VIDEO: This is why we’re investigating Big Tech

At CPAC, James O’Keefe and former Google engineer James Damore led a panel on the suppression of conservative views in social media. The panel, sponsored by the American Principles Project, also featured Media Research Center’s Dan Gainor, entrepreneur Marlene Jaeckel, and attorney Harmeet Dhillon.

Facebook is labeling conservative news as “fake”; Twitter has been exposed “shadow-banning” ideas they don’t like; Google has outright fired those who do not share the same viewpoints as their executives. These attempts to silence views and control opinions is what makes social media companies so dangerous.

O’Keefe spoke about the power that social media companies hold today:

If they can rewire society to prevent people from even talking about things, it’s going to change everything. And we’re not going to let it happen.”

James Damore, who was famously fired from Google for publishing a factual memo, also gave some profound insights during the panel:

These companies are so ubiquitous and powerful that they’re controlling all the means of mass communication… We really need to wake up to the problem and help raise awareness, because this is a big risk to freedom of speech and democracy in general.”

New York Times Agrees with President Trump: Sweden’s Migrant-perpetrated Violence Out-of-Control [Video]

Invasion of Europe…..

Can we expect an apology from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and the rest of the anti-Trump media about his Sweden comments last year?  Don’t hold your breath!

Powerline blog reminds us here of what happened a year ago February when the New York Times and all of its media lackeys landed like a big bird on President Trump when he said Sweden has a problem with out-of-control immigration (from certain ethnic/religious groups) and the violence it inevitably brings!

In February of last year, at CPAC, President Trump linked mass Muslim immigration to an increase in crime in Sweden. The New York Times, in an article called “From an Anchor’s Lips to Trump’s Ears to Sweden’s Disbelief,” ridiculed Trump for getting his information from television (a report on Tucker Carlson’s program) and suggested that Trump was misinformed. [The President might have said it at CPAC also, but it was at a campaign rally in Florida, here.]

It also criticized Trump for “start[ing] a dispute with a longtime American friend that resented his characterization and called it false.” The Times sniffed that “the president’s only discernible goal was to make the case domestically for his plans to restrict entry to the United States.” The Times seemed to believe that making this case was somehow out-of-bounds.

Powerline reports this from the NYT story as well:

Note that the trend the Times describes began in 2014. Trump discussed the problem of immigrant violence in 2017. He wasn’t premature, the Times is late.

They are all late.

Maybe the use of  weapons of war began in 2014, but their immigrant problems began long before that.  I began writing this blog in July 2007 and my first story on immigration problems in Sweden came in August 2007 (and there were surely more stories before I came along!).

I have a huge archive on Sweden, the country I predict will be the first European country to be conquered by Islam in the modern age. 

Go here to see my many previous posts on Sweden’s failed multicultural experiment.

Now more on The NYT’s evidence that Trump is right on Sweden from the Daily Caller:

The New York Times published a report Sunday on Sweden’s growing problem with immigrant gangs — more than a year after the paper chided President Donald Trump for calling attention to the same worrisome development.

sweden time bomb

Sweden’s pin has been pulled in more ways than one.

Entitled “Hand Grenades and Gang Violence Rattle Sweden’s Middle Class,” the report examines how weapons of war and clan-like*** violence have accompanied an influx of immigrants from certain parts of Europe and the greater Middle East.

The story centers on the death of a man in the town of Varby Gard, a once tranquil Stockholm suburb that is now the home base of an increasingly destructive immigrant gang. He was killed in early January when he picked up a mysterious object lying in the street that turned out to be a live hand grenade. The device exploded when he touched it, killing him instantly.

It was one of more than 100 incidents involving military-grade explosives in the Stockholm metro area that police have attributed to an “arms race” among immigrant gangs, reports The NYT.  There were only a few such incidents in Sweden until 2014, but since then, the number of explosions and seizures of grenades has shot up and remained worryingly high.

The police seized 45 grenades in 2015, while 10 others were detonated in public, according to Stockholm Police. The next year, 55 were seized and 35 detonated. A modest decrease occurred in 2017, when 39 were seized and 21 exploded.

Though The NYT readily reported on the nature of the violence, it was somewhat more circumspect about its origin. Nowhere in the story do the words “Muslim” or “refugee” appear. The only mention of the word “asylum” is to describe a witness to the explosion, one of many Varby Gard residents who arrived there thanks to Sweden’s famously open asylum policies.

The fact is that Sweden’s spike in gang violence and certain categories of crime coincided with the resettlement of more than 100,000 asylum seekers from predominantly Muslim nations beginning in 2014. 

More here.

Here is a bit from the New York Times article itself:

Sweden’s far right-wing party blames the government’s liberal immigration policy for the rising crime, and will thrust the issue to the fore in the fall campaign.

Last year, Peter Springare, 61, a veteran police officer in Orebro, published a furious Facebook post saying violent crimes he was investigating were committed by immigrants from “Iraq, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Somalia, Syria again, Somalia, unknown country, unknown country, Sweden.” It was shared more than 20,000 times; Mr. Springare has since been investigated twice by state prosecutors, once for inciting racial hatred, though neither resulted in charges.

Yesterday we told you about Italian elections and said there might be hope for Italy if it gets rid of most migrants (most are economic migrants) and Italians start having babies.  Same goes for Sweden, but there is even less hope there that they can turn around the DEMOGRAPHIC conquest in time.

Dear readers, I’m asked often “what can I do?” Here is one vital thing: follow news from Europe daily and be sure to send what you learn far and wide because as Europe goes, so go we (just a little farther along in this century)! Unless, of course, we heed the lessons unfolding before our eyes!

My ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive is here.

NOTE: By the way, any mention of clan violence means only one thing—Somalis are involved.

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Italian election: Anti-EU populism on the rise; immigration is key issue

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VIDEO: A Streetcar Named Disaster

There are few more illustrative examples of government dysfunction and waste than the DC Streetcar.

At a hearing last week, the Washington, D.C., City Council reportedly discussed replacing its fleet of streetcars, just two years after the DC Streetcar went into service, even though the Federal Transit Administration generally sets a streetcar’s lifespan at around three decades.

Acquiring the new streetcars will cost the city at least $25 million.

This would be just the latest unexpected problem for a public transport system plagued by delayscost overruns, and failure. It has become a monument to government waste.

Currently, the streetcar operates on a 2-mile stretch on H Street, a mere fraction of the 40 miles of track originally promised.

The Daily Signal went to H Street and spoke to Michael Sargent, a Heritage Foundation expert on transportation and infrastructure, and Lyndsey Fifield, who is the social media director for the Heritage Foundation and a resident of the District of Columbia.

They discussed why this project has had so many problems and what it has cost taxpayers.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman is an editor for The Daily Signal. Send an email to Jarrett. Twitter: .

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.

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VIDEO: Patriotic Ad by Grunt Style Clothing Takes the Internet by Storm

When you visit the veteran owned and operated Grunt Style website you will see in bold capitol letters the following quote:

“WHERE LIBERTY DWELLS, THERE IS MY COUNTRY.” – BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

A grunt is defined as “a low-ranking or unskilled soldier or other worker.” But make no mistake the U.S. Army has depended on the bravery and skills of its grunts since its founding on June 14th, 1775.

You will also find the video below titled “This Commercial Would Have Changed the Game.”

To purchase Grunt Style clothing for men and women please click here.

RELATED GRUNT STYLE VIDEO:

VIDEO: Law Enforcement’s Failures Before, During and After Parkland School Shooting

In this episode of “Inside Judicial Watch,” host Jerry Dunleavy joins JW Senior Investigator Bill Marshall to discuss the perfect storm of events that led to the Parkland school shooting on Valentine’s Day which resulted in the deaths of 17 students and faculty. Had local and federal law enforcement been more proactive, the massacre could have been prevented.

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VIDEO: The Vortex—The Pope and Sodomy

TRANSCRIPT

Has it appeared “odd” to anyone else that there are so many promoters of sodomy around Pope Francis? Hardly a week goes by where some outlandish gay thing after another fails to make an appearance in some manner, shape or form — from reports of the gay orgy in the apartment of Cdl. (Francesco) Coccopalmerio’s assistant near the end of last year to Abp. (Vincenzo) Paglia’s homoerotic painting to the gay-themed Nativity set in St. Peter’s Square to gay cheerleaders Fr. James Martin and Fr. Thomas Rosica’s special jobs in the Vatican bureaucracy to a very gay-friendly company running aspects of the Vatican’s communications apparatus to the infamous line in the Synod on the Family’s 2014 Midterm Relatio that homosexuals have certain gifts and qualities, an idea sneaked into the document by Abp. Bruno Forte, known to be extremely gay-friendly. It’s so much, people are wondering when the Dome of St. Peter’s is going to be painted pink. And believe us when we say those examples are just the tip of the iceberg.

The ascendancy of the homosexual clerical culture really took off in Rome and other quarters of the Church decades ago — slowly at first but then has picked up steam. Pope Benedict even admitted recently that he had encountered a group of four or five homosexual cardinals he had to deal with.

Pope Francis at the beginning of his pontificate created international headlines when he admitted privately there was a gay lobby inside the Vatican. Of course, many people became very concerned when the Holy Father appointed Msgr. Battista Ricca to head up the Vatican Bank. Ricca was reported to have carried on a gay relationship with a captain in the Swiss Army during his time in Uruguay  — so notorious in fact that clergy there appealed to the Vatican to have him removed. It was Battista, as a sidebar, that Pope Francis was talking about back in 2013 when he gave his well-documented comment, “Who am I to judge?”

It’s also important to note that privately various orthodox types in the Vatican and Rome are expressing deep concern that homosexual practice in the Vatican “has never been worse,” as recorded this past summer in multiple news reports. The Vatican has been overrun by a gay culture which promotes its own kind from within. The great danger, here, is of course that active gay clergy or those who support it cannot be transmitters of the authentic faith. They are living lives or supporting others who live these lives which run in complete contradiction to the tenets of Catholicism, yet they seem to have control over practically everything in the Church. And it has a supporting or trickle-down effect throughout the Church.

For example, in next months, virtually heretical Religious Education Congress — sponsored by Los Angeles Abp. Jose Gomez — one pro-homosexualist after another dot the lineup of invited speakers. Privately, here in the United States, priests will tell you that a gay mob runs practically every level of the Church which we have ample proof of in Cdl. Timothy Dolan’s archdiocese of New York. Last month, a homosexual priest came out to his parish at Sunday Mass in the archdiocese of Milwaukee, and Abp. Jerome Listecki praised him and said Catholics should support him.

Father James Martin is allowed to openly lie about Church teaching in parish after parish and diocese after diocese, and practically no one in the hierarchy says a word. In fact just the opposite, they come out and support him and even one-up him in their assaults against the Faith, saying gay couples can receive Holy Communion as Cdl. Blase Cupich did in Chicago or that we can just ignore all that sin stuff and have a pilgrimage for gays like Cdl. Joseph Tobin did in Newark, New Jersey. And on the other side of the Atlantic, Cdl. Reinhard Marx has come out publicly and said the Church should begin blessing same-sex unions, something Abp. Johan Bonny of Antwerp, Belgium, had already called for a couple of years ago.

All over the Church in the West calls for the embracing of sodomy from the hierarchy are accelerating and increasing in volume. They style it as respect and compassion and human rights etc. But what is at the heart of this is sodomy, plain and simple? Nobody is saying that people struggling with their crosses, whatever type of cross they have, should be treated in any other way than with compassion and respect. Of course they should. It even says that in the catechism. But it is a bridge too far to call on Catholics to accept the sin, thinly veiling it as love when it is anything but love. Call it what it is, it’s sodomy. And these bishops and cardinals cannot support what they claim to support without also supporting that.

These gay unions that they want to bless, uplift and support are unions centered around the belief that sodomy is a perfectly legitimate expression of their feelings of love for each other. At some point, reasonable minds have to pose the question: is the reason so many prelates and cardinals are pushing so hard for something that affects so few people because they are homosexuals themselves? Seriously, if Martians landed on earth tomorrow, they would think the Church was the gay rights lobby in robes. It’s practically all they ever go on about.

These men are sowing confusion and error in the hearts and minds of the faithful, as well as promoting an evil agenda which the world embraces, and they are using or rather abusing their authority and influence to do so. They need to repent of their wickedness before they die or hellfire awaits them. And they need to publicly admit the horrible circumstances in to which they have placed many souls, pushing them to the precipice of Hell.

What the laity have to understand is this simple fact as hard as it is, maybe, and as unpleasant it is to think about it; these men hate the Church, even while they claim to love it. They hate the Truth because it convicts them and their consciences and exposes the evil that they harbor. And they hide all this evil and contempt and scorn for the Church under cries and appeals for compassion and kindness, something they are unwilling to extend to souls who actually need it.

They have found in Pope Francis, who cares about mercy, even to the point of allowing confusion to foster, a man whose strings they can easily tug, using that “mercy” argument to hide their real agenda which is an overthrow of the Church. A final warning to them since they have no supernatural faith — and you cannot have supernatural faith and behave like this — they are incapable of seeing the Church in a supernatural way. To them, it is a merely human institution that can be altered and refashioned according to the whims of mere humans. But the Church is not merely human. It is a joining, a mysterious union between God and man, and as such it belongs to God.

He will not allow this to continue much longer because the rabid gays in the Church are now touching sacred things, wanting to declare that which is evil, good, and that which is good, evil. When Our Blessed Lord sets about to offer correction, it’s usually a fearsome prospect.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Church Militant.

VIDEO: Broward County Deputies Were TOLD Not To Go Into High School

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham reported Monday that Broward Country deputies were told not to go into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the mass shooting earlier this month.

The alleged reason? They didn’t have any body cameras with them.

WATCH:

“Curiously, police also lost radio communications during the parkland shooting. And our source claims that radio communication also went dead during the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting in 2017 that he also got a lot of criticism for.”

Ingraham did not say who issued the order to not go into the school.

COMMENTARY BY

Justin Caruso

Justin Caruso

Media Reporter

Send Email, Subscribe to RSSFollow Justin on Twitter.

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The Evil of Name-Calling

Merriam-Webster defines name-calling as “the use of offensive names especially to win an argument or to induce rejection or condemnation (as of a person or project) without objective consideration of the facts.”

James V. Schall, S.J., who served as a professor at Georgetown University for thirty-five years, wrote,

The basic principle of civilization is the Socratic norm that it is never right to do wrong. The corollary of this principle is that nothing evil can happen to a good man.

The Socratic norm has been turned on its head. Today people believe they have the right to do wrong. Evil is happening to good men and women.

I have written that the Constitutional right to freedom of speech is a fundamental tenet of all healthy discourse. The right to speak freely and discuss all sides of an issue is fundamental to our personal, professional and political growth and progress as a society. The ability to freely discuss social, economic and political issues facing our nation is what is proper and appropriate to do from our house to the White House.

The Evil of Name-Calling

Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Amy Wax asked the question: Are We Free to Discuss America’s Real Problems? During a speech at Hillsdale College Dr. Wax noted:

There is a lot of abstract talk these days on American college campuses about free speech and the values of free inquiry, with plenty of lip service being paid to expansive notions of free expression and the marketplace of ideas. What I’ve learned through my recent experience of writing a controversial op-ed is that most of this talk is not worth much. It is only when people are confronted with speech they don’t like that we see whether these abstractions are real to them. 

The op-ed mentioned by Dr. Wax was published in the The Philadelphia Inquirer titled Paying the price for breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture. The op-ed was coauthored Dr. Wax and Mr. Larry Alexander. They wrote:

Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank below those from two dozen other countries.

These problems are certainly worthy of academic research that lead to lasting societal solutions. It is here when the Socratic norm was turned on its head, when evil happened to Dr. Wax and Mr. Alexander.

Dr. Wax and Mr. Alexander then got “controversial” by suggesting:

The causes of these phenomena are multiple and complex, but implicated in these and other maladies is the breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture.

That culture laid out the script we all were supposed to follow: Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.

These basic cultural precepts reigned from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. They could be followed by people of all backgrounds and abilities, especially when backed up by almost universal endorsement. Adherence was a major contributor to the productivity, educational gains, and social coherence of that period.

[ … ]

All cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy. The culture of the Plains Indians was designed for nomadic hunters, but is not suited to a First World, 21st-century environment. Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-“acting white” rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants. [Emphasis added]

It was the statements following “all cultures are not equal” that the name-calling began from friends and faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. How could these learned people talk about Plains Indians, some working-class whites, the anti-acting white rap culture of black and anti-assimilation of Hispanic immigrants that way?

Objective Consideration of the Facts

Rather than considering the facts presented by Dr. Wax and Mr. Alexander thereby beginning a meaningful discussion and conducting research to determine the validity of these statements in search of lasting solutions, academia turned on them. Dr. Wax discovered:

The reactions to this piece raise the question of how unorthodox opinions should be dealt with in academia—and in American society at large.

[ … ]

What those of us in academia should certainly not do is engage in unreasoned speech: hurling slurs and epithets, name-calling, vilification, and mindless labeling. Likewise we should not reject the views of others without providing reasoned arguments. Yet these once common standards of practice have been violated repeatedly at my own and at other academic institutions in recent years—and we increasingly see this trend in society as well.  

Name-calling has become the soup du jour when discussing race, creed, citizenship, morality and politics

Both side are hurling slurs.

What makes one side right and the other side wrong are the facts.

If the statement, “The culture of the Plains Indians was designed for nomadic hunters, but is not suited to a First World, 21st-century environment. Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-“acting white” rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants” is factual then the next step is to find solutions.

If further research determines they are not factual then of course the real truth must be revealed so that, again, solutions are found.

For you see name-calling is evil because it stops efforts to determine the facts. Name-calling ends any and all efforts to find solutions to basic societal problems. If these societal problems persist then the culture collapses from within. What follows is pure evil.

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VIDEO UPDATE: FBI still protecting Comey; Fraud, Waste and Abuse at the Veterans Administration

What is the FBI Hiding in its War to Protect Comey? 

The coup attempt against President Trump is rapidly collapsing, but the deep state is still in cover-up mode. In an article for The Hill I discussed the FBI’s continuing protection of former Director James Comey and Judicial Watch’s efforts to penetrate the truth.

As the James Comey saga continues to unfold, the James Comey legend continues to unravel.

The more we learn about his involvement in the deep state’s illicit targeting of President Trump, the more reason the American people have to question both his motives and his management as director of the FBI, the now-disgraced agency he headed before Trump fired him. Comey has left a trail of suspicious activities in his wake.

Comey now looms large over a burgeoning constitutional crisis that could soon overshadow Watergate at its worst. To deepen the crisis even further, it now appears some of Comey’s former FBI and Justice Department colleagues continue to protect him from accountability.

Three suspicious activities stand out, all intertwined: the so-called Comey Memos, Comey’s controversial testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Comey’s book deal.

After Comey was fired by President Trump on May 9, 2017, he arranged to give The New York Times a Feb. 14, 2017, memorandum he had written about a one-on-one conversation with Trump regarding former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The New York Times published a report about the memo on May 16, 2017. Special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed the following day.

On June 8, 2017, Comey testified under oath before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, where he stated he authored as many as nine such memos. Regarding the Flynn memo, Comey admitted: “I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter [for The New York Times]. I didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons, but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”

Comey also testified about Trump’s firing of him, and he detailed multiple conversations with Trump, during which Comey confirmed he told Trump three times that he was not a target of investigation. Judicial Watch is pursuing numerous FOIA lawsuits relating to Comey’s memoranda and FBI exit records as well as a lawsuit for Justice Department communications about Comey’s Senate testimony. The American people deserve to know what, if any, complicity his former colleagues had in drafting that testimony and/or in engineering the appointment of Mueller.

The day before Comey’s testimony, Fox News reported: “A source close to James Comey tells Fox News the former FBI director’s Senate testimony has been ‘closely coordinated’ with Robert Mueller.” Comey may have violated the law in leaking his official FBI memos to the media, and it would be a scandal if Comey coordinated his Senate testimony with Mueller’s special counsel office.

That we have had to sue in federal court to discover the truth speaks volumes. The FBI has built a protective stonewall around Comey by refusing to release the Comey memos and refusing to disclose records of communications between the FBI and Comey prior to and regarding Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Since his forced departure from the FBI, Comey signed a book deal in August, set for publication in April, for which he reportedly received an advance in excess of $2 million. Given the fact that the FBI appears to be letting Comey get away with stealing and leaking official government documents and colluding with the special counsel to get Trump, even a trusting person must be suspicious about his book deal.

The FBI has fanned those suspicions by, you guessed it, adding a new layer to the protective stonewall around Comey. Again, Judicial Watch has been forced to sue a recalcitrant FBI for records, including but not limited to forms Comey was required to complete relating to prepublication review of the book by the FBI. Did Comey’s cronies give the fired FBI director a pass on this long-standing requirement? Is that why they are stonewalling the Judicial Watch FOIA request?

Based upon Comey’s performance to date, this book likely will be an elaborate exercise in self-apotheosis. That’s why the American public deserves to know if Comey’s former colleagues – many of whom we now know aided in his exoneration of Hillary Clinton and have participated in the contrived investigation of Donald Trump — scrutinized his literary claims or simply green-lighted his every word.

There is no doubt that the deep state is in deep cover-up mode. The FBI, Justice Department and the special counsel all are stonewalling our requests for Comey documents. The more they stonewall, the deeper the suspicions grow about Comey’s complicity in the entire attempt to use the bogus Trump dossier to prevent the election of Donald Trump, and then use it to undermine his presidency once he was elected to office. In my experience in Washington, when people refuse to come clean, it is usually because they are hiding dirty laundry.

Meantime, the FBI has agreed to review 16,750 pages of records in response to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the Comey records that were archived after he was dismissed.

We came to this agreement with the FBI shortly after we a filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to obtain the Comey records (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00262)).

We discovered the cache of Comey records as a result of disclosures by the Justice Department in separate Judicial Watch litigation (here and here) to obtain the controversial “Comey memos” that allegedly memorialize conversations that Comey had with President Trump.

Obviously, there is significant public interest in Comey’s conduct and the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email and Russia collusion investigations and targeting of President (and candidate) Trump.

The FBI has a terrible record of playing shell games with records – whether it be texts or memos by its disgraced former director. Our lawsuit, we hope, will force the FBI to expedite the review and the release of the 16,750 pages of Comey documents. It’s time to open the files.

As we persist in pulling back the curtains, the sunlight is breaking through.

Judicial Watch Sponsors and Speaks at CPAC

Each year the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) brings together thousands of attendees and the leading conservative organizations and speakers influencing conservative thought in the nation. Regularly seen on C-SPAN and other national news networks, CPAC has been the premiere event for any major elected official or public personality seeking to discuss issues of the day with conservatives. From presidents of the United States to college student leaders, CPAC has become the place to find our nation’s current and future leaders.

That’s why we are delighted to be, on your behalf, a major sponsor of the event, which is now underway at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. It will conclude tomorrow, February 24. On that day, I will address the gathering at 2:30 p.m. ET. You can watch live here: www.judicialwatch.org/live. We will also livestream from CPAC on Facebook Live. Visit our Facebook page to watch.

VA Secretary’s Chief of Staff Embroiled in Another Cover-Up Scandal

Last week I told you here about corruption at the highest levels of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. That was just the beginning. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has the new story.

One of the high-ranking Veteran Administration (VA) officials who misled the agency’s secretary about the prosecution of an elderly Army vet made false claims and altered an official record in a separate case. Her name is Vivieca Wright and she was the chief of staff to VA Secretary David J. Shulkin.

Last week Judicial Watch obtained records showing that Wright and others in Shulkin’s inner circle lied to him about a federal case in which an Army veteran was criminally prosecuted for displaying the American Flag at a southern California VA facility. Judicial Watch helped represent the 75-year-old vet, Robert Rosebrock, who faced up to six months in jail for the ghastly offense of affixing Old Glory at a site honoring those who served their country. He was also charged with taking unauthorized photographs of both the Flag and VA police.

Wright helped spread falsehoods to her boss about the Rosebrock prosecution after he ordered her to check the accuracy of a national news report about the federal case. Shulkin was opposed to pressing charges against Rosebrock and wanted to issue a press release announcing it. More than a month before Rosebrock’s trial, the VA Secretary’s staff downplayed the seriousness of the charges by erroneously stating in official agency emails that the vet made the choice to go to court rather than pay a fine and that he faced no jail time. In fact, Wright forwarded an email to her boss from the director of the West L.A. VA, Ann Brown, falsely stating: “Forgot to add—he is facing a $25 fine with NO jail time.”

Days after Judicial Watch published this, the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report stating that Shulkin’s chief of staff lied and altered official agency emails in another case. The VA watchdog was tipped off by a whistleblower outraged over waste involving an overseas trip that misspent taxpayer dollars and misused department resources.

During the European jaunt, a high-level VA employee was delegated to “personal travel concierge,” OIG investigators found, and the agency paid thousands of dollars for Shulkin’s wife, a dermatologist named Merle Bari with a private practice in Pennsylvania, to join him on the trip to Copenhagen and London last July. The ten-day trek included 11 people and cost the VA north of $122,000, according to the OIG probe, which found “serious derelictions concerning the trip…” The VA delegation visited Kensington Palace and Westminster Abbey and strolled through the gardens of Buckingham Palace. Details are included in more than a dozen trip books printed at a cost of $100 each, the report reveals.

The VA secretary and his entourage were officially attending the Ministerial Summit on Veterans’ Affairs in London, a questionable powwow for senior officials from the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to “discuss topical issues related to veterans.” After accepting the invitation, Shulkin ordered his staff to book a side trip to Copenhagen, Denmark. Prior to the summer trip, Wright contacted the VA ethics office to find out if her boss’s wife would qualify as an official U.S. government traveler so taxpayers could pick up her expenses. Unless she was on official business or Shulkin was receiving an award, the wife didn’t qualify and would have to pay her own way, Wright was told.

The former chief of staff did what any corrupt government employee would do—lied and falsified a document. She made up a bogus award that Shulkin would supposedly receive from the U.S. ambassador to Denmark and told the ethics office that the wife’s travel had been “approved by the White House.” Shulkin never received any awards or recognitions, the OIG report confirms. The “VA’s chief of staff made false representations to a VA ethics official and altered an official record, resulting in VA improperly paying for Dr. Bari’s air travel,” the report states.

Of interesting note is that less than two weeks before the European trip, Shulkin issued a stern memo to all VA staff announcing restrictions on nonessential travel. The memo, titled Essential Employee Travel, said agency managers had to approve all employee travel by determining whether it is essential in order to decrease “employee travel and generate savings” within the VA. Evidently, the new measures don’t apply to him or his wife. Investigators say they found no evidence that Shulkin was aware of his chief of staff’s “false representations or alteration of official records.” Because Wright’s actions may have violated criminal statutes, the OIG referred the matter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal prosecution, but the agency decided to let it slide. This is typical of the dysfunctional manner in which government operates.

We taxpayers pay the dollar price, but our veterans suffer far worse. It’s despicable.

VIDEO: New York State Attorney General Lies About Use Of Fake Facebook Information On Pro-Life Sidewalk Counselors

ANN ARBOR, MI – Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”) Senior Trial Counsel, Tyler Brooks, appeared on “Fox News at Night” hosted by Shannon Bream to discuss the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s knowing use of information from a fake Facebook account created by his Office’s star witness under the fictitious name of Shelly Walker. The purpose of this ruse was to collect information on unwary pro-life sidewalk counselors who were the target of a year-long investigation conducted by the Attorney General’s Office.

Watch Shannon Bream’s TV interview of Tyler Brooks and her concise summary of Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s use of the fraudulent Facebook account of his star witness here.

The Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, represents two of the fourteen persons who were sued by the NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in June 2017, Angela Braxton and Jasmine LaLande.

The sidewalk counselors routinely appeared in front of the Choices Women’s Medical Center (“Choices”) in New York City’s Jamaica neighborhood. Information gathered through the fake Facebook account was passed on to the Attorney General’s Office. One of TMLC’s clients in this lawsuit, Angela Braxton, accepted a friend request by the fictitious Shelly Walker under the impression that Walker was a fellow pro-life advocate like herself.  She was not aware that Walker was really one of the Choices escorts leaders.

During the courtroom cross-examination by TMLC attorney Tyler Brooks, on February 15, 2018, the Attorney General’s star witness admitted creating the fake Facebook page under the fictitious name of Shelly Walker and passing information she collected from this Facebook account to the Attorney General’s Office.

The Attorney General’s Office provided Fox News with a carefully written statement which stated:

“The account was set up by a third party without our office’s knowledge and before our office began its investigationOur office  did not ask her to share anything from the account with us. (emphasis added)

False.

Sworn Court Testimony Shows Attorney General’s Statement Is False

Read the following courtroom testimony from the Attorney General’s star witness (contained on pages 759 -763 of the official court transcript), and form your own opinion.

Here are some relevant parts of the cross-examination of the star witness, who concocted the Fake Facebook account by TMLC attorney Tyler Brooks. Federal Judge Carol Bagley Amon is referred to in the transcript as “The Court.”

MR. BROOKS: Now, you told the Office of the Attorney General about that account? [Fake Shelley Walker Facebook]
A    Yes.
Q    And you used that account to obtain information that you then passed to the Office of the Attorney General?

At this point, lawyer for the AG office objects, to which Judge Amon requests Mr. Brooks to clarify his question to the witness:

MR. BROOKS: Okay.
Q    Maybe I’ll just ask at what point in time did you use that account to obtain information that you passed to the Office of the Attorney General?
A    I don’t know.
Q    Okay.

THE COURT:   Did you continue to use that account after you met with the Attorney General?
THE WITNESS:  Yes. 
(emphasis added)
THE COURT:  And did you then turn over information that you gleaned after that point in time to the Attorney General?
THE WITNESS:  I think I may have mentioned to Ms. Trasande 
[Attorney General’s Attorney] that I had but I can’t remember a specific thing that I turned over, if anything.
THE COURT: Okay.

Mr. Brooks impeaches the witness’s testimony:

Q    Well, you said you can’t remember anything specific that you turned over from that account?
A    I can’t at this moment, no.
Q    Okay. Well, then let me refresh your recollection by reading your deposition.

    “QUESTION: Using the Shelly Walker Facebook page, did you use the Shelly Walker Facebook page to obtain information about Angela Braxton that you subsequently passed on to the New York State Attorney General’s Office?”
“ANSWER: Yes.”

I did read that correctly?
A    Yes.
Q    Was that testimony that you gave in your deposition true?
A    Yes. I told her about photos and posts.
Q    So my next question was:

“QUESTION: What information was that?”
And you answered:
“ANSWER: Photos and videos that she had posted outside Choices. I didn’t quite understand you and you added:
“ANSWER: Also people that she had brought to Choices.”

A    Yes.
Q    I read that correctly?
A    Yes. I told her about Angela’s online organizing.
Q    And that those photos and videos you collected from the website Shelly Walker Facebook page and provided those to the Office of the Attorney General?
A    I think I just told her about it. I don’t remember giving her copies.

Mr. Brooks impeaches the testimony of the Attorney General’s star witness a second time:

“QUESTION: At the time you took information from the Angela Braxton Facebook page using the Shelly Walker page, and provided that information to the New York Attorney General’s office, did you tell the New York Attorney General’s office that the Shelly Walker page is how you got it?”
“ANSWER: Yes.”
Is that true?
A     Yes.
THE COURT:    Let me ask you this. Did anyone from the Attorney General’s office tell you to stop using that page?
THE WITNESS:   No. They told me not to delete it
(emphasis added)

Based on the above transcript, it is clear that the Attorney General’s office:

  • Had full knowledge of the fake Facebook in the name Shelly Walker
  • Used the information from the fake Facebook against the sidewalk counselors
  • Never told the witness to cease using the fake Facebook
  • Never told the witness to delete the information.

‘The View’ Points to Need for Tolerance

ABC got at least one thing right about “The View” — its name. As far as the hosts are concerned, there is only one view: theirs. Sure, they’ll invite a token “conservative” on to add fireworks, but even that doesn’t get in the way of the hosts’ daily routine of smug Middle America-bashing. If the idea is to offend viewers, it’s working.

Earlier this week, host Joy Behar did her share of the insulting when she responded to an episode of CBS’s “Celebrity Big Brother,” which happens to feature fired Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman. On Monday night’s episode, Omarosa played the bitter ex-employee when she told her co-stars, “Everybody who’s wishing for impeachment might want to reconsider. We would be begging for days of Trump back if [Vice President Mike] Pence became president… He’s scary.” Newman, said, “I’m a Christian. I love Jesus, but he thinks Jesus tells him to say things.”

Behar, who never met a conservative whose sanity she didn’t question, could barely contain herself. “It’s one thing to talk to Jesus. It’s another thing when Jesus talks to you. That’s called mental illness — if I’m not correct — hearing voices.” Then, in a dig to Pence’s policy of not dining alone with other women, joked, “Can he talk to Mary Magdalene without his wife in the room?” The whole episode was an embarrassment — not for Mike Pence, whose faith is shared by the majority of Americans, but for ABC, who may have done the administration a favor by reminding viewers of the deep disdain it has for conservative Christians. This is par for the intolerant course in a movement that continues to see Americans who want to live by their faith as backwater people. It’s the same contempt that birthed Obama’s “God and gun-clingers,” and Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” — both of which only drove up evangelical turnout.

If people want to understand why the Trump administration enjoys such strong support from Christians, this attack sums it up. Evangelicals share the faith that Behar mocks. They’re also tired of being kicked around by elitists whose version of “tolerance” is only for people who think like them. They’re finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground like Donald Trump who’s willing to punch the bully. “Rejecting the Almighty, and particularly, believers, is easy and painless for the Left,” Mike McDaniel writes. “They know Christians will not kill them for their attacks, and at worst, might pray for them — a concept they also reflexively reject.” In the end, “their ideology does not admit the existence of anyone or anything greater than that ideology.”

Hardly the verbal flame-thrower that his boss is, Mike Pence refused to let the cheap shot pass. “I actually heard that ABC has a program that compared my Christianity to mental illness. And I’d like to laugh about it,” he told C-SPAN, “but I really can’t. Tens of millions of Americans today will have ash on their foreheads to mark the beginning of Lent. The overwhelming majority of Americans cherish their faith. And we have all different types of faith in this country. But I have to tell you, to have ABC maintain a broadcast forum that compared Christianity to mental illness is just wrong.” Honestly, he went on:

“I just think it demonstrates how out of touch some people in the mainstream media are with the faith and values of the American people that you could have a major network like ABC permit a forum for invective against religion like that. I just call them out on it, not because of what was said about me, but it’s just simply wrong for ABC to have a television program that expresses that kind of religious intolerance. We’re better than that. Our country is better than that.”

NOTE: Vice President Mike Pence responds to comments on The View.

The real issue for people like Behar is not what Jesus is saying to Christians in their prayer closets, their issue is what He has definitively said in His word. The fact that He is the Creator. That human life is sacred because it is made in the image of God. The fact that Jesus affirmed that there aren’t 72 genders, and that marriage is between a man and a woman. These people and their followers mock the private faith of Christians in an effort to intimidate them from living by their faith in public. See, this debate has never really been about what Christians do privately, but what they dare to do publicly. That’s what terrifies them. Their biggest fear is that men and women of faith will take what God says about marriage, life, and sexuality and bring it out into the open where it can affect policy and other people.

Here is the best way to counter Joy Behar and company — publicly live out your private faith in Christ. To be a follower of Jesus means to be just that, a follower of Jesus. It’s time to stop trying to appease the haters of God. These cultural extremists are only interested in the complete and utter surrender of Christians. “You will be hated by everyone because of me,” Jesus warned, “but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:22) If the world doesn’t have an issue with us, I’ve got news for you — we’re doing something wrong.

The time for playing patty-cake is over. This is a time for choosing — for separating the wheat from the chaff. Either God defined marriage, or He didn’t. Either He created and values life in His image, or He didn’t. There is no 38th parallel. Either we stand on the side of truth or the side of a lie — in these times, there is no in between.


Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.


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VIDEO: What You Need to Know About Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood bills itself as one of “the nation’s leading providers of high-quality, affordable health care” and claims that federal defunding of the organization would leave millions of women “without a place to go for needed care.” Do these claims accurately reflect what Planned Parenthood does? Or does it have another reason for being?

In this week’s video, Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, lays out the differences between the way Planned Parenthood presents itself and the reality.

VIDEO: Communist Manifesto or Democratic Party Platform!

It’s no secret The Democratic Party has a tendency to cozy up to socialists, but how far left have they really become? To find out, Ami Horowitz took to the streets of New York to debut America’s most exciting (and disturbing) game show: Communist Manifesto or Democratic Party Platform!

VIDEO: Do Google, and its subsidiary YouTube, have blood on their hands for the Florida slaughter?

The day after the shooting by Nikolas Cruz at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, Florida we learn that Cruz was reported to the FBI by a YouTube blogger.

Question: Did Google, who owns YouTube, report this posting to the FBI? If not, why not?

The New York Daily News in a column titled “Nikolas Cruz said he wanted to be ‘professional school shooter’ to YouTube blogger months ago” reported:

FBI agents were warned about Nikolas Cruz’s plans to become a “professional school shooter” months ago, according to a YouTube vlogger who noticed a sick comment on one of his videos.

Ben Bennight, a bail bondsman in Mississippi who goes by the name Ben the Bondsman, said that he received a terrifying comment from a user called Nikolas Cruz under a video in September.

“This comment said ‘I’m going to be a professional school shooter” and I knew that I couldn’t just ignore that,” he said.

Bennight said that he flagged the comment to YouTube and also sent a screenshot to the FBI, who visited him briefly in September and asked him whether he knew the poster.

Here is a video Ben Bennight posted on YouTube:

The Miami Herald reported, “[T]he FBI special agent in charge for South Florida told reporters that agents — after ‘reviews and checks’ — could not identify the user behind the YouTube comment.”

CNN reports:

On social media, Nikolas Cruz did not appear to be a peaceful man. He made quite clear his desire to perpetrate the exact type of violence of which he now stands accused.

Before he allegedly committed one of the worst mass shootings in US history at a Parkland, Florida, high school on Wednesday, police officials say Cruz wrote social media posts so threatening he was twice reported to the FBI.

He hurled slurs at blacks and Muslims, and according to the Anti-Defamation League, had ties to white supremacists. He said he would shoot people with his AR-15 and singled out police and anti-fascist protesters as deserving of his vengeance. Just five months ago, he stated his aspiration to become a “professional school shooter.”

If five months ago the South Florida office of the FBI had simply Googled the name Nikolas Cruz, checked the national data base on gun purchases in Florida or searched lists of expelled students for the named Nikolas Cruz they would have hit pay-dirt.

It just doesn’t make sense that with the resources available to law enforcement at every level and the algorithms available to Google and YouTube that Nikolas Cruz was never found.

This failure to see the obvious reminds us of July 18th, 2016 when Judicial Watch obtained documents revealing FBI that declared the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen not to be a terrorist 3 years before the slaughter.

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VIDEOS: Pro-refugee Activist Admits She Was Wrong

She was enthusiastic about the Muslim “refugees” entering Germany and even founded an organization to aid them. Now Rebecca Sommer — whom the migrants called “the stupid German whore” behind her back — has changed her tune. She says that the newcomers won’t shed “their medieval view,” are developing “parallel societies” within her country, and that if Germans “don’t wake up quickly, the whole situation will end tragically.”

(Note: Many outlets have reported this story inaccurately, stating that Sommer plans to move to Poland. What she actually said is that she knows Germans who are moving to Poland.)

Yet Sommer, an artist, indigenous-peoples activist, and UN advisor, has also moved — a bit closer to Truth. After founding the organization Working Group Asylum + Human Rights in 2012, she welcomed the huge 2015 influx of Muslim migrants into Germany; she and her 300 volunteers provided German language courses seeking to help the newcomers integrate. As InfoWars reports, “‘At that time I wanted to help everyone and truly believed that all these people were fleeing hell and were in a state of complete distress,’ Sommer told Polish weekly Do Rzeczy.’”

“With the initial hope that ‘their medieval view was going to change with time,’ Sommer soon realized that, ‘Muslim refugees have grown up with values that are totally different[;] they have undergone brainwashing from childhood on and are indoctrinated by Islam and absolutely do not intend to adopt our values,’” InfoWars also informs.

Thanks, Captain Obvious, as the kids might say. Old maxims tell us, “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man” and “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.” Whether what was instilled is Islamic or socialist, theological or ideological, it’s naïve to think people will shed their deeply ingrained beliefs just because they step on your terra firma.

And how lacking is the integration? “Among my past and present pupils, I can count on one hand cases of those who are, in my opinion, completely and successfully integrated,” explained Sommer in an interview with Polish site EuroIslam (presented in English by Gates of Vienna).

Sommer “also observed how the migrants, ‘regard we infidels with disdain and arrogance,’ after they began to refer to her as ‘the stupid German whore,’ a realization that she says has led other refugee volunteers to quit,” InfoWars relates.

“Sommer now admits that despite her good intentions, she got it completely wrong and that Muslim migration poses an existential threat to the Germany [sic] way of life, a problem that will only be exacerbated by the process of family reunification, where migrants will be able to invite their relatives to stay in Germany.”

Consequently, while Sommer says she’s not giving up her activism, she’s now only helping women refugees and those from persecuted minorities, such as Christians and Yazidis.

Sommer’s story is perhaps an example of how, as the old Dutch saying informs, “We grow too soon old and too late smart.” But she could have been smarter sooner if she’d just listened to one particular orthodox Muslim: Dr. Mudar Zahran, a leader of the Jordanian Opposition Coalition and asylee currently living in the United Kingdom. In a 2015 interview (video below) he stated that most of the so-called “Syrian refugees” entering Europe weren’t actually from Syria, most of those who were from Syria weren’t from dangerous areas and didn’t need refuge, that terrorists were among them, and that they were coming to Europe largely to leech off the welfare system. Calling the influx “the soft Islamic conquest of the West,” Zahran warned that the Muslims should be kept out of Europe.

The results of not heeding such warnings are already apparent. Even liberal Newsweek reported in January that migrants in Europe are “linked to soaring violence and crime in Germany.” The most notorious example occurred New Year’s Eve 2015 when 1,200 women (whom we know of) were sexually assaulted by at least 2,000 migrant men in various German cities.

Yet the picture is even worse than statistics indicate. Since the bad press of Muslim crime could throw a monkeywrench into European governments’ multicultural agendas, they often cover it up — that is, when the victims don’t cover it up for them. As Sommer admitted in the EuroIslam (EI) interview, “The sexual molesting of [refugee aid] volunteers happens all the time, but none of us has ever reported such a case to the police because none of us wanted to be seen as an opponent of refugees and cause problems for the center.”

Sexual assault is so bad, in fact, that “anti-rape pants” have been marketed in Germany and have sold out quickly. To get a glimpse into the fear this reflects, watch the 2016 viral video below — which apparently has been censored by the German government and Facebook — in which a 16-year-old German girl desperately pleads for protection against migrant crime. (For English subtitles, click the “CC” icon in the lower right-hand corner.)

Another result of the migrant influx is the development of “no-go zones,” what Sommer calls “Muslim parallel societies”; these are areas in some European countries where authorities are often reluctant to enter and sharia law has to an extent supplanted civil law. Note that while leftist media labeled no-go zones a right-wing myth, the New York Times reported on them in 2007, perhaps before any other major outlet.

As for the moral of Sommer’s story, it’s in part a cautionary tale about no-go zones between the ears. The activist warned repeatedly in her EI interview of taqiyya — religiously sanctioned and encouraged lying in Islam — and says that while Kurds and others fleeing Mideast Muslims warned her of the tactic, she “did not want to listen to them.” This isn’t just a manner of speaking but reveals that she lied to herself. She didn’t say she thought they were wrong but that she didn’t want — want — to listen. This reflects an ideologically constrained mind that refuses to consider unwelcome truths.

The lesson is that the Truth can hurt but also sets us free, and we have an obligation to search for it in all matters — and to shed misbegotten emotional attachments that conflict with it.

Second, while leftists warn of “ethnocentrism,” they nonetheless are guilty of it, projecting their own “values” onto others. Consider that Sommer told EI that she initially was confident the Muslims would integrate because “I placed great trust in our libertarian, equitable European values, and I naively thought that every person must delight in them and take them on.” But why? Are they so obviously true?

Of course, people will resist even Truth when it contradicts cherished lies. But consider that when summing up these “values,” Sommer merely told EI that Germany needs refugees who accept “a secular state where women and men are equal before the law, where we eat pork, where they could even sunbathe naked on the beach. This freedom is very precious and very fragile.” I wonder, could she name even a few actual virtues?

As commentator Bret Stephens put it in 2015, “Having ignored its inheritance, Europe wonders why its house is falling apart.” Moderns believe in “shallow things, shallowly,” he wrote. If our civilization is now about little more than contradictory equality dogma, gorging on tasty meats, and women playing pieces of meat on beaches, then we shouldn’t wonder why we’re slouching toward Mecca; we have nothing for which to fight. Zealous Muslim faith cannot be countered with materialism and hedonism, for man does not live on bread alone.

The issue isn’t that Sommer was ideologically chauvinistic; it’s that she had no good reason to be. Even when (im)migrants are assimilable, there still must be something substantive to assimilate into. Communist activist Willi Munzenberg once said, “We will make the West so corrupt that it stinks.” It now stinks to high heaven as it denies Heaven and authors a cultural Hell. As a result, Western man, today’s migrants mainly come for your money, not your mores.

Sommer laments that soon the Germans will have to “adapt” to Muslim norms. Well, this certainly could be a lesson in virtue, because they’d lose a lot more than shallow equality rhetoric, pork sausages, and nude beaches.