we’ll create content that really is only appealing to our group, and it’s understandable because it’s so rare to see content for us.
There’s you guys, there’s some others out there, but if I turn on TV, odds are it’s going to be a left-wing point of view offering comedy. If I turn on a network show, odds are it’s going to be a left-wing storyline subtly being put through.
So I can understand why people are so excited to make content that’s specifically for us. But if we seek to persuade, if we don’t just seek to motivate the base, the goal should be knowing your audience and trying to actually persuade them and speaking in a language that they speak in.
A lot of times, we’ll see videos created that are incredibly long on our side and incredibly fact-based. Well, if you have a 12-minute video and consistently people are clicking away on YouTube after two minutes, YouTube is going to down-rank your video like crazy and you’ll sit there and say, “Well, those jerks are biased against conservatives. Those jerks.”
Well, no, it’s because YouTube wants you to watch videos for the rest of your life. They’d like you to watch one video until it ends, then another, then another, and if people are clicking away two minutes into your video, they don’t want people to see your video. It’s your own darn fault. Our side needs to embrace more effective tactics on YouTube and on Facebook and Twitter.
Bluey: That’s so true. I had an opportunity earlier this year to attend the Social Media Summit that President [Donald] Trump hosted at the White House, and I believe he either was asked or he referenced the fact that some people say, “You wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for social media.” He says he would be president regardless.
I have my own doubts. Social media definitely gave him a direct line of communication to the American people. He’s still using it, obviously, with Instagram and Twitter and Facebook on a daily basis. I think it’s so important that conservatives leverage that opportunity.
For years we complained about the media serving as a filter and not letting through the information that we were trying to get out there to more and more Americans. I think that’s one of the reasons you do hear concerns about some of the social media companies today is that they don’t want to see information restricted or limited, but you have to create effective content that people want to consume as well.
Guillette: That’s exactly right. Certainly there’s bias against conservatives. Certainly the power they have is incredibly dangerous.
We often talk about Eisenhower’s farewell address and how he warned about the military-industrial complex. In that same speech, he warned about the dangers of a technological elite that could take over our nation without us even realizing it. That danger exists with Google and with Facebook and with Twitter. Google can redefine words like they did with fascism without you even realizing it.
Three years ago, Google, to fight fascism, left-wing ideology, which it is, as soon as Trump started getting called a fascist, they redefined the term as a right-wing ideology. What a dangerous power.
Similarly, Facebook, they know your political inclinations. They can make it so on Election Day if you’re of a political inclination they like, they’ve got banners on the top saying, “Vote today, vote today, vote today,” and if they disagree with your beliefs, those banners ain’t there. That’s a tremendous power they’ve got.
But the first thing we need to focus on, no self-inflicted wounds. Let’s at least use them as effectively as we can.
Bluey: [Facebook founder and CEO] Mark Zuckerberg gave a big speech here in Washington, D.C., at Georgetown University where he talked about the benefits of free speech and why he wanted to keep Facebook as open to different points of view as possible.
He came under some fire for that from those on the left, which, it seems that they don’t necessarily agree with that instinct that we should have a freedom to speak our minds.
Do you think that he’s sincere in those remarks? Do you think Facebook is trying to position itself differently from some of those other social media platforms? Or is this just lip service?
Guillette: Even if he’s fully sincere—let’s assume that—he doesn’t have control over every bit of his organization every day, as Project Veritas exposed. There were folks inside the organization who were demonetizing and down-ranking people endlessly, just as we saw on Twitter. So it’s more to the company than Mark Zuckerberg. He’s not the only one there.
And what we need to do is first use these platforms properly, and second, if we find legitimate instances that we can prove of them being biased, let’s expose that again and again and again and create that outrage amongst the American people as a whole that will cause them to reform their ways.
They’re always going to have a cranky, loud leftist majority that they probably go to cocktail hours with every Thursday afternoon that is going to have their ear telling them that they should be blocking hate speech and we’ve got to be aware of that and we have to counterbalance it with a majority in America of people who think that it should be a platform for all viewpoints and those folks putting pressure on Facebook from the other side.
Bluey: And I might be remiss if I didn’t ask you about President Trump, who we’ve talked about, and somebody who has used the term “fake news.” He’s constantly criticizing the media as being biased against him despite the tremendous economic success he’s had in this country leading it as the president. What are your thoughts on the traditional media, the national news media’s coverage of him, particularly as we head into an election year?
Guillette: As we’ve even seen that The New York Times, Project Veritas exposed, they’re all chasing the Trump bump. It’s an era of declining clicks, declining subscribership, and so forth. So they’ve given up objective journalism and instead are writing any kind of anti-Trump content they can because they know there’s a rabid base of people who want to read that content and it’ll sell.
It’s almost as if they’re writing fan fiction in their newspapers and on their websites because that’s of interest to that base of subscribers. That’s morally outrageous. Don’t pretend to be a journalist. The greatest threat to real news is fake news. These folks say that attacking the news is a threat to our democracy. Their fake news is a threat to our republic. It’s morally outrageous.
Bluey: Adam, the other thing that I associate with that are polls indicating the trust in media and journalists appears to be at record lows. Increasingly, it seems that the American people are looking for alternative sources, probably places like Accuracy in Media and The Daily Signal, because they have lost trust in other media platforms.
What is it that you’re going to do at Accuracy in Media to make sure that you are on the same level and breaking through and having success as a New York Times or Washington Post or a big TV network?
Guillette: We’re going to confirm suspicions. We are going to expose bias. We’re going to catch people engaged in morally outrageous behavior and maintain a healthy skepticism. And I think when these folks get exposed again and again and again, it’ll cause some people to reform their ways.
We’ve got a profession now where it’s much like contractors or trial lawyers or politicians. The few remaining good journalists are going to want to be in a position where they say, “These folks have given me a bad name,” and they’ll start to speak out against the fake news going on out there.
Bluey: Adam, as we wrap up here, anything else you’d like our audience to know about the work you’re doing at Accuracy in Media and your new leadership of the organization?
Guillette: Sure. Follow us on all of our social media platforms at @AccuracyInMedia. One thing we’re launching in the beginning of next year is we’re going to be working with conservative social media influencers to expose influencers and celebrities and reporters sharing fake news online.
I think there are so many celebrities out there who are far more influential with news than any journalist that we would talk about because if you’re a young person, you’re not following Rachel Maddow and Twitter unless you’re a leftist, but you might be following Jaden Smith or Justin Bieber and they’ll be incredibly influential when they share fake news.
We’re building an army of folks who will activate as soon as we see that sort of thing being shared and respond to it, not in a tribal, divisive manner saying, “You blankety blank, sharing fake news.” But rather when George Takei shared the photos of kids in cages on the border, [of] immigrant children, and said, “Darn you Trump for doing this,” people responded and said, “Appreciate your concern about kids on the border. That photo’s from the Obama administration.” And to his credit, Takei corrected the record and apologized.
I think if we can replicate that again and again and again and say to these celebrities and to these influencers, “Listen, I appreciate your concern in X issue, but what you shared was wrong,” people will either be more hesitant to share fake news because they don’t want to get called out and look like a fool or they’ll start actually checking the facts before they get out there and they’ll apologize when they screw it up.
Bluey: And we can certainly hope that this is successful because I can tell you that I still hear repeated to this day the claim about President Trump and cages.
You can even have an apology, but because of the cultural influence and the way that news spreads, sometimes that message doesn’t ever filter back to the people who saw the original post. So it’s really important that you’re doing this project.
I’d also say culture, as Andrew Breitbart always said, is upstream from politics. These cultural figures and celebrities are oftentimes the ones at the forefront and the politicians are the ones lagging behind.
Guillette: Politicians are followers, not leaders. They follow the polls, they follow the celebrities, they follow the money. These folks in the culture have a much greater influence over our nation than a Rachel Maddow or even a Sean Hannity does. Although those people have tremendous value for what they do, they’re not as much reaching undecided folks and easily persuaded young people as these celebrities are.
Bluey: Adam Guillette, thanks so much for joining The Daily Signal. Congratulations on your new role at Accuracy in Media. We wish you the best.
Guillette: Thank you so very much for having me.
COLUMN BY
Rob Bluey is executive editor of The Daily Signal, the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. Send an email to Rob. Twitter: @RobertBluey.
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“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” – Frédéric Bastiat
“Honesty is of God and dishonesty of the devil; the devil was a liar from the beginning.” – Joseph B. Wirthlin
“‘Liar’ is just as ugly a word as ‘thief,’ because it implies the presence of just as ugly a sin in one case as in the other. If a man lies under oath or procures the lie of another under oath, if he perjures himself or suborns perjury, he is guilty under the statute law.” – Theodore Roosevelt
The absence of God leaves a void of darkness; without the light, evil prevails. We have seen this evil in its full horrible array since the day Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president. We know there was full bias by many in the DOJ, especially the FBI and CIA. Strzok and Page called Mr. Trump “awful,” “loathsome,” a “disaster,” a “f***ing idiot,” an “enormous do*che,” and other disparaging names that were laced with profanity. And those of us who supported this billionaire businessman were branded as “hillbillies,” “deplorables,” “retards,” and “crazies” who “smell.” Strzok and Page sent over 50,000 texts to each other while at work in the FBI.
Their hatred of Donald Trump poisoned their entire investigation into Russian Collusion, their secret “insurance policy” to rid America of the man the electorate put in our White House. When it failed, Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler, along with the new breed of young hardcore socialist Congress creatures pushed for another attack, this time against Trump for doing what all Presidents prior to Trump have done…talking to leaders of other countries. And no quid pro quo like so many previous presidents and vice presidents, i.e. Biden and Al Gore. This impeachment scam was corruptly formed and is being corruptly pursued.
When Pelosi put Congressman Schiff in charge of the impeachment inquiry, she had to know he would trample the law and abrogate legal responsibility to justify going after President Trump. Trump Derangement Syndrome has proven the Democrats hate Trump far more than they love this country, as their desire to turn it into a socialist third world nation has become obvious.
There has been little effort to disguise the relentless desire by the Democrats to remove Trump from office come hell or high water, from the moment he won the 2016 election. We know that Obama’s intel community spied on Trump from the moment he announced his candidacy and the bias was evident.
The Russia Collusion came to naught, but impeachment was on the back burner. On January 20, 2017, The Washington Post published an article entitled The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun. Matea Gold wrote about how the website, ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org went live right as Trump took his oath. This is the evil of the socialist leftists. They will destroy America because they cannot accept an exchange of executive power to another party, a party who may undo their globalist agenda, especially when the executive is not one of their chosen establishment elitists.
After Pelosi’s crazed announcement of impeachment plans, reporter James Rosen asked her if she hated Trump. She went ballistic and answered that she doesn’t hate anyone, and that she’s a Catholic and she prays for Trump. Well, Speaker Pelosi, I’d like to know exactly what you pray for regarding our President, certainly not for his success as a president. And as for not hating anyone, you certainly seem to hate unborn human babies who are dismembered, burned, murdered at the point of delivery, their body parts sold by the evil entity, Planned Parenthood, to the highest bidders and their pain upon death seems to not even enter your Christian Catholic conscience.
And Nancy, you seem to have no trouble as a Catholic with the organs of these babies being taken while they’re still alive, I’m talking about their hearts. How dare you call yourself a Christian who loves everyone. Your hatred is an abomination in God’s eyes and you should be denied communion and ex-communicated from the Church via Canon 915 for your filthy stances against the unborn human babies who cry out to God for mercy.
Oh yes, the most Obama/Hillary supporting law professors were chosen by Nadler to speak about whether or not President Trump was impeachable for his phone conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky. I want to scream when I look at the three leftist professors chosen by Schiff and the ultra-weak leftist chosen by our Republicans to represent us, Jonathan Turley. They couldn’t find someone better?
Noah Feldman a professor of law at Harvard Law School. Feldman, a former clerk for Court Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court. Feldman, in opinion columns for Bloomberg News, has written here that Democrats have legitimate grounds to move ahead with impeachment because Trump has abused his power in office. Feldman Previously Claimed Sharia Law was Superior, More “humane” Than Western Laws, and our Constitution…sounds like David Barton who thinks sharia is compatible with our Constitution.
Pamela Karlan is a professor of public interest law at Stanford Law School, oversaw voting rights at the Justice Department under former President Barack Obama and served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Harry Blackmun at the U.S. Supreme Court. Karlan was on Hillary’s short list for the Supreme Court. Yep, she’s ticked she didn’t get the appointment, so this academic attacked young Barron Trump’s name thinking her boorish humor would gain her points. Link
Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor, said that President Donald Trump’s behavior is “worse than the misconduct of any prior president.” The remarks were submitted as part of his prepared opening statement.
Pelosi’s Consigliore, House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Adam Schiff, extended his smear campaign by subpoenaing the phone records from AT&T and Verizon of Republican Devin Nunes, Nunes’ aide, and Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow. Initially it was reported that John Solomon, former Hill journalist was also subpoenaed, but they were not. Schiff also went after former Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, and the White House itself. Requested data included phone numbers and length of calls but not the content of the calls.
Congressman Nunes said that a new precedent has been set by obtaining phone records with a subpoena without a warrant and the phone companies complied without question! Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton said the subpoena of Trump’s lawyers’ conversations most likely violated attorney-client privilege, but that didn’t stop the FBI from doing the same thing to Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen.
When the democrats gained control of the House, they had subpoena powers but it’s quite evident that the civil rights of Republicans have been violated by Schiff and his cadre of corrupt democrats.
Rudy Giuliani traveled to Ukraine with the conservative One America News Network (OANN) in what he described as an effort “to bring before the American people” information he said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff “covered up.”
In a series of Twitter posts during his travels this month, Giuliani alleged that billions of dollars were “stolen by crooks, from both countries, at the highest levels.”
One America News is doing a three-part series with Giuliani on Ukraine. Part three is in the works now, and parts one and two have already aired. Both the Wall Street Journal and The Epoch Times have covered the investigation by OANN.
Former Ukrainian MP, Alexandr Onyshchenko, says Burisma financed the Clinton Campaign with $10 million of unmarked cash and Biden personally prevented the money laundering witness from entering America.
The former MP describes in this article how he was approached by prosecutors in the U.S. to testify in the United States on American corruption in Ukraine. He produced a copy of the letter from the Department of Justice in 2016 where they provided him a temporary visa to come to the U.S. to testify on the theft and money laundering aid to Ukraine as well as the illegal cash to the Clintons. Then his visa was cancelled due to personal involvement by Vice President Joe Biden.
Onyshchenko also reiterated that former FBI agent Karen Greenaway was pushing hard during this time for him to not talk to the press about his knowledge of the Biden scandal, holding the threat of American law enforcement action against him to do so. Greenaway has since retired from the FBI but remains in Ukraine involved with one of the Soros foundations. “She was pushing hard…for me to say nothing,” he declared. “She was running everything for the Democrats, all the coverup for the corruption.” CD Media reported corroborating information on his testimony. Here is their investigative reporting on the entire story.
Mayor Giuliani recently made the comment that the worst thing he did was pass by the opportunity to be President Trump’s Attorney General. The former New York Mayor is a champion against corruption. He should have accepted the job.
Greenaway, Soros and Ambassador Yovanovitch
In a March 2019 Hill article, investigative journalist John Solomon reported that in 2016 Ukrainian prosecutors ran into some unexpectedly strong headwinds as they pursued an investigation into the activities of a nonprofit in their homeland known as the Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC). The focus on AntAC was an investigation to see if $4.4 million in American aide to fight corruption in the Ukraine had been improperly diverted.
Obama’s Ambassador to the Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch was following orders from the President to press the Ukrainian government to back off of its investigation of U.S. aide and the AntAC. Yuri Lutsenko replaced prosecutor Shokin after Vice President Biden held back American funds from Ukraine to force out Shokin because of his investigation of Hunter Biden and Burisma. Yovanovitch testified for Schiff’s impeachment inquiry, but she never heard the call between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky. She’s sour grapes for being fired by President Trump.
Lutsenko told John Solomon that he was stunned when the ambassador “gave me a list of people whom we should not prosecute.” The list included a founder of the AntAC group and two members of Parliament who vocally supported the group’s anti-corruption reform agenda.
It turns out the group that Ukrainian law enforcement was probing was co-funded by the Obama administration and liberal mega-donor George Soros, who has extensive business interests in Ukraine. And it was collaborating with the FBI agents investigating then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s business activities with pro-Russian figures in Ukraine.
The U.S.-Soros collaboration was visible in Kiev. Several senior DOJ officials and FBI agents appeared in pictures as participants or attendees at Soros-sponsored events and conferences. One attendee was Karen Greenaway, then the FBI supervisor in charge of international fraud cases and one of the lead agents in the Manafort investigation in Ukraine. She attended multiple such events and won glowing praise in a social media post from AntAC’s executive director.
The implied message to Ukraine’s prosecutors was clear: Don’t target AntAC in the middle of an American presidential election in which Soros was backing Hillary Clinton to succeed another Soros favorite, Barack Obama, Ukrainian officials said.
FBI agent Greenaway recently retired, and Soros’s AntAC soon after announced she was joining its supervisory board.
Despite mainstream media hosts slobbering over Inspector General Horowitz’s report, the FBI is not exonerated. What the report said was that the FBI screwed up at every level, and they failed to pay attention to problems with Christopher Steele and his past work which was never investigated. That’s an understatement if there ever was one, Steele’s dossier was absurd from day one. Even the Washington Post stayed away from the dossier, it was Buzzfeed who printed it. Yet the Obama administration used this POS to spy on the Trump campaign in an effort to destroy Hillary’s opposition.
Carter Page was a former naval officer, an Annapolis grad, and had done nothing wrong, but his life was destroyed by the lies within the Steele dossier. Horowitz’s report stated that the FISA applications were in many ways incomplete, inaccurate and unsupported. The FISA warrant to spy on Page was repeatedly renewed and the FBI not only lied, but excluded exculpatory information in order to keep the FISA warrant alive. The FBI lied to the FISA judges.
This report was looking into whether there was abuse in the FISA process, and there is no doubt the IG found rampant abuse of the FISA process.
It was recently reported that we will not hear from federal prosecutor John Durham regarding his investigation until June or early summer. And to date, we’ve seen no indictments by AG Barr.
Mueller supporter, Senator Lindsey Graham and Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell have said there will be no trial in the Senate on impeachment. The President would like to have his day in court to call witnesses and prove his innocence, but it’s a given according to some recent reports that the Senate has their own skeletons in the closet regarding the Ukraine and corruption. Biden’s son Hunter, Romney’s top advisor, Cofer Black, Pelosi’s son Paul Jr., and Kerry’s stepson were all involved.
Since the evidence adduced thus far fails to establish treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, Congress should not vote to impeach. If it does vote to do so along party lines, it will be acting unconstitutionally and placing itself above the supreme law of the land.
President Trump’s battle is against unknown entities. The Democrats are just the footmen for the powers that be…pawns in the game of America’s destruction.
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RELATED ARTICLE: Impeachment Backfire: House Democrat To Become a Republican
RELATED VIDEO: Graham sends warning to FBI officials responsible for FISA abuse.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib took to social media Thursday to falsely blame white supremacy for Tuesday’s murderous shooting in Jersey City targeting Jews.
“This is heartbreaking,” Tlaib tweeted. “White supremacy kills.” This came more than a day after the two perpetrators had been identified as David Andersen and Francine Grahm, both black. Police found anti-Semitic posts online written by the suspects, who were killed in a shootout with police. A manifesto of some sort was left in their car. Anderson reportedly was associated with the Black Hebrew Israelites, a black nationalist group made up of racists and anti-Semites.
Tlaib eventually deleted her racist tweet without comment.
“It’s telling, and frankly sick, that Tlaib tweeted out sympathies for the Jews that were murdered blaming it on white supremacists,” tweeted journalist Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll. “Didn’t care enough to find out what happened. Just enough to use dead Jews for her political agenda.”
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Upon winning the Democratic primary on August 7, Tlaib draped herself in a Palestinian flag while celebrating with her supporters. In her victory speech, she promised to “fight back against every racist and oppressive structure that needs to be dismantled.” When she was subsequently asked by Great Britain’s Channel 4 News if she planned to vote against U.S. military aid to Israel, Tlaib responded: “Absolutely, if it has something to do with inequality and not access to people having justice…. If you’re going to be a country that discriminates on somebody solely based on their faith, solely based on their skin color … I will be using my position in Congress so that no country, not one, should be able to get aid from the U.S. when they still promote that kind of injustice….”
When Tlaib won her congressional election on November 6, 2018, CAIR founder and CEO Nihad Awad congratulated her on her “historic victory of becoming the first Muslim and Palestinian woman in the U.S. Congress.”
In December 2018, Tlaib become just the second U.S. lawmaker — the first was Ilhan Omar — to publicly voice support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. “I personally support the BDS movement,” Tlaib said in an interview with the news website The Intercept. “I want us to see that segregation and how that has really harmed us being able to achieve real peace in that region.”
To learn more about Rashida Tlaib, click on the profile link here.
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EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.