Democrats were supposed to be impeaching the president for political gain! But now, pollsters say, they can’t even claim that. New numbers warn that the bottom’s falling out of the Left’s support — and the battleground states are the first to go.
What a difference an impeachment makes! Nine months ago, Donald Trump was trailing Joe Biden in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Today, Firehouse Strategies says, “he beats every Democrat.” What changed? Nothing, and that’s exactly the problem. While Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and company gear up for a vote to boot the president from office, most Americans want to know when they’ll get back to the country’s real business.
Months into the Democrats’ charade, voters in purple states have had enough. In a trend that spells disaster for the 2020 candidates, clear majorities of people in these must-win states (from 50.8 percent to 57.9 percent) oppose the impeachment and removal of Donald Trump. The numbers are a frightening sign for Pelosi, who’s betting her party’s chances on the serious misconception that Americans hate the president as much as they do. Or at least support the idea of taking him out before he can win another term.
In an interview with Axios, Firehouse partner Alex Conant warned, “Democrats racing towards impeachment are at serious risk of leaving behind the voters they need to retake the White House next year.” Although they differ on what Congress’s priority should be (immigration for Republicans, health care for Democrats), the consensus is that it’s time to “focus on policy issues” (59.4 percent of Michigan agrees, followed by 63 percent of Pennsylvania, and 67.2 percent of Wisconsin).
Making matters worse for liberals, Firehouse is just one of the organizations tracking this trend. A slew of polls in the last week all point to the same conclusion:
Democrats are in for a 2016 sequel where moderate states are concerned if they don’t change course — and fast. According to the Hill, Arizona and Florida can be added to that list, along with North Carolina. People there may have been receptive to an investigation of Trump, but this all-out crusade to unseat him on the slimmest of evidence is extreme by anyone’s measure.
“We’ve known for a long time that everybody in California and New York want Trump to be impeached,” said one of the president’s campaign officials. “They’ve wanted that since the day he came into office. But in these states where the election is really going to be fought, we’re seeing that voters oppose impeachment, and there’s an intensity to that opposition.”
Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2019-12-11 07:18:482019-12-11 07:34:33Swing Sets of Polling on Impeachment
The Justice Department’s in-house watchdog released a 476-page report Monday that criticizes some of the FBI’s actions in beginning an investigation of the Trump campaign’s connection with Russian election meddling, but does not concludes that political bias drove the agency’s probe.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report does answer many questions and verifies some suspicions about the initial FBI investigation, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane.
Attorney General William Barr, Horowitz’s boss, issued a statement Monday saying that the report shows the FBI’s “clear abuse” of the process for obtaining warrants to spy on Americans.
Horowitz is scheduled to take questions Wednesday from the Senate Judiciary Committee on his report, which arrives as the House Judiciary Committee drafts articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.
The demand for socialism is on the rise from young Americans today. But is socialism even morally sound? Find out more now >>
Here are six key takeaways from Horowitz’s report.
1. Surveillance Broader Than Initially Thought
Americans already knew the FBI used surveillance to keep tabs on two Trump campaign advisers. Initially, news reports made it clear that foreign policy advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos were under surveillance.
The IG report states that two others also were subject to FBI spying: retired Army Lt. General Michael Flynn, a high-level campaign adviser who would serve less than a month as Trump’s first White House national security adviser, and onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
The IG report concludes that “the quantum of information articulated by the FBI to open the individual investigations on Papadopoulos, Page, Flynn, and Manafort in August 2016 was sufficient to satisfy the low threshold established by the [Justice] Department and the FBI.”
In May 2017, about four months after Trump became president, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel to complete the investigation.
Mueller determined in his final report released in April 2019 that there was no evidence either Trump or his campaign conspired with the Russian government or Russian operatives to influence the 2016 election.
2. FBI ‘Far Short’ on Facts in Applying for Warrant
On one key matter, the IG report scolds the FBI for “falling far short” on standards.
The report identifies 17 “significant inaccuracies and omissions” by the FBI, which it subsequently refers to as “errors,” in obtaining a warrant to surveil Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.
“Our review found that FBI personnel fell far short of the requirement in FBI policy that they ensure that all factual statements in a FISA application are ‘scrupulously accurate,’” the report says. “We identified multiple instances in which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA application were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application was filed.”
The inspector general also “determined that the inaccuracies and omissions we identified in the applications resulted from case agents providing wrong or incomplete information to Department attorneys and failing to identify important issues for discussion.”
The report continues:
Moreover, we concluded that case agents and SSAs [supervisory special agents] did not give appropriate attention to facts that cut against probable cause, and that as the investigation progressed and more information tended to undermine or weaken the assertions in the FISA applications, the agents and SSAs did not reassess the information supporting probable cause.
Further, the report notes that “among the most serious” errors committed by the FBI on FISA was the “failure to advise OI [the Office of Intelligence] or the court of the inconsistencies.”
The Office of Intelligence is part of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
3. No ‘Documentary or Testimonial Evidence’ of Political Bias, but …
On the question of political bias by FBI agents and officials, Horowtiz’s report appears to throw a bone to both sides by making a scathing assessment but asserting on each evaluation that his investigators didn’t find “documentary or testimonial evidence” of impropriety.
“We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations,” the IG report says.
Later, when describing the process of obtaining a surveillance warrant under FISA, the report uses the same phrase:
Although we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct on the part of the case agents who assisted NSD’s Office of Intelligence … we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or missing information. We found that the offered explanations for these serious errors did not excuse them, or the repeated failures to ensure the accuracy of information presented to the FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court].
The report says a protocol known as the Woods Procedures, adopted in 2001, requires the FBI to verify facts presented in a FISA application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose proceedings are secret.
“As described above, given that certain factual misstatements were repeated in all four applications, across three different investigative teams, we also concluded that agents and supervisors failed to appropriately perform the Woods Procedures on the renewal applications by not giving much, if any, attention to re-verifying ‘old facts.’”
This section of the IG report is mostly consistent with a memo released in early 2018 by then-House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., which said the FBI did not comply with the Woods Procedures.
4. Why the FBI Says It Didn’t Notify Trump
Horowitz’s report says that an FBI counterintelligence official, E.W. “Bill” Priestap, told investigators that the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers created an obligation to investigate members of the Trump campaign who had potential ties to Russia.
Priestap had an explanation for why the FBI never notified the Trump campaign that it was looking into potential wrongdoing, the report says:
Priestap stated that he considered whether the FBI should conduct defensive briefings for the Trump campaign but ultimately decided that providing such briefings created the risk that ‘if someone on the campaign was engaged with the Russians, he/she would very likely change his/her tactics and/or otherwise seek to cover up his/her activities, thereby preventing us from finding the truth.’
5. Comey, McCabe, and the Steele Dossier
The IG report says that top FBI leadership approved use of unverified information in a so-called dossier assembled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, to apply for the warrants.
However, a lower-level FBI official raised red flags that Steele’s document was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
“We further determined that FBI officials at every level concurred with this judgment, [including] then-General Counsel James Baker, then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and then-Director James Comey,” the report says, referring to basing the warrant application on the unverified information:
FBI leadership supported relying on Steele’s reporting to seek a FISA order on Page after being advised of, and giving consideration to concerns expressed by Stuart Evans, then [the National Security Division’s] Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight responsibility over [the Office of Intelligence], that Steele may have been hired by someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the DNC, and that the foreign intelligence to be collected through the FISA order would probably not be worth the ‘risk’ of being criticized later for collecting communications of someone (Carter Page) who was ‘politically sensitive.’
According to McCabe, the FBI ‘felt strongly’ that the FISA application should move forward because the team believed they had to get to the bottom of what they considered to be a potentially serious threat to national security, even if the FBI would later be criticized for taking such action.
6. Next Step in John Durham’s Criminal Probe
In a statement also released Monday, U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham, who is conducting a criminal investigation of the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, disagreed with some of the IG report’s findings.
“I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff,” Durham said. “However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department.”
Durham continued:
Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.
Indeed, questions about what the FBI predicated its case on include actions by officials with the CIA, the National Security Council, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The IG report, however, says that nearly all of its information came from sources within the FBI, as it is not authorized to investigate matters outside the Justice Department:
The question we considered was not whether a particular investigative decision was ideal or could have been handled more effectively, but rather whether the [Justice] Department and the FBI complied with applicable legal requirements, policies, and procedures in taking the actions we reviewed or, alternatively, whether the circumstances surrounding the decision indicated that it was based on inaccurate or incomplete information, or considerations other than the merits of the investigation.
If the explanations we were given for a particular decision were consistent with legal requirements, policies, procedures, and not unreasonable, we did not conclude that the decision was based on improper considerations in the absence of documentary or testimonial evidence to the contrary.
Barr, who as attorney general is the boss of both Horowitz and Durham, issued a statement saying the report reveals “clear abuse” of the FISA process.
“The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken,” Barr said in the statement, adding:
It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation [of Trump campaign ties to Russia] was consistently exculpatory. Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into Preisident Trump’s administration.
In the rush to obtain and maintain FISA surveillance of Trump campaign associates, FBI officials misled the FISA court, omitted critical exculpatory facts from their filings, and suppressed or ignored information negating the reliability of their principal source.
The Inspector General found the explanations given for these actions unsatisfactory. While most of the misconduct identified by the Inspector General was committed in 2016 and 2017 by a small group of now-former FBI officials, the malfeasance and misfeasance detailed in the Inspector General’s report reflects a clear abuse of the FISA process.
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!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-12-10 06:21:112019-12-10 07:30:046 Takeaways From the IG Report on FBI’s Spying on Trump Campaign
America isn’t the only thing making a comeback under President Trump — so is Christmas! The candidate who vowed, “We’re gonna be saying Merry Christmas again,” delivered on that promise again in a big way Thursday night. Thirty-feet of big, to be exact. In front of the giant spruce, the president made it very clear that this event wasn’t about illuminating the tree — but shining a light on the real reason for the season.
In a speech that no one would mistake for Barack Obama’s, the president talked about the wise men coming to worship Jesus. “Christians give thanks that the Son of God came into the world to save humanity. Jesus Christ inspires us to love one another with hearts full of generosity and grace… As one grateful nation, we praise the joy of family, the blessings of freedom, and the miracle of Christmas.”
His words were a breathtaking departure from Christmases past, which were full of nothing but the pageant of political correctness. To millions of Americans, Donald Trump hasn’t just tapped into the frustration they feel about Christmas, but the mockery of the values they hold dear. And he took another moment to prove it, intentionally recognizing the Salvation Army for its important work—despite the Left’s latest attacks over its Christian roots.
“Joining us today are David and Sharron Hudson of the Salvation Army. Each year, through their Angel Tree program, the Salvation Army brings new gifts to more than 600,000 children. David and Sharron are an inspiration to us all. And, David and Sharron, thank you very much for being with us. Thank you.” After Chick-fil-A walked away from the group and the Cowboys almost lost their halftime show over the Red Kettle campaign, it matters that this president made a point of standing alongside the nonprofit. The message was subtle but clear: he isn’t caving to the cultural bullies, and Americans shouldn’t either.
For the Salvation Army, the support couldn’t come at a better time. As Rich Lowry points out, the red kettles that used to be a sign of charity and goodwill are suddenly a symbol of liberal controversy. “It takes a perverse worldview not to have fond feelings about this tradition, which is spectacularly successful on its own terms, raising almost $150 million a year.” But then, the Left has never let “sentimentality interfere with their dictates.”
“If you think that volunteering for an organization that is raising funds to provide food and housing, among many other services, for the needy is an inherently praiseworthy act, you haven’t been following the woke Left-wing activists cutting a swath through American culture. Any institution, no matter how storied or how generous, is subject to a punitive campaign of social ostracism that is often highly effective. In today’s environment, what seems preposterous one moment is inevitable the next, and after one target is ground into submission, another is quickly found.”
Fortunately, President Trump doesn’t believe in surrender. And he’ll go to the mat to guarantee that Christian organizations like this one can continue serving Americans — for the same reason he’ll keep fighting the war on Christmas: because no one should ever have to compromise their faith in a country like ours.
Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.
EDITORS NOTE: This FRC column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2019-12-08 08:34:312019-12-08 08:42:57Salvation Army Gets Ringing Endorsement from Trump
Just how ridiculous is this impeachment farce? Even the Democrats’ friends are mocking this morning’s Judiciary session as a “climb into the clown car.” “Up next,” Slate scoffed, “a pointless hearing from the House’s most impotent committee.” Even before Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) gaveled members in, reporters like Jeremy Stahl were already declaring today a disaster. And based on the last five months of this absurdity, it was a pretty safe bet.
While Nadler debated constitutional law, the rest of the city was combing through two dueling impeachment reports — one from Republicans and another from Democrats. Maybe Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is a frustrated screenplay writer, the New York Post joked, because he managed to turn a non-case into 300 pages of “the second coming of Richard Nixon.” “Say this for Rep. Adam Schiff,” Michael Goodwin wrote, “his imagination is vivid, and he has a flair for the dramatic. If only he had more respect for facts and a tighter tether to reality.”
When I asked Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) what the key findings were, he said that was the funny part. There were none. “There is no evidence,” Louie explained on “Washington Watch.” In fact, he said, “If we were in a court of law — and I would submit that this is even more important than most criminal cases, because it would end up removing a president through impeachment for the first time in American history — this evidence wouldn’t [survive a] jury trial. You can’t bring in what somebody tells somebody that somebody else said. You’d get laughed out of court. And if I were the judge, as I was once, there’d be some prosecutors [who] would either not be practicing in my court again or there would be some consequences. You just can’t come in and base an important case on four-, five-, or six-way hearsay.”
In the GOP report, which summed up the party’s conclusions, they found absolutely zero proof that American aid for Ukraine was ever linked to investigations that President Trump called for. What’s more, the Republican members point out, no senior Ukrainian official knew about this freeze in funding. If it was a bribe, then it wasn’t a very good one — since no one in Ukraine ever knew it was happening! And yet, Schiff’s party insists, there is “overwhelming and uncontested evidence that President Trump abused the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference in our election for his own personal, political gain.”
We’ve heard that before, Louie said, during the Robert Mueller investigation. “They said, ‘Oh, there’s plenty of evidence to convict him, to impeach him, to remove him… And there wasn’t [any] at all. So imagine their surprise. They thought Muller was going to come through for them — and he was sure trying. He was doing everything he could. But there just was no evidence of anybody with the Trump campaign conspiring [or] colluding with anybody in Russia.” Now, he went on, we’re talking about the most serious action Congress can take — removing a sitting president from office — and “there’s just nothing… It’s an outrage.”
Louie’s colleagues, like Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), are still waiting to hear what “high crime” President Trump has supposedly committed. “In desperation,” Biggs points out, “Democrats started testing various catchphrases to focus groups in an attempt to find something that would resonate with the country. That hasn’t worked either. They are shedding public support like a St. Bernard in an Arizona summer sheds hair.”
Why? Because this isn’t about what Donald Trump has done. It’s about what Democrats failed to do three years ago: Win. But instead of building a better case for their party bid next year, they’re focused on taking the choice out of voters’ hands altogether! And, worse, they’ve ditched their entire legislative agenda to do it. I’d hate to be Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) next year when Americans go to the polls and compare the Democrats’ accomplishments (none) with the president’s (trade, economy, taxes, judges, jobs, national security, international diplomacy, immigration reform, religious freedom, pro-life protections, military readiness, Israeli relations, and more). Or the Democrats’ vision (infanticide, open borders, socialism, gender confusion, Medicare for All, taxpayer-funded abortion, judicial activists the Green New Deal) with this administration’s.
At the end of the day, the Democrats’ obsession with Trump is on the verge of reelecting him. And if they do, the impeachment critics warn, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.
Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2019-12-06 06:18:302019-12-08 08:05:52PODCAST: Facts Get Short Schiff in House
Proclaiming Justice to The Nations (PJTN), a Tennessee-based non-profit evangelical Christian organization committed towards standing with Israel and fighting antisemitism, has been removed from the AmazonSmile program, which enables Amazon customers to donate a percentage of their purchase to their favorite charity.
PJTN President Laurie Cardoza-Moore told JNS that “all of a sudden, we began being inundated with e-mails from supporters whose AmazonSmile donations to Proclaiming Justice to the Nations had been repeatedly rejected. They were being instructed to choose another charity, despite wanting to support PJTN.” After reaching out to Amazon for an explanation—assuming it was a technical glitch—the retail giant informed PJTN that customers would no longer be able to donate towards the organization using the AmazonSmile platform, following the listing of PJTN as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
The SPLC, whose website says that part of its mission is to monitor domestic hate groups in the United States, has PJTN listed on its “hate map” as being one of 36 Tennessee-based hate groups. SPLC specifically accuses PJTN of being “anti-Muslim.”
Amazon employs 566,000 people worldwide. The company clearly does not lack for personnel to study non-profit groups and to advise Amazon as to which ones qualify for its customers to use the AmazonSmile platform, which allows them to donate part of their purchase to a favorite charity.
But Amazon chose not to do that work itself. Instead, it handed over the decision making as to which groups are to be considered “hate groups” to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has a grand total of 254 employees. That means that for every employee of the SPLC, Amazon has more than 2,000 of its own. Is the SPLC so very good at its job that mighty Amazon, with its 566,000 employees, is right to rely on the 254 employees of that outside group? For years, the SPLC presented itself as beyond reproach, an organization of selfless do-gooders at a non-profit. But in recent years, defectors from the group have painted a grim picture of an organization run by scam artists – its head a “flimflam man” — who have arranged colossal salaries for themselves, in some cases have been guilty of sexual harassment of fellow employees, have exhibited racist attitudes, and have been thoroughly unmasked for these and other offenses in numerous damning reports.
Here is some of what Jessica Prol Smith, of the Alliance Defending Freedom, discovered about the SPLC:
For years, former employees revealed, local journalists reported and commentators have lamented: The Southern Poverty Law Center is not what it claims to be. Not a pure-hearted, clear-headed legal advocate for the vulnerable, but rather an obscenely wealthy marketing scheme. For years, the left-wing interest group has used its “hate group” list to promote the fiction that violent neo-Nazis and Christian nonprofits peacefully promoting orthodox beliefs about marriage and sex are indistinguishable. Sometimes, it has apologized to public figures it has smeared, and it recently paid out millions to settle a threatened defamation lawsuit.
These shameful secrets are no longer hidden in shadows. The New York Times, Politico, NPR and a host of other mainstream publications are reporting on the corruption and widening credibility gap. The SPLC dismissed its co-founder in March, and its president has resigned amidst numerous claims of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and racism within the organization — a parade of disgraces that vividly force the conclusion: The SPLC is hollow, rotten and failing at the very virtues it pretends to celebrate.
Morris Dees, co-founder of SPLC, was dismissed for many reasons. A multimillionaire from his work as a direct-mail marketer before founding SPLC, Dees was reportedly more concerned with fund-raising than with litigating; he had not tried a case in more than a decade, and other than raising money for himself and others, took little part in the SPLC’s day-to-day operations. During his tenure, there were accusations of gender discrimination and racism in hiring and promotions, as well as sexual harassment. The SPLC’s president, Richard Cohen, apparently resigned for much the same reasons — charges of race and gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and other, unspecified offenses. Both Cohen and Dees had been receiving very large salaries, way out of whack with non-profits of similar size.
The criticism comes from many corners. There’s the Current Affairs editor who seems sympathetic to the center’s progressive mission but decries its “hate group” list as an “outright fraud” and a “willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the SPLC.”
There’s the retired investigative journalist who helped research and write an eight-part series on the center’s “litany of problems and questionable practices” in the mid-1990s. His Washington Post opinion piece reads with a thinly veiled message: We nearly got a Pulitzer Prize for TELLING YOU SO.
But perhaps most damning of all are the indictments leveled by former employee Bob Moser in The New Yorker. He remembers being welcomed to the “Poverty Palace” and recounts the heart-sinking reality of it all — being “pawns” in a “highly profitable scam.”
Stephen Bright, a Yale law professor and former director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, has long questioned what he calls the center’s “fraudulent” fundraising.
“The chickens have had a very long trip, but they finally came home to roost,” Bright said.
“Morris is a flimflam man and he’s managed to flimflam his way along for many years raising money by telling people about the Ku Klux Klan and hate groups,” he said. “He sort of goes to whatever will sell and has, of course, brought in millions and millions and millions of dollars.”
While the SPLC funded some good work, Bright said, he had long heard complaints about race discrimination and sexual harassment from the center’s former attorneys and interns.
The SPLC has been thoroughly discredited during this last year, yet Bezos has not said a word. Could it be he still doesn’t know about the scandalous goings-on at SPLC, or is that he doesn’t care? Perhaps he’s been busy, swallowing up yet another industry, but he really ought to give Amazon’s reliance on SPLC for deciding which are the “hate groups” to be banned from AmazonSmile more of his attention. And then he might decide to cut the cord.
Given all this, here’s what Jeff Bezos ought to do to spare himself further embarrassment. He ought to read what Tim Moser, the former employee of SPLC, wrote about the organization in The New Yorker. He should read the eight-part series by an investigative journalist on the “problems and questionable practices” at SPLC. He ought to find out what The New York Times, Politico, and NPR have reported about SPLC, which has led many to conclude, with Ms. Smith, that the SPLC “is hollow, rotten, and failing at the very virtues it pretends to celebrate.” And he ought to interview Yale Law Professor Stephen Bright, to find out why he calls Morris Dees a “flimflam man.”
What were the charges, not specified at the time, that forced SPLC co-founder Morris Dees to resign in disgrace? What were the charges that led President Richard Cohen to quit the SPLC? What have close observers of the SPLC discovered about how it has been run, to their dismay and horror?
Jeff Bezos should take a day or two out of his busy schedule of insensate empire-building in order to learn more about the SPLC, on which he has chosen to rely for the identification of “hate groups.” He needs to do more than read what Moser, Bright, and a dozen others who have either worked for SPLC or been close observers of the organization, have written. He needs to talk directly with them, so that he will realize the full extent of the SPLC’s transgressions, can ask them probing questions, and learn more about those “flimflam men” at the top, who have lately been exposed as being guilty of gender and race discrimination, among many other sins.
Bezos should also investigate SPLC’s readiness to label as “anti-Muslim hate groups” those who do not preach hate of any sort, but are simply islamocritics. The SPLC long ago consigned Jihad Watch to the outer darkness. When it included Maajid Nawaz, the founder of the Quilliam Foundation, on a 2016 list of “anti-Muslim extremists,” the SPLC was sued by Nawaz, who won a $3.4 million dollar judgment against the group. That has not stopped the SPLC from continuing to describe Jihad Watch, AFDI, and similar websites as being “hate groups.” SPLC describes, with its wonted tone of hysteria, Robert Spencer as that “notorious Muslim-basher and pretend expert on Islam.”
An email request by JNS [Jewish News Service] to SPLC asking for an explanation about their listing of PJTN went unanswered as of press time.
When asked by JNS what would cause the SPLC to label her organization as being anti-Muslim, Cardoza-Moore responded, “Proclaiming Justice to the Nations exists to fight the oldest hate on earth: antisemitism. We were given no explanation as to why we were blacklisted. If our work highlighting antisemites like [Reps.] Ilhan Omar [D-Minn.] and Rashida Tlaib [D-Mich.] got us on the list, we’ll wear it as a badge of honor. Despite the financial penalties that we are facing with AmazonSmile, will not be silenced for fulfilling our biblical responsibility to defend the State of Israel and Jewish people in the face of growing global antisemitism.”
She added that “sadly, the SPLC lost its way long ago, becoming a tool to shame any organization that doesn’t share their extremist agenda.”
Cardoza-Moore said that initially, she thought it was a joke that PJTN had been placed on the SPLC list of hate groups alongside the KKK. However, she said that “I have now learned that this political witch hunt against those who don’t share SPLC’s extremist liberal views has been adopted as a religious doctrine by Amazon. This could dramatically affect our ability to raise funds and function as a nonprofit organization.”
She added that it appears that Amazon “has become the nation’s new moral compass powered by the subversive Southern Poverty Law Center. Charities should not be persecuted in this way; this has to stop.
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to JNS via email that PJTN had been dropped, saying in a general statement that according to their policy, “organizations that engage in, support, encourage or promote intolerance, hate, terrorism, violence, money laundering or other illegal activities are not eligible.”
Just as a matter of interest, perhaps Amazon would care to tell us if CAIR is eligible to receive donations through AmazonSmile. If it does, would Bezos be willing to consider the evidence that CAIR just might be an organization that “encourages or promotes intolerance, hate, terrorism, violence”? And while we’re at it, have any of the many pro-BDS groups that many of us believe encourage “intolerance, hate, terrorism, violence” been banned from participating in the AmazonSmile program?
The statement [from Amazon] mentioned that since 2013, Amazon has relied on the SPLC along with the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (of the US Department of the Treasury) to make its determination on which organizations are eligible for the AmazonSmile program.
Cardoza-Moore says that as a result of being dropped, she is calling on her donors to bypass Amazon in order to help support Israel and combat antisemitism.
“We have asked our donors to continue supporting PJTN directly instead of through AmazonSmile. Nobody will silence us, even when we stand up against giants like Amazon; we know that we have truth and justice on our side,” she said.
“Our answer to this hateful blacklisting will be to continue building more PJTN chapters across the United States and beyond. We will continue to fight antisemitism and defend the State of Israel, wherever and whenever necessary,” she continued. “We will endeavor to reach more people than ever because our message is needed now, more than ever.”
A statement from PJTN said that in recent months, the organization has led the struggle against the BDS movement in the United States with a wave of state resolutions, and has exposed textbooks used in public schools that it says are indoctrinating children with inaccurate historical information and bias that do not reflect American values.
In 2016, JNS reported that PJTN drafted the state of Tennessee’s anti-BDS resolution, which passed in the General Assembly, making it one of the first states to pass such state-level legislation against BDS.
So PJTN, unbowed, continues to be active in its campaign against the BDS movement. And its donors will now simply find other, more direct ways to support it, now that PJTN has been banned, so absurdly, from the AmazonSmile program. Many people, as they find out more about Amazon, and its continuing reliance on the discredited SPLC for its determination of which groups promote “hatred” and “intolerance,” may want to express their own displeasure with that malevolent and powerful Amazon, and take their custom elsewhere.
“When my dad was alive, he would tell me, ‘No matter what, have a smile on your face. No matter how you’re feeling, you’re living, and you should be able to smile.'” These days, Ohio State running back J.K. Dobbins has a lot to smile about. He just moved into second place on the Buckeyes’ all-time rushing list. He racked up four touchdowns against rival Michigan over the weekend. He’s a contender for the Heisman Trophy. But things haven’t always been easy. J.K. had to overcome a lot of obstacles to get where he is — including, Americans found out Saturday, just being born.
One of the first things people notice about Mya Dobbins’s son is his grin. Despite watching his single mom struggle to go to school and provide, despite seeing his father — the man he was closest to in the world — die of a stroke in the Bartlett State Jail, and despite an ankle injury almost costing him a future in football, J.K. stays upbeat. “I have a positive outlook on life, because I’m still living,” he said last year. No one knew how close the college junior came to not living until last weekend, when Fox sportscaster Gus Johnson explained that the world wouldn’t be watching this incredible talent if Mya hadn’t chosen life.
Late in the fourth quarter, after more than eight million viewers had watched Dobbins spring into the end zone, another commentator shook his head in amazement. “What does this kid not do?” While J.K. was on the sidelines being congratulated, Johnson started sharing the powerful story of a teenage mom, who was one clinic visit away from making Dobbins a name this country had never heard of. “[J.K.’s] mom, Mya, became pregnant when she was 18 years old,” he started. “She went to the doctor because she was thinking about aborting the baby — but changed her mind. That baby turned out to be that young man, J.K. Dobbins,” he added, “who she calls her ‘miracle baby.'”
The idea that the sports world might never have witnessed his gift for the game was overwhelming to Johnson — and everyone else — in that moment. It crystallized, in one half-minute of television, what the abortion debate is all about. Maybe that’s why liberals are so upset. When the clip went viral, social media lit up with angry posts about how “inappropriate,” “unnecessary,” and “stigmatizing” the testimony was. Others even called it “disgusting,” demanding that Johnson apologize. For what, most people wanted to know? For rejoicing that a world-class talent wasn’t destroyed in the womb? “Think about how backwards this is,” RedState argued. “[Liberals] think it’s ‘disgusting’ to talk about not aborting someone.”
That’s because, in their minds, abortion is a social good. Something to be celebrated, cheered, and plastered in pink lights across the New York City skyline. “We didn’t need to know all that,” one woman tweeted about the OSU junior. In other words, don’t put a face on it. Don’t remind us what abortion costs us. “Dobbins is a talented player,” one woman agreed, “but let’s just let him be talented… We can’t take choice away from Ohio’s women because of one feel good story about a football player.”
But that’s the problem. It isn’t just one feel good story. The world will never know how many millions of stories there would have been if more moms had been told the truth: that their babies had value and purpose and potential — not because of what they could do, but because of who their Creator made them to be. J.K. Dobbins isn’t special because he plays football, he’s special because he was created in the image of God, and He had a plan for his life. Just like He had a plan for Andrea Bocelli, Celine Dion, Tim Tebow, Pope John Paul II, Steve Jobs, and so many other survivors we can’t imagine the world without.
“Focus on the game,” one abortion activist insisted. But the problem is, you can’t focus on the game without seeing the players. J.K. was fortunate. But for every baby like him, there are so many others whose lives are ended before they begin. Theirs are the 60 million voices we’ll never hear, performances we’ll never see, and Heisman winners we’ll never meet because of abortion. If Mya’s story can save just one of them, those 24 seconds of live television will mean more than any football legacy ever could.
Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2019-12-04 06:33:042019-12-04 06:42:50OSU’s Dobbins: Running Back for Life
The First Amendment and the very idea of free speech are under attack in America today. A growing number of Americans don’t believe you have the right to speak your mind if what you have to say might offend someone, somewhere. They advocate for “safe spaces” in which people won’t be offended by ideas they may find troubling. But is that what America is about? These and more questions are answered in the film,
NO SAFE SPACES
In No Safe Spaces, comedian and podcast king Adam Carolla and radio talk show host Dennis Prager travel the country, talking to experts on the right and left, tour college campuses, and examine their own upbringings to try to understand what is happening in America today and what free speech in America should look like.
Many young Americans don’t believe in the very idea of free speech. If we don’t help them understand the role of free speech in American society, someday soon we may lose it. This movie may be the last best hope of saving free speech in America.
No Safe Spaces also features Tim Allen, Jordan Peterson, Van Jones, Alan Dershowitz, Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, and Cornel West.
You’ll also meet young Dennis Prager while he works undercover in the Soviet Union and meet young Adam Carolla as he learns important life lessons.
Do you believe our freedom of speech is under threat and worth protecting? You can make a statement that freedom of speech is worth protecting by watching the film in a theater near you, beginning this weekend, December 6th.
The movie is now spreading to theaters across the country. If it’s not in your area yet, keep checking in the weeks to come! The more people who see it now, the more theaters it will expand to later on.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Capital Research Centerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCapital Research Center2019-12-03 06:26:222019-12-03 06:29:51VIDEO: No Safe Spaces opening this week!
Are Americans alone in their fight against big government, extreme sex ed, and more? Or are other people across the world similarly fighting? In this episode of “The Bill Walton Show,” Matt and Mercedes Schlapp join Bill Walton to discuss. Former White House director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp grew up as the daughter of a man who defied Fidel Castro, and American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp has experience working with conservatives across the world. Read an edited portion of their interview with Walton, pasted below, or watch the full interview:
Bill Walton: Your father was a Cuban dissident and went up against Fidel Castro.
Mercedes Schlapp: That’s right. I think one of the reasons why I felt at an early age that I wanted to go into public service, that I wanted to work in politics, was because of my father’s experience.
He was a very successful businessman in Cuba, and when Fidel Castro came into power, the dictatorship, they took away his businesses. So my father had two options, either be quiet and just follow the communist swell that was happening in Cuba or fight back.
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My father joined a group of counter-revolutionaries and fought against the Castro regime, ended up in jail for six years.
So he taught me at a young age that, first of all, love America. America’s a very special place, and always remember that you have a responsibility to protect our freedoms and our democracy because this democracy is fragile, and you can lose it in an instant.
So I knew at that point, and I’m talking … I mean at 15 years old, I said, “I want to go to Washington and try to make a difference here and work in politics.” It’s where my life has led me. It’s led me to my husband where we met at the White House. I feel very strongly as we talk to our youth, I talk to our daughters, and talk to our daughters’ friends, that there is … this real sense that we can lose America.
Walton: Well, I think the word “fragile” is the right word. Civilization’s kind of a thin veneer, and the Constitution’s a piece of paper to a lot of people that doesn’t mean much. If you take away all the civilizing influences and the role of the Constitution, you don’t end up with something that’s very pretty.
Mercedes Schlapp: Well, and we dealing with right now academic institutions that are basically brainwashing our youth … for example, teaching sex education to middle schoolers on how to use a condom in different school districts, or this issue where you have 36 different genders.
There is this sense of pushing these liberal ideas in our public school systems and not giving choices to parents for them to say, “Wait a second, I don’t really feel comfortable with my kid going to school here. Let me put them in a different school, in a Catholic school, in a Christian school.”
Walton: Where are your kids in school now?
Matt Schlapp: They’re in private school. They’re in Catholic school, all of them. We have two in high school and three in what I guess you would call middle school.
Mercedes Schlapp: So as a parent it’s troubling to see that you have our academic institutions really taking on this liberal agenda across the board, and it starts when they’re young, when you’re able to influence and talk to them about the realities of just even a conversation agenda or even talking about the dangers of socialism, which are very real now in the United States, something we haven’t seen in generations.
Matt Schlapp: My theory on this is, I don’t know if you agree, but I think you do, is liberals don’t really create anything. Socialists don’t create anything. It’s entrepreneurs that create things. It’s conservatives that create culture and create institutions.
Then over time the parasites on the left are great at coming in there in an insidious way taking them over, and conservatives kind of back … out. They’re like, “Well, we started it. We got it going. Oh, they have their point of view. Maybe we should have multiple points of view.” And they’ll kind of recede, and the left comes in aggressively and completely takes it over.
Bill, they’ve done it almost [at] every major institution in our society. This is not just public schools. This is private schools. This is churches. This is foundations. This is other institutions.
Part of the Trump disruption is, “Dammit, no more. No more. We are drawing a line in the sand.” By the way, our point of view matters as well. We are being pushed away from tables. We are being pushed out of rooms. We’re being called haters, and we’re being told to shut up and to back off. We paid for these institutions. We pay massive amounts of taxes for all of these public institutions, and this has to stop.
Walton: You’re watching “The Bill Walton Show.” I’m here with Matt and Mercy Schlapp, and we’re talking about the deconstruction of a lot of terrific American institutions and what the two of them are doing to fight back.
Matt Schlapp: Yeah, I think it’s time to fight. Fighting has a lot of connotations to it.
Walton: Now, let’s put this in the framework of what you do when you’re chairman of the American Conservative Union and run CPAC. How is ACU trying to bring about the good things that we want to bring about?
Matt Schlapp: Well, I know you do a lot of the work with me. I’d love your point of view on it.
Walton: Yeah, let’s do that, both of you.
Mercedes Schlapp: Oh, great. Well, I have enjoyed watching American Conservative Union and CPAC grow. I mean, it’s become an international phenomenal, and Matt can speak more on this, but you have countries coming to us, leaders of these countries coming to us saying, “We love what you’re doing with CPAC in the United States. Can we have some of that? Can you teach us how to organize from a grassroots perspective?” Because they all feel there’s several components …
I’ll say one story. When we were [at] CPAC Brazil … all of a sudden they start talking in Portuguese and then all of a sudden they’ll go, “Blah, blah, blah,” and then they’ll go, “Fake news!” Then everyone jumps up. They’re like, “Yes!”
Walton: Do you speak Portuguese?
Mercedes Schlapp: No, I don’t.
Walton: How do you say “fake news” in Portuguese?
Matt Schlapp: No, no. No interpreter needed for “fake news.”
Mercedes Schlapp: “Fake news” was in English.
Matt Schlapp: No interpreter needed for “Make America Great Again.” The crowd would erupt.
Mercedes Schlapp: … They’re facing similar issues where the media predicted that [Brazilian President Jair] Bolsonaro was never going to win, now the current president of Brazil. They are ones that have been incredibly critical of that president. They are left, left-leaning. They’re saying, “We need a voice. We need an outlet.” Like, we don’t have several of these more conservative media outlets in their country.
So it’s interesting how what we’re experiencing here in the United States and these other nations, there are some similarities that we’re seeing.
Matt Schlapp: We’re talking about thousands of people, thousands coming together in a foreign city to try to figure out what this whole conservative movement is in America.
Walton: So let me be clear about this. You’re running CPAC meetings in Brazil? You have CPAC meetings?
Matt Schlapp: Yeah, we have five international.
Walton: I think you also ran one in Hong Kong.
Matt Schlapp: Yep, we did. We ran one in Tokyo. We ran one in Seoul, South Korea. We ran one in Sydney, Australia. These events were so successful that they want to annualize them.
Walton: Tell me how you put one of these together—
Matt Schlapp: Well, we started off in Japan literally.
Walton: … because ACU was doing none of this before you showed up.
Matt Schlapp: ACU, when I—
Walton: What, has it been about five years?
Matt Schlapp: Yeah, five, six years. I have to give my predecessor credit because he had started to do battle ground CPACs in the country …
But I was walking down the halls of CPAC, Bill, where you and Sarah have been, and this Japanese fellow walks up to me, this is five, six years ago, and says, “Hey, I started a Japanese Conservative Union.” I was like, “Oh, that’s kind of interesting.”
This man, Jay Aeba, who now has had three CPACs in Tokyo in a row, literally thousands of conservative Japanese coming together. Believe it or not, people will wear their MAGA hats. Some people will wear their MAGA hats to these international events. We engaged them in a conversation about what is conservatism, the dignity of the individual, and these practical solutions that can bring people—
Walton: Now, are these economic conservatives, social conservatives?
Matt Schlapp: It’s a little—
Walton: Here we have the Constitution. That’s unique.
Matt Schlapp: It is unique.
Walton: So if you’re a Japanese conservative, what are you conserving?
Matt Schlapp: The first step for most of these conservatives in Japan is their fear of communist China. The reason why we’ve had so many CPACs in Asia, Bill, is because obviously they have an immediate connection to the fact that conservatives in America fight communism. We’ve always fought communism, as your father experience[d] … in Cuba. And the fact that China is such a danger in that neighborhood. So we have immediate credibility with Japanese conservatives.
The second question is they’ve experienced—and you would know this from your business career—decades, really a generation of economic stagnation, what we don’t fully understand over here is basically rampant socialism.
Walton: Japan’s been flatlined for a couple decades now.
Matt Schlapp: That’s right. The government is too big. They tax too much. People can’t afford some of the things to make their life better because taxation is what it is. They’re realizing that they need to find a different way.
Mercedes Schlapp: In CPAC Brazil, their big focus was free markets. It was all about, how do we improve trade relations with the United States? So all on the economic sense is it is about bringing prosperity to these countries and to their people.
Walton: Now, do they have the issues with the elites versus the rest of us that we have in America?
Matt Schlapp: Oh, yeah.
Walton: It seems like this is maybe … if you look at Brexit, you look at what’s going on—
Matt Schlapp: I’m going to jump out of my chair—
Walton: Jump out of your chair.
Matt Schlapp: … because I didn’t realize this. We went to Australia, and we had Judge Pirro with us and some congressman with us. Nigel Farage came down. In the middle of CPAC Australia …
First of all, to start CPAC Australia, they tried to ban me, Dan Schneider, and Raheem Kassam from even being able to fly to Australia because Dan and I had the audacity to be life members of the NRA, and because we were then associated with gun violence, they tried to literally, this is a democracy, to prevent us from flying into Australia.
Then we get there and Parliament tries to pass a law to say that CPAC is actually a criminal enterprise in Australia. There’s a lawsuit going on about this. Then I walk outside the event and there’s 100 crazy-looking Antifa protesters in Australia. So what I want the American listeners—
Walton: Antifa in Australia?
Matt Schlapp: That’s right.
Mercedes Schlapp: Right.
Matt Schlapp: What I want the American listeners to understand is that this crazy idea of 56 and 32 genders and pushing this kind of crazy gender ideology on 7- and 8-year-olds here in America, this is alive and well in every major city on the globe.
The Green New Deal and the idea that fossil fuels are immoral and that capitalism is a cancer, this is alive and well and very well funded by European and American left-wing billionaires all over the world.
The same problems that we see us facing in the Commonwealth of Virginia or in America, it’s a bonding experience with these activists all over the world because they are facing the very same things.
I’ll give you an example. In Brazil, we were there as a guest of the Bolsonaro family, the president of Brazil and his son, Eduardo. He was explaining to me that fourth graders have aggressive sexual education. We can all have a conversation about what a more mature person needs to learn in terms of sexual information, but we have a daughter in fourth grade.
Walton: How old are your girls?
Matt Schlapp: Well, we have five—
Mercedes Schlapp: [Try] range, so 16 to 7.
Matt Schlapp: But I mean a fourth-grader, Bill, getting—
Mercedes Schlapp: She’s a 10-year-old, or not even a 10-year-old.
Matt Schlapp: … detailed descriptions how on to orally satisfy either a male or a female lover is child abuse. This is something for parents to determine what they do. It’s not for school systems.
So I said to them … “How do you stop that?” He said, “We have three-year contracts with these big corporate textbook companies. We can do nothing to stop this until we get to the third year.” He said, “We’re one year into it, and in two years all those textbooks are coming out. They’re going to learn math, and they’re going to learn history, and they’re going to learn English. We’re going to let parents and churches—
Walton: How are they going to do that, though? Because people who try to change education, you get textbook publishers. You get the curriculum developers. You’ve got the teachers’ colleges. You’ve got this whole group of people who are thriving with the existing system. How do you pull the textbooks?
Matt Schlapp: Well, I’m not going to tell you that I have the absolute game plan, but I will tell you in Brazil, one of the reasons why Bolsonaro is the president, one of the reasons why Trump is the president here, even if Trump doesn’t fully understand it, is the idea that not even conservatives, just ordinary, commonsense people are repelled by this aggressive, radical stuff that’s going on in schools and in these institutions.
All I can tell you is that there’s an SOS. There’s a white flag. There’s a cry for help. And there’s the resulting political success of those who are saying, “No more.”
Mercedes Schlapp: I think to President Trump’s credit, it is because he is the fighter. It is because he speaks up. He’s not silenced. He speaks up for those individuals who have felt for too long that identity politics is what is in play. They have to be careful of what they say or how they say things.
For President Trump, look, he’s going to speak his mind. I think it resonates with so many Americans who for too long feel like they have to be silenced. I mean, we’re seeing this on college campuses where the conservative kids feel that they have to be quiet, and they cannot speak up and say, “I’m a Trump supporter,” for example, because they’ll be bullied.
What is worrisome with where the left is going is that, when Hillary Clinton said the word “deplorable,” they want us to feel like we are less than them. How can we not agree with what they are saying? How can we not agree with their beliefs? Quite frankly, I think for everyday Americans, they’re like, “I just want to live my life and raise my family and do what I can to help my community and leave me alone. Government, leave me alone.”
Matt Schlapp: By the way, they have the values that made us great.
Mercedes Schlapp: Yes, exactly.
Matt Schlapp: The left has tried to undermine all of that. ….
Mercedes Schlapp: Matt had a experience. We bring up Hong Kong as being one of those examples of—
Matt Schlapp: Very moving, yeah.
Mercedes Schlapp: … eye-opening experiences. Obviously, as a wife, I was very concerned that Matt or anyone from the CPAC crew would get arrested.
Walton: When were you in Hong Kong?
Matt Schlapp: Right at the beginning of all this, but what was the timing? I’m sorry.
Mercedes Schlapp: You can’t even remember when happened yesterday.
Matt Schlapp: I’m so bad at remembering days. It was August.
Mercedes Schlapp: It was August.
Matt Schlapp: It was August. The protests had been going for a while. Really Westerners had not been invited, and there was a bit of a controversy about whether they really wanted Westerners. Because they’ve approached these protests with diffuse leadership. There’s not one leader.
When they had the Umbrella Revolution of 2014, Bill, they were able to decapitate the protests by taking out its leaders. They also wanted it to be Hong Kong. You will remember there was a time when they would have said, “Chinese,” but they don’t say, “Chinese.” They say, “Hong Kong.” They’re Hong Kongers. Most of them want their own independent entity. Some of them want complete independence from China.
But the fact that Americans actually took to the streets, and we went to two protests with the students and with these mostly young people. The first day, some of the Hong Kongers were a little … some were disgruntled that we were there, and of course the communists have completely infiltrated as well. There are spies everywhere.
By the second day, it was really so gratifying because I look very American obviously. I have big white hair. I’m taller than most of the people there and all these … young Hong Kongers would walk up to me, and it was so moving to hear, they said, “Would you please go back to America and tell your president that we appreciate him because the first time in 30 years we have an American president who’s fighting the communists in Beijing.” They felt such a kinship with Americans.
Now, the secondary thing they did to me is the second night we were right across from the police station. They had their weapons out pointed at the crowd, and they kept putting up these warning signs saying they were going to start shooting. Now, that could be rubber bullets. That can be tear gas. It can be different things. But they’ve shot people too.
So we were very close. We were right across the street. We were there with some other Americans, some supporters of CPAC. It’s unnerving. I can’t tell you how many people I had … once again, mostly young people, although it’s all ages, but it’s mostly young people coming up. They’d communicate by these interesting apps. They’d say, “We’re going to start moving a block here, or we’re going to move back 20 feet or whatever.” So they’re constantly communicating.
The one thing they kept saying to me is, “We’re very worried about you.” I’d say, “Why?” They’re like, “Well, you stand out, When they start shooting you have to run really fast.” I was like, “Oh, OK, I got it.” Then another guy would come to me and say, “No, when I say you have to run fast, you’re going to have to run fast, and we’re worried you can’t run fast.” I was like, “You just wait till that moment happens.” I was like, “I will be running. I can’t run for a long period of time, but I can do a quick burst here.”
Walton: You’re going to use tennis player skills.
Matt Schlapp: Exactly. I can run from the net to the baseline, and then I’ll be tired.
Mercedes Schlapp: But the bigger story here, and this is the message I think for our youth as well, is that they’ve got 28 years. Just think about it, in 28 years these 18-year-olds, 20-something-year-olds are looking at their lives and saying, “We’re going to be under Chinese communism, if not earlier.”
Matt Schlapp: They’re going to face what your dad … faced …
Mercedes Schlapp: If not earlier, yes. They are going to lose the freedom of speech, their freedom to practice their religion. …
Walton: Well, the Chinese Communist Party absolutely wants to take both Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Matt Schlapp: Totally.
Mercedes Schlapp: Yes, completely. … But thinking about where these young people … they’re looking at their future and it’s bleak because they know that they’re going to lose their rights. I say that because I think it’s important to understand where we are as a country. I mean, are we at a point that we’re going to turn toward this if you’re conservative, you’re not allowed to speak up? I mean, are we going to move toward that direction?
William L. Walton is the host of “The Bill Walton Show.” He is the founder and chairman of Rappahannock Ventures LLC, a private equity firm, and Rush River Entertainment, a feature-film production company. Walton is a trustee of The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: @billwaltonshow.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-12-02 07:01:062019-12-03 05:55:46VIDEO: What Americans Have in Common With Conservatives Across the Globe
Sandwiched between a makeup tutorial, 17-year-old Feroza Aziz used her Tik Tok account to turn her beauty vlog into an awareness campaign about China’s severe abuse of the Uighur (Muslim) population. She quickly felt the brunt of the long arm of China’s ever-increasing censorship.
To learn more about the horrific abuse of the Uighers by China, see below
Aziz made a series of viral videos on her Tik Tok account @getmefamouspartthree exposing the abuse, Aziz found that her account had been suspended. The videos begin as makeup tutorials but quickly switch to exposing how the Chinese are putting the Uighurs into “concentration” camps, separating family members from each other, raping and murdering them.
Business Insider explains:
“[Aziz’s videos] are designed in such a way in an attempt to fool TikTok’s moderators from cracking down and removing her content. TikTok — an app not available in China but owned by the Chinese company ByteDance — has faced increasing scrutiny over fears it censors content considered “culturally problematic” and offensive to the Chinese government.”
Here is one of Aziz’s videos that Tik Tok shut down:
For its part, TikTok said her account was suspended because it was connected to another accounts of hers (@getmefamousplzsir), which the platform said it banned for “violating rules.”
But after the teen took to Twitter to publicize her suspension, Tik Tok reinstated her account and issued a public “apology.”
While it was not much of an apology (the company stood behind its initial decision to suspend Aziz’s account), they did admit that their review process “will not be perfect.”
Americans felt the brunt of Chinese censorship last month when the general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, tweeted an image with the caption, “Fight for Freedom. Stand for Hong Kong.”
Chinese companies immediately suspended their ties with the Rockets, and the Chinese Basketball Association ended their cooperation with the team.
In response, Morey and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver groveled, issuing apologetic statements distancing themselves from the protesters in Hong Kong who are demanding democracy and freedom from China.
Again, Business Insider explains:
“With a population of roughly 1.4 billion people, China is the NBA’s most important international market.”
Although TikTok insists it is independent from China, many have noted that there have been no videos documenting the unrest in Hong Kong, but many have appeared telling a whitewashed story of the region.
Who Are the Uighurs and Why is China Putting Them in “Reeducation” Camps?
Ethnically, the Uighurs are Turkish Muslims. Eleven million Uighurs live in Xinjiang, a territory in northwest China. As Clarion Project has documented since 2013, the Uighurs are under systematic persecution from China in what can authentically be labelled Islamophobia.
Where as a privileged Muslim population in the West will cry Islamophobia if they didn’t get their Diet Pepsi on a airline flight, one million Uighurs are experience actual psychological and physical torture.
The world has been watching stunned as horror story after horror story comes out about exactly what goes on in the Chinese government-run detention centers about one million Uighurs are forced into.
The abuse of the Uighurs is also happening to their children:
Leaked videos have shown children as young as four- or five-years old that are separated from their parents and placed 20-30 at a time in a single room with a fraction of that number of beds and nothing else — languishing, their childhoods wasted, their potential crushed.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Clarion Projecthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngClarion Project2019-11-30 08:07:592019-12-03 06:07:34VIDEO: China Shuts Down American Teen on Tik Tok
Leaders of pro-family, pro-life, and other conservative organizations have sent a letter to Chick-fil-A asking the fast-food chicken company to reconsider its decision to no longer financially support the Salvation Army.
“We are tremendously disappointed at your company’s complicity in defaming the mission and intent of the Salvation Army, one of America’s oldest and most accomplished charitable organizations,” the conservative leaders write to Dan Cathy, chairman and CEO of Chick-fil-A, in a letter dated Tuesday.
“We urge you to immediately reverse course and reconfirm your commitment to America’s families,” they add.
Among the 49 signers of the letter were Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America; Kay Coles James, president of The Heritage Foundation; Aaron Baer, president of Citizens for Community Values; Brent L. Bozell, founder and CEO of the Media Research Center; Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel; and Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty Institute.
Congress is moving to impeach the president. But will their plan to remove him from office succeed? Find out more now >>
Chick-fil-A announced Nov. 18 that, under new giving plans, it would not renew multiyear donations to the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, both organizations known for their support of traditional marriage.
Conservative leaders apparently prepared the letter before Townhall broke the news Tuesday that tax records show Chick-fil-A donated $2,500 to the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017.
In recent years, the liberal SPLC has attacked many mainstream conservative organizations, including the Family Research Council, as “hate groups.”
Floyd Corkins, convicted of a 2012 attempt to massacre employees at the Family Research Council, told investigators he was inspired by SPLC’s description of the Christian, pro-family research organization as a hate group. Corkins carried Chick-fil-A sandwiches with him, police said.
“No organization will be excluded from future consideration—faith-based or non-faith-based,” Tim Tassopoulos, president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A, said last week in a written statement about the changes in its charitable giving.
Conservative leaders behind the coalition letter, however, argue that Chick-fil-A is caving to pressure from LGBT activists rather than stay true to its principles.
“Your company’s stated mission is ‘To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A,’” they write, adding:
Yet, by bowing to the pressure of left-wing extremist groups, you’ve allowed those ‘faithful stewards’ of the Salvation Army to be branded as ‘extremists,’ likely triggering a series of future events detrimental to the organization and the millions of American poor they serve.
When you were under attack by the left in 2012, America’s families stood with you. We, the signers of this letter, stood with you, and many of us urged our supporters to do the same.
We helped form long lines at your stores, stretching out the doors and around the buildings, in many cases. As a result, your restaurant chain vaulted into the top 3 nationwide.
The 49 leaders close the letter by asking Chick-fil-A to reconsider its course of action.
“We stand firm with the Salvation Army and others who truly are ‘faithful stewards’ of the heritage entrusted to them and all Americans,” they write. “We urge you to immediately reverse course and reconfirm your commitment to America’s families by rejoining us in support of these groups.”
Rachel del Guidice is a congressional reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Rachel.
As we speak, Congress is moving to impeach the president.
We do not have all the facts yet, but based on what we know now, there does not seem to be an impeachable offense.
The questions stand: In drafting the Constitution, how did America’s founders intend for impeachment to be used? How does the impeachment process work, and what can history tell us about whether or not President Trump faces the real threat of being removed from office?
The Heritage Foundation is making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
Senator Elizabeth Warren, one-time Indian and beer drinker, would make a very dangerous president. This isn’t just because of her policies, which include ending the Electoral College, banning fracking everywhere, regulating a naturally occurring gas (CO2), being radically pro-abortion, decriminalizing illegal border crossing, and free health care for illegal aliens. It’s not only her complete phoniness, which is in one way actually reassuring: It informs that the aforementioned policies are surely as pliable as her family history narrative. No, it’s also because she’s frightfully out of touch with reality in a largely unrecognized way, one common to leftists.
Approximately 25 years ago, I attended a local feminist conference concerning how our “patriarchal” society supposedly hobbled girls’ academic performance. Because I’d articulately refuted the speakers’ thesis using facts and reason during the commenting period, some of the organizers approached me afterwards, suspicious, wondering what organization I represented (only myself). The group, perhaps four middle-aged women, remained civil, but the arrows shooting from their eyes betrayed their thinly veiled feelings. Anyway, uninterested in my thoughts, they quickly begged out of the conversation by offering to mail me literature on their positions. I said, jokingly, sure, “as long as you don’t send a hit squad to my house.” The response?
Very seriously and sternly they replied, “We don’t do things like that.” They didn’t get that it was a joke (and, mercifully, I didn’t get the literature).
But perhaps those feminists graduated from the Patsy Schroeder School of Comedy. To wit: Engaging in demagoguery during a 1990s budget battle, the Democrats claimed the elderly would have to eat dog food to afford medicine if the GOP prevailed. Radio host Rush Limbaugh then spoofed this in a GOPAC speech, claiming he’d bought his mother a new can opener so “she can get the dog food easier when she has to eat it.”
Taking this seriously, liberal congresswoman Patsy Schroeder (D-Colo.) appeared on the House floor the next day and emotionally exclaimed that “this is what it’s come to! …Rush Limbaugh actually said he’s going to buy his mother a can opener so she can have dog food. Wow!” The point?
These women exhibited a drastically poor grasp of man’s nature, a profound illiteracy with respect to reading others. They also are Elizabeth Warren; she is them. This is plain.
Consider Warren’s livestream broadcast from her home, last New Year’s Eve, in which she tried to sound down-home authentic and said, “Hold on a sec, I’m gonna get me a beer.” She consequently was widely mocked, with even left-wing columnist Joel Stein calling it the “worst impersonation of a non-elite since John Kerry entered an Ohio grocery store and asked, ‘Can I get me a hunting license here?’”
Even better was the top-rated comment under the below YouTube video of Warren’s beer gambit. “Another Native American succumbs to alcoholism,” “Shepface XL” plaintively remarked (you won the Internet that day, sir!).
Then there was Warren’s response to an endorsement by an obscure, fringe activist group calling itself “Black Womxn For.” “Black trans and cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy…,” she tweeted November 7th.
Now, maybe ol’ Liz was drunk on beer, or firewater, but as one Twitter respondent put it, “The ‘backbone of our democracy’? They aren’t even the backbone of the alphabet soup community.” (In fairness, though, how many politicians have acquaintance with the concept of “backbone”?) In fact, I went far down through the Twitter responses and didn’t even see Warren’s followers defending her puffery. It was that bad.
The issue is not, however, that Warren was marketing herself with the livestream and pandering with the LGBTQ praise; such is typical of politicians. But it’s normally done with some finesse and sophistication, giving wanna’-be believers some plausible deniability in their own minds.
Warren’s inability to do this — her obviously total ignorance of how ridiculous she’d look and her inability to read how others would read her — speak volumes. Call it extremely low emotional IQ, dislocation from reality in the given area, poor people skills, stupidity or something else, but it’s a fatal defect in a leader.
Remember, for a president to effectively deal and negotiate with others, manage geopolitical crises and keep our nation safe, he must be able to interpret foreign leaders properly and send them the right messages. Thus, a deep grasp of man’s nature, which should involve a great ability to read others, is imperative — especially when your “finger is on the button.” Elizabeth Warren clearly, abjectly fails in this regard.
In fact, being only human, even the relatively discerning can stumble here. Just consider how in the early ‘80s President Ronald Reagan reportedly remarked, upon hearing that the Soviets genuinely feared a surprise attack by the U.S., “Can they really believe that we’re about to launch a nuclear attack?”
However accurate this report, I’m certain the Soviets could have. Note that people tend to project their own mindsets and priorities onto others; thus would Reagan never think that another government could suspect utter madness from his, and thus would the utterly mad absolutely suspect it.
Note here that leftists are characteristically godless, and to paraphrase Belgian poet Émile Cammaerts,
“When people cease believing in God, it’s not that they start to believe in nothing; it’s that they’ll believe in anything.”
Leftists occupy an inverted moral world, a reality perhaps best illustrated by what an American defector learned about his “hosts” while spending decades in North Korea.
“In North Korea, when you lie they think you are telling the truth, and when you tell the truth they think you are lying,” said ex-Army Sergeant Charles Jenkins. “You learn real quick to say no when you mean yes, and yes when you mean no.”
The North Koreans are obviously an extreme example. But this all raises interesting questions: How do people get this way? Does the dislocation from reality lead to the embrace of the unreality of leftism? Or does the unreality of leftism lead to wider dislocation from reality? I’m quite sure it’s both, actually. But now I’ll briefly outline Descent into Unreality 101.
Man has a great capacity to rationalize, which, of course, is when you lie to yourself, twist reality for yourself. People do it when reality isn’t what they want it to be. This especially characterizes leftists, whose agenda is wholly contrary to reality, to Truth.
The problem is that when you lie to yourself over and over again, bending reality year after year, you fall further and further out of touch with reality. Not only can rationalization then become entirely habitual, but you may reach a point where you can’t “find” reality even when you want to (Warren certainly didn’t want to make a fool of herself). Once severe enough, this may be called being crazy.
It’s like continually feeding bad data into a computer. How will the output be? In fact, people can reach the point of having “corrupted files,” more commonly known as character defects or dysfunction (though I dislike psychobabble terms reflecting the atheistic lexicon).
By the way, this habitual rationalization likely begins in childhood, when parents (often “liberal”) enable it by not holding their kids responsible and forcing them to face reality. “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree” — and in this case it’s not the tree of liberty.
And in reality, being human, we all have to guard against rationalization and ask ourselves, honestly, if we’re ever and always seeking Truth above all things, even our passions. What is for certain, however, is that the people we today call leftists surely don’t — and they belong nowhere near the levers of power.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Selwyn Dukehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngSelwyn Duke2019-11-28 07:49:242019-12-02 08:43:21Perils of the Left: The Unrecognized, Profound Danger of Elizabeth Warren
Amid the unceasingly negative coverage of President Trump and impeachment by the former mainstream media, there is zero coverage of what Congress is not doing. What the Democrat-led Congress is not doing is keeping any of the promises it made during the 2018 midterm elections, when Americans flipped 40 seats and gave them control of Congress.
Instead, the Democrat energy has simply been what it was the previous two years when they did not have control — get Trump. That effort was through the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, which belly flopped, then obstruction, which went nowhere, and now it’s morphed to impeachment based on a Ukrainian phone call.
But Democrats actually made promises in 2018. Sure, a lot of us knew they had no real intentions of keeping those promises, they were wink-and-nod lies at the time. The primary reason they have not is because any of these would also be considered a victory for President Trump and Republicans. And it might make Trump look legitimate, and able to work with Democrats — which he actually is. But the Democratic Party, in its leadership at any rate, is all about getting Donald Trump.
However, millions of Americans did expect Democrats to keep their promises. So here’s a list of the major promises made through the Democratic Party’s informal 2018 platform, and most frequently by those running as moderates in Trump-won districts.
Democrats promised to work on new trade deals with the President because they knew those would be good for America, including many of their voters. They also knew that fair trade deals are popular with Americans. However, now that they are in power, Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to even bring to a vote the United States, Mexico, Canada (USMCA) trade deal that Mexico and Canada have already signed off on, even though it would most assuredly the pass the House, pass the Senate and go into law with Trump’s signature. This refusal actually fits with impeachment, because none of it is about what’s good for the country, and all of it is about getting Donald Trump.
Democrats promised to work with the Trump Administration and Republicans to lower drug costs, because Americans of every political stripe want to see that. But they have done nothing on that front. No legislation, no committee hearings on pending legislation. We’re now more than halfway through their term in control, and they’ve made no effort to do anything to lower drug costs. Perhaps they will during the spring and summer campaign season, but that would be just to use it in a way that they keep it as a political weapon in 2020 — rather than try to do what is right for Americans. Because it is all about getting Donald Trump.
Democrats promised to work with Trump and Republicans to pass infrastructure improvements. This is one of those pablum issues that the American people love, and therefore politicians love, but actually has very little meaning. The vast majority of capital improvements are done at state and local levels. But the promises are made every election cycle. And the Democrats did so. But with impeachment mania, they’ve done nothing on infrastructure. Because it is all about getting Donald Trump.
One of the fundamental requirements of Congress is to pass a budget each year. For many years under Obama and sporadically before and after that, Congress went to Continuing Resolutions (CRs) — which are irresponsible short-term spending bills to “keep the government open” and which are invariably larded up with special interest pork projects. Republicans had tried to push away from those, but now we are back to being stuck with them. Which means billions flushed down the hole and more media drama for no good reason.
In the irony of ironies department, the actual budget proposal they won’t pass includes $250 million for Ukraine aid. So Democrats are holding impeachment hearings in large part based on the delay of funding for Ukraine — over which they intone dramatically the gravity of Trump having done so. It was so, so very serious that the President would delay Ukrainian aid for even a few weeks. And yet their anti-Trump budget antics are delaying financial aid to Ukraine indefinitely.
Now compare this record to Trump’s record over three years:
7 million new jobs, record low unemployment, all-time low unemployment for black and Hispanic Americans;
Hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing jobs that the previous administration said would never happen;
Extricating ourselves from the destructive Paris climate accords which have all but fallen apart now;
Ditching the terrible Iranian nuclear agreement and reinstituting sanctions on that murderous regime;
Markets at all time highs, which means pensions and retirement plans are healthy and growing;
Rebuilding the military that was depleted under the Obama Administration
Appointing Constitutional judges at every level. By the end of next year, Trump will have appointed, and the Republican Senate approved, about 30 percent of federal judges;
Renegotiating a much more fair trade deal with Mexico and Canada.
This is a very solid record of success for President Trump. Democrats have created no record of their own to run on. It’s no wonder they don’t want to run on records.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2019-11-27 12:49:192019-11-27 12:49:19Here’s Everything NOT Happening During Impeachment
CHARLOTTE, N.C. /PRNewswire/ — Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and Republican National Convention (RNC) President and CEO Marcia Lee Kelly today announced the senior staff team for next summer’s Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina – the “Queen City” – from August 24 to August 27, 2020.
“Thanks to Marcia’s leadership, the Republican National Convention will be organized by a group of highly accomplished individuals,” said McDaniel. “This group will work together to ensure the 2020 Republican National Convention will be an exceptional and first-class experience for everyone attending this historic event as we nominate President Trump for re-election,” said McDaniel.
“I’m thrilled to announce this group of talented individuals, each of whom brings a wealth of experience to the 2020 RNC,” said Kelly. “Their combined talents and enthusiasm will help ensure that next summer’s convention will be a wonderful and historic event for delegates, attendees, media, and the entire Charlotte region.”
Members of the 2020 Republican National Convention Senior Staff Team are:
Stephen “Max” Everett, Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Everett joins the team for his sixth convention, having previously served as the Chief Information Officer for the 2004 and 2016 conventions. He brings over two decades of experience in providing innovative solutions and managing risk for both public and private sector organizations. Everett was most recently the Chief Information Officer for the U.S. Department of Energy, overseeing the Department’s information technology (IT) portfolio, serving as an advisor to the Deputy Secretary and Secretary, and leading various functions within the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Everett received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas and a J.D. from the University of Houston. As Vice President, Everett is responsible for the management, strategy, and execution of major convention initiations. As Chief Information Officer, Everett is also responsible for the convention’s IT infrastructure.
Christina “CC” Cobaugh, Chief of Staff and Director of Ticketing
This will be Cobaugh’s second convention, having previously worked on the executive team for the 2016 convention. She most recently served as the Executive Secretary and Policy Coordinator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative under Ambassador Robert E. Lighthizer. Prior to joining the Administration, she served on the executive team for the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee and was a policy analyst and Director of Business Development for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Cobaugh holds a bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University and a master’s degree from the University of New Orleans. In her role as Chief of Staff, Cobaugh executes the convention’s overall vision, mission, values, and strategic goals. Additionally, as Director of Ticketing, Cobaugh is responsible for the management and distribution of all tickets to the 2020 Republican National Convention and to all related convention events.
Christine Lesko, Chief of Infrastructure
Lesko previously served as Director of Venues for the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Senior Director of Major Events for the Cleveland Cavaliers/Quicken Loans Arena, where she led the staff of the facility at “The Q” during the 2016 Republican National Convention. Lesko holds a bachelor’s degree from Baldwin Wallace College. She is responsible for coordinating all infrastructure efforts related to the 2020 Republican National Convention including flow and signage, the general contractor, information technology, official providers, and media operations.
Thomas F. Maxwell III, Chief Financial Officer
Maxwell brings decades of experience on campaign finance issues and will be serving in his third Republican National Convention. He is the founder of MAXimum Compliance, LLC – a campaign finance consulting firm whose clients include members of Congress, political action committees, joint fundraising committees, Super PACs, National Party Committees, and non-profits. He has also served as the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) director at the National Republican Senatorial Committee and as a reports analyst at the FEC. Maxwell holds a bachelor’s degree in History from Southern Methodist University. For the 2020 Republican National Convention, Maxwell is responsible for managing the convention budget and serving as a steward for the COA’s treasury.
Dan McCarthy, Chief of Public Affairs and Director of External Affairs
McCarthy began his career with the 2000 Republican National Convention, followed by a stint with Victory 2000 on the Bush/Cheney transition team. In 2001, he joined the Bush Administration, serving in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. For the next decade, he worked for Anheuser-Busch InBev, the largest beer company in the world, ultimately serving as Senior Director of National Affairs. McCarthy started his external affairs firm, DMM Strategies, to bring his significant and unique experience in both corporate and public policy to clients. Originally from Cleveland, McCarthy holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame. He serves as the primary point of contact and coordinator for all external groups interested in participating in the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Jonathan Oringdulph, Chief of Logistics and Director of Intergovernmental Coordination and Permitting
Oringdulph brings decades of logistics experience to the Republican National Convention. He has served 25 years in the U.S. Navy and has been assigned at the White House since 2004. He most recently served as the Director of Presidential Food Service and was responsible for programs supporting the White House Military Office. His military experience includes Navy Contracts Officer at Naval Air Systems Command; Flag Supply Aide to the Superintendent of the Naval Academy; a mobilization to Afghanistan as a logistics advisor; and Chief of Staff for Special Operations Command Forward, North and West Africa. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, as well as an MBA and a master’s degree in Project Management from Keller School of Business Management. Oringdulph serves as the 2020 Republican National Convention’s liaison to the city of Charlotte and is responsible for coordinating the logistics efforts of security, transportation, hotels and venues.
Whitney Nichols Andersen, Director of Media Operations
Andersen brings a wealth of experience in operations and logistics, having recently served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to the Director of Management and Administration in the White House. She previously served as the Assistant Director for Ticket Management and Fulfillment during the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee and was the Deputy Director of Operations during the 2016 Republican National Committee. Andersen holds a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies from American University. She is responsible for directing all operational and logistical planning for traditional and digital media organizations for the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Anastasia Hardin-Cole, Director of Official Proceedings
This will be Hardin-Cole’s fourth consecutive convention, having previously worked in Media Operations and External Affairs for the Republican National Convention. She brings extensive business, communications, and political experience from her time with the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee, various foreign affairs positions, and public affairs firms. Hardin-Cole attended Babson College in Wellesley, MA, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business, with a focus on Entrepreneurship and Global Business Management. Hardin-Cole manages a comprehensive 2020 Republican National Convention program in collaboration with the Executive Producer, the RNC, and campaign leadership.
Dustin Hendrix, Director of Transportation
Hendrix joins the 2020 Republican National Convention after serving in various capacities, including over two decades as a Naval Officer at the U.S. Department of Defense, an Aircrew Expert in conjunction with Boeing, and as the Commanding Officer of the Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility in Jacksonville, FL. Hendrix holds a bachelor’s degree from Wabash College, an EMBA from the Naval Postgraduate School, and an M.S. from the University of Florida. Hendrix is responsible for the development and implementation of a transportation management plan for the convention in support of all events including media site visits, the Welcome Party, and all events scheduled during convention week.
Dee Dee Lancaster, Director of Logistics Flow and Signage
Lancaster has over two decades of experience developing strong strategic planning initiatives and logistics, resulting in successful events for her clients. Lancaster has worked with four Presidential Inaugural Committees, the Republican National Committee, and multiple Republican National Conventions. A New Orleans native, Lancaster holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Louisiana State University. She is directly responsible for mapping out the signage plan to ensure a well-branded and seamless wayfinding system for convention delegates and guests.
Joy Lee, Counsel
Prior to this role, Lee served as counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration; Senior Counsel at a national public policy and advocacy organization; Associate Counsel at the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee; and a member of the legal team for the 2016 Republican National Convention. A native of South Korea, Lee earned her B.A. in Communications at the University of Maryland, and her law degree at Washington and Lee. She oversees the legal operations of the convention and ensures full compliance with applicable laws and regulations. In addition, Lee provides legal guidance on a wide range of issues, including regulatory compliance, risk management, contract negotiation, and intellectual property management.
Diandra Lopez, Director of Delegate Experience
Lopez joins the convention team with an extensive work history, which includes management positions at Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and VIP guest relations. Lopez organized the planning and execution of hotel events during the United Nations General Assembly, New York City Marathon, and Thanksgiving. Lopez is tasked with creating and executing an exceptional experience for the RNC delegates and stakeholders prior to, during, and following the convention. Lopez looks forward to applying her hospitality experience and leadership background to the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Mallory McGough, Director of Administration
McGough brings years of private management experience, having previously worked for several organizations, including Knock Knock Children’s Museum and the American Cancer Society, both in Baton Rouge, LA. Prior to that, she spent five years in Nashville, working in events and athletics operations management. McGough also worked for Congressman Pete Sessions, running his internship program in Washington, D.C., and serving as Grassroots Coordinator of his re-election campaign in Dallas. A Lake Charles, Louisiana native, McGough attended Louisiana State University and graduated with bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Communications. McGough also holds a master’s degree from Belmont University. For the 2020 Republican National Convention, McGough is tasked with coordinating daily operational functions, streamlining management systems, maintaining business efficiency, and overseeing human capital development.
Robert O’Donnell, Director of Security
O’Donnell has extensive experience as a senior security and law enforcement leader, with over two decades serving in the U.S. Secret Service and leading the Dignitary Protective Division. O’Donnell holds a bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Criminal Justice from Villanova University. He is directly responsible for the overall security plans for the Charlotte Convention Center, Spectrum Center, and any additional footprints associated with the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Russell Peck, Director of Community Affairs
Peck has worked in North Carolina in various capacities and led campaigns throughout the East Coast, most recently serving as a Regional Political Director for the Republican National Committee covering the Southeast United States, and as Campaign Manager for the Pat McCrory Committee both in 2016 and 2012. He is the former Executive Director of the North Carolina Republican Party and was a Senior Vice President of Mercury Public Affairs in Raleigh, NC. In 2019 he founded Oaklee Strategies, a North Carolina-based Public Affairs firm. Peck holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Florida State University. He facilitates public and private sector engagement activities in order to advance the collaborative initiatives of the 2020 Republican National Convention and Host Committee.
Christopher Reese, Director of Executive Operations
Reese previously served as the Operations Manager and as a Staff Assistant in the Executive Office of the President. Prior to his time in the Administration, Reese served as Deputy Director of Treasury during the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Business Marketing from the University of Central Florida. Reese manages all operational, scheduling, and logistical activities within the Executive Office for the 2020 Republican National Convention.
James Sample, Director of Operations
Sample oversees all operational, technical, and maintenance support for the 2020 Republican National Convention. He has extensive large-scale event production and project management experience, having worked as the Senior Projects Manager for an exhibits and events design firm. Sample worked for the 2016 Republican National Convention as the Buildout and Permits Manager, and also served as an Event Manager at the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium. An Indianapolis native, Sample attended Indiana University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Communication and Culture. Sample oversees all operational aspects of the preparations for, and running of, the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Rebecca Wasserstein, Director of Hotels & Venues
Wasserstein brings a wealth of experience to her role, having most recently served as Special Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Travel Office. Prior to her time in the Administration, Wasserstein served as the Assistant Director of Credential Management during the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee and supported Media Operations during the 2016 Republican National Convention. Wasserstein’s resume also includes various campaign leadership positions in statewide, U.S. Senate, and Presidential campaigns. Originally from Cleveland, Wasserstein holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Affairs from Ohio State University. In her role as Director of Hotels & Venues, she is responsible for overseeing all hotel and venue logistics from the initial contracting phase to the final group placements.
The 2020 Republican National Convention will be held at the Spectrum Center from August 24 to 27, 2020. Nearly 50,000 visitors are expected to arrive in Charlotte for the event, including delegates, alternate delegates, members of the media, and other guests.
An internal watchdog’s report on Justice Department surveillance of President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign is slated to arrive in early December—about the same time as a likely House vote on whether to impeach the president.
“Now what you’re going to see, I predict, will be perhaps the biggest scandal in the history of our country,” Trump said Friday of the pending report from the Justice Department’s inspector general.
Trump commented on the expected report and House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry in a phone interview with “Fox & Friends.”
Here is what’s known about what will happen next.
Congress is moving to impeach the president. But will their plan to remove him from office succeed? Find out more now >>
1. What’s Going to Be in IG Report?
The report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz on the FBI’s actions in obtaining a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page will be released Dec. 9. Horowitz is scheduled to testify two days later before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The inpector general’s investigation reportedly will conclude that an FBI lawyer wrongfully altered an email regarding the application for the FISA warrant. The lawyer previously had expressed a strong anti-Trump bias, according to news reports.
However, these news reports say, Horowitz determined that there were proper legal grounds to seek the FISA warrant.
2. Who Is Kevin Clinesmith?
The FBI lawyer in question reportedly is Kevin Clinesmith, who was identified as “Attorney 2” in the June 2018 inspector general’s report about the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to do official business as secretary of state.
Clinesmith worked with line FBI agents on the surveillance warrants targeting Page.
The coming report is expected to conclude that Clinesmith altered an email message that he received from another federal official. The report is expected to say that the FBI lawyer sent the altered message to supervisors who were working to obtain the FISA warrant, without informing them of the changes he made.
After Trump won the 2016 presidential election, Clinesmith sent a text message saying he was “just devastated,” and that “it’s just hard not to feel like the FBI caused some of this,” according to the previous inspector general’s report regarding the Clinton email probe.
Clinesmith’s texts apparently were referring to the FBI’s brief reopening of its email investigation weeks before Election Day.
“I am so stressed about what I could have done differently,” he also says in a text message.
In another message, Clinesmith wrote of Trump: “This is the tea party on steroids. And the GOP is going to be lost, they have to deal with an incumbent in 4 years. We have to fight this again. Also [Vice President Mike] Pence is stupid.”
In another text exchange, Clinesmith wrote, “Viva le resistance.”
The IG report referred to the sender of these texts as “Attorney 2,” but he is widely reported to be Clinesmith.
At the time, Clinesmith said he only was expressing his personal views, which he said did not affect his work.
Clinesmith was part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s legal team investigating a potential conspiracy between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. The probe found no evidence of conspiracy.
Clinesmith worked for the FBI’s National Security Branch, reporting to then-General Counsel James A. Baker, who also came under scrutiny for sharing classified information with the media. Baker was replaced and reassigned in December 2017, then resigned from the FBI in May 2018.
Baker reportedly met with a lawyer from Perkins Coie, the Seattle-based law firm representing the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election cycle.
3. How Does IG Report Affect Impeachment?
The IG report doesn’t have any legal connection with House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
The lawmakers accuse Trump of pressuring the Ukraine government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in exchange for $391 million in congressionally approved military assistance.
However, the report due Dec. 9 could tie into a larger political narrative, said Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group.
“I don’t know exactly what to expect from the IG report, and I expect we’ll learn more,” Flaherty told The Daily Signal. “It does appear it will be critical of the anti-Trump sentiment in the DOJ and will help balance the debate.”
“The IG report is a vehicle for information that Adam Schiff does not want to talk about,” he said, referring to the California Democrat who is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s point man on impeachment as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Some Trump defenders contend that many of the allegations of the impeachment inquiry involve appointed State Department and intelligence officials having a policydisagreement with the president.
The IG report could buttress accounts of a bureaucratic push against Trump by appointed Justice Department officials during the campaign and after the election, said Curt Levey, a constitutional lawyer and president of the Committee for Justice, a conservative legal group.
“Even if the IG report demonstrates many felonies from inside the Justice Department, it doesn’t have anything to do with the impeachment investigation of Trump,” Levey told The Daily Signal. “What it could do is tie into a broader skepticism of the entire Trump impeachment process, and the perceptions it’s about getting Trump.”
4. How Will IG Report Affect Criminal Probe?
While the IG’s findings could have at best an indirect political effect on the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, they directly affect U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham’s criminal investigation into government surveillance of the Trump campaign.
As inspector general, Horowitz cannot bring criminal charges or issue subpoenas. Durham, who has a reputation for being a tough prosecutor in public corruption cases, can do both.
“Will the IG report show there was a major law enforcement effort to stop Trump? Was it illegal?” Levey said. “There is a lot of activity that is horrible, such as the Peter Strzok-Lisa Page texts. It was fireable, but it wasn’t illegal. With the FISA court, it depends. We might find something shocking, but [that] isn’t actually illegal.”
Levey noted that many investigations that are hyped—such as the Mueller probe—turned out to be duds.
Regardless of that, both sides should be concerned that federal law enforcement could be motivated by politics and attempt to influence an election, Flaherty said.
“It remains to be seen whether Horowitz’s testimony will be a general tongue-lashing or lead to indictments for wrongdoing,” Flaherty said.
Flaherty said he anticipates that Durham, in the ongoing criminal probe, will bring charges for making false statements to investigators and obstructing justice.
“I don’t think Durham will issue a report,” Flaherty said. “If we are going to see a narrative, it will come in the form of indictments.”
As we speak, Congress is moving to impeach the president.
We do not have all the facts yet, but based on what we know now, there does not seem to be an impeachable offense.
The questions stand: In drafting the Constitution, how did America’s founders intend for impeachment to be used? How does the impeachment process work, and what can history tell us about whether or not President Trump faces the real threat of being removed from office?
The Heritage Foundation is making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-11-26 05:00:502019-11-26 05:05:314 Big Questions About the IG Report on FBI Surveillance of Trump Campaign
This month marks the tenth anniversary of “Climategate” – the release of thousands of emails to and from climate scientists who had been (and still are) collaborating and colluding to create a manmade climate crisis that exists in their minds and computer models, but not in the real world. The scandal should have ended climate catastrophism. Instead, it was studiously buried by politicians, scientists, activists and crony capitalists, who will rake in trillions of dollars from the exaggerations and fakery, while exempting themselves from the damage they are inflicting on everyday families.
Few people know the Inconvenient Facts about the supposed manmade climate and extreme weather “crisis.” For example, since 1998, average global temperatures have risen by a mere few hundredths of a degree. (For a time, they even declined slightly.) Yet all we hear is baseless rhetoric about manmade carbon dioxide causing global warming and climate changes that pose existential threats to humanity, wildlife and planet. Based on this, we are told we must stop using fossil fuels to power economic growth and better living standards. This is bad news for Africa and the world.
We keep hearing that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels cause rising global temperatures. But satellite data show no such thing. In fact, computer model predictions for 2019 are almost a half degree Celsius (0.9 degrees F) above actual satellite measurements. Even worse, anytime a scientist raises questions about the alleged crisis, he or she is denounced as a “climate change denier.”
A major source of data supporting the human CO2- induced warming proposition came from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
Then on the morning of 17 November 2009 a Pandora’s box of embarrassing CRU information exploded onto the world scene. A computer hacker penetrated the university’s computer system and took 61 Megs of material that showed the CRU had been manipulating scientific information to make global warming appear to be the fault of mankind and industrial CO2. Among many other scandals, the shocking leaked emails showed then-CRU-director Prof. Phil Jones boasting of using statistical “tricks” to remove evidence of observed declines in global temperatures.
In another email, he advocated deleting data rather than providing it to scientists who did not share his view and might criticize his analyses. Non-alarmist scientists had to invoke British freedom of information laws to get the information. Jones was later suspended, and former British Chancellor Lord Lawson called for a Government enquiry into the embarrassing exposé.
The affair became known as “Climategate,” and a group of American University students even posted a YouTube song, “Hide the Decline,” mocking the CRU and climate modeler Dr. Michael Mann, whose use of the phrase “hide the decline” in temperatures had been found in the hacked emails.
So what is the truth? If one considers the composition of the atmosphere and equates it to the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the extra plant-fertilizing CO2 added to the atmosphere since California became the 31st state of the United States in 1850 is less than the thickness of tiles under the Tower.
Can this tiny increase really explain any observed global warming since the Little Ice Age ended, and the modern industrial era began? Since California became a state, the measured global rise in atmospheric temperature has been less than 1C. But most of this increase occurred prior to 1940, and average planetary temperatures fell from around 1943 until about 1978, leading to a global cooling scare. Temperatures rose slightly until 1998, then mostly remained stable, even as carbon dioxide levels continued to rise. Rising CO2 levels and temperature variations do not correlate very well at all.
Moreover, during the well-documented Medieval Warm Period from about 950 to 1350, warmer global temperatures allowed Viking farmers to raise crops and tend cattle in Greenland. The equally well documented 500-year Little Ice Age starved and froze the Vikings out of Greenland, before reaching its coldest point, the Maunder Minimum, 1645-1715. That’s when England’s River Thames regularly froze over, Norwegian farmers demanded compensation for lands buried by advancing glaciers, and priests performed exorcism rituals to keep alpine glaciers away from villages. Paintings from the era show crowds of people ice skating and driving horse-drawn carriages on the Thames.
Industry and automobile emissions obviously played no role in either the MWP or the LIA.
These dramatic events should ring warning bells for any competent, honest scientist. If the Medieval Warm Period occurred without industrial CO2 driving it, why should industrial CO2 be causing any observed warming today? Europe’s great plague wiped out nearly a quarter of its population during the Little Ice Age. The warm period brought prosperity and record crops, while cold years brought misery, famine and death.
Ten years before Climategate, Dr. Mann released a computer-generated graph purporting to show global temperatures over the previous 1500 years. His graph mysteriously made the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and Maunder extreme cold years disappear – and planetary temperatures spike suddenly the last couple decades of twentieth century. The graph had the shape of a hockey stick, was published worldwide and became a centerpiece for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Many scientists were highly suspicious of the hockey stick claims. Two of them, Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, completely discredited Mann’s computer program and revisionist history. Of course, that did not stop former US vice president Al Gore from using the discredited graph in his doom and gloom climate change movie, An Inconvenient Truth.
The hacked CRU emails also showed exchanges between Mann and Jones, in which they discussed how to intimidate editors who wanted to publish scientific views contrary to theirs, to suppress any contradictory studies. In one email, Jones expressed his desire to get rid of the “troublesome editor” of the Climate Research journal for daring to publish differing views. The editor got sacked.
When University of Colorado climate skeptic Professor Roger Pielke, Jr. asked the CRU for its original temperature readings, he was told the data had been (conveniently) lost. Lost!?! Do professionals lose something as valuable as original data? Many suspected they just didn’t want anyone to expose their clever manipulations and fabrications.
But if industrial carbon dioxide did not cause recent global warming, what did? A Danish research group, led by Prof. Henrik Svensmark, has found a very credible match between levels of sunspot activity (giant magnetic storms) on our Sun and global temperatures over the last fifteen hundred years. This all-natural mechanism actually fits the evidence! How terribly inconvenient for alarmists.
Cosmic rays from deep space constantly impinge on the Earth’s upper atmosphere and produce clouds, much like high-flying jets leave white contrails behind their engines. More clouds can trap heat, but they also cause global cooling because not as much sunlight strikes the Earth. More sunspots mean a stronger magnetic shield, therefore fewer cosmic rays reaching Earth, thus less cloud cover and more global warming. The Sun is currently in a near-record period of low sunspot activity.
All sorts of interest groups are suppressing this information. Maybe worse, when Climategate broke, “climate justice” campaigner for Friends of the Earth Emma Brindal said bluntly: “A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.” Not protecting Earth from manmade CO2 emissions or natural and manmade climate change – but redistributing wealth and resources, according to formulas that self-appointed ruling elites decide is “socially just.”
Climate campaigners also oppose “excessive” air travel for business or pleasure, 4×4 vehicles as “unnecessary luxuries,” and modern homes for Africans. Some even say Africans must continue living in mud huts and avoid the use of electricity and modern farming technologies. Minor US actor Ed Begley has said “Africans should have solar power where they need it most: on their huts.” They, Al Gore, Phil Jones and Mike Mann are exempted from these restrictions, of course.
Real social justice and human rights mean everyone has access to abundant, reliable, affordable energy, especially universally important electricity. Not from expensive, intermittent, weather-dependent wind turbines and solar panels. From fossil fuel, nuclear and hydroelectric power plants.
We in the developing world will no longer let climate truth be suppressed. We will not allow loud, radical activists to put the brakes on African economic development, jobs, and improved health and living standards, in the name of advancing their anti-human, wealth redistribution agendas.
Dr Kelvin Kemm is a nuclear physicist and CEO of Nuclear Africa (Pty) Ltd, a project management company based in Pretoria, South Africa. He is the recipient of the prestigious Lifetime Achievers Award of the National Science and Technology Forum of South Africa. He does international consultancy work in strategic development.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Committee For A Constructive Tomorrowhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCommittee For A Constructive Tomorrow2019-11-24 06:31:402019-11-29 06:37:14Climategate: Ten years later
