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

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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

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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 investigation. Our 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

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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

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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!

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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?

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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

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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.

VIDEO: He Escaped From a North Korean Prison Camp. Now He’s Showing the World His Torture Scars.

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SEOUL, South Korea—In an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal, human rights activist Shin Dong-hyuk shows scars that he suffered from torture inside a North Korean prison camp.

Shin was born in a North Korean prison in 1982 and made a daring escape in 2005. He allowed The Daily Signal to film his back and buttocks, which were burned when he was hung above a charcoal fire.

“As the fire started rising up toward my back,” Shin said, “I could feel that it was scorching hot, and I could even smell my own flesh burning.”

This week, the U.N. Security Council met in New York, and Shin is hoping the international community will recognize what’s happening in North Korea.

“If the U.N. or anyone in the international community cares about the human rights issue in North Korea … if you have any worries or concerns at all for the North Koreans who are suffering and dying right now, I strongly plead for some sort of direct action to be taken for them,” Shin said.

Shin also spoke about his escape from the North Korean prison camp in a separate video The Daily Signal will release next week.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Ed Frank

Ed Frank

Over the past 20 years, Ed Frank has worked in communications roles on Capitol Hill, in the Bush administration and for free-market organizations. He’s currently president of Frank Strategies. He recently visited Botswana on behalf of The Daily Signal. Twitter: @frankstrategies.

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.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

VIDEO: What Is Life Really Like in North Korea? One Woman’s Story

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As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee believed that her country was the best on the planet.

She believed that Americans were evil, South Koreans were starving to death and North Koreans were better off than everybody else. Every North Korean believes this.

She discusses this at length in her new novel, “The Girl With Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story,” and spoke with The Daily Signal about her experiences as well.

As Lee explains, propagandized since birth, the people of North Korea know nothing of what life is like outside their own borders. The brutal dictatorships of Kim Jong-un and his predecessors Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung have socially engineered a system void of any freedoms whatsoever, and have positioned themselves as the sole source of information in the country.

“Three generations of Kim regime leadership brutally repressed the people, to the point where the North Korean people don’t even realize that there is something beyond North Korea,” said Olivia Enos, research associate in the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation. “And it’s not getting better.”

There is a complete lack of freedom of thought and belief in the North Korea Lee grew up in: no freedom of the press, no freedom of movement and no freedom of speech. Nights are pitch-black due to power outages or lack of electricity, neighbors and friends are encouraged to spy on one another and becoming pregnant by a Chinese man is punishable by death.

Life gets infinitely worse for anyone who speaks out against the regime in any way. These perceived traitors can be tortured, thrown into secret prison camps called kwanliso or publicly executed. Their families are also punished.

“Guilt by association in North Korea means that if you commit a crime, not only will you be punished, but also three generations of your family will be punished. Your parents, your grandparents, your grandchildren,” explained Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director at Human Rights Watch.

Parallels With Nazi Germany

On February 7, 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Council released a Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea detailing the volume and horror of the human rights abuses of the Kim regime, finding the government guilty of crimes against humanity.

A satellite photo of the Korean Peninsula that shows the bright lights of South Korea and China compared to the blackness of North Korea at night. (Photo: Flickr)

A satellite photo of the Korean Peninsula that shows the bright lights of South Korea and China compared to the blackness of North Korea at night. (Photo: Flickr)

“Even if you are a North Korean that doesn’t find themselves in a prison camp situation and you’re living a normal North Korean life—to say that ordinary North Korean people are enduring unbelievable repression of freedom is accurate,” Enos said.

The crimes against humanity in North Korea include extermination; murder; enslavement; torture; imprisonment; rape; forced abortions and other sexual violence; persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds; the forcible transfer of populations; the enforced disappearance of persons; and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.

The U.N. inquiry further details nearly 400 pages of horror stories, ranging from government officials confiscating food from those in need to women in the kwanliso prison camps who were tragically forced to drown their own babies.

“The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world,” according to the report. In fact, the U.N. Human Rights Council goes so far as to point out “many parallels” between North Korea and Nazi Germany.

Unlike with Nazi Germany, though, the international community cannot claim ignorance as an excuse for not intervening to stop the human rights abuses.

“Now is the time for action. We can’t say we don’t know anymore. The suffering and tears of the people of North Korea demand action,” Michael Kirby, the chairman of the U.N. inquiry, pleaded in the report. “Our generation must tackle this issue urgently and collectively, and indeed the world will judge us by our response.”

It raises the question: How should the world respond?

The Global Response

One of the recommendations made by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry was to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court, where Kim Jong-un and his officials would be held accountable for committing crimes against humanity.

Here in the United States, Congress can take measures as well. In early February, Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) introduced the bipartisan North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act. Unlike prior legislation, this bill has an important human rights focus that came about as a response to the U.N. inquiry.

This legislation would make it so that the U.S. directly sanctions North Korea—not just for its nuclear weapons proliferation, but also for the regime’s ongoing human rights abuses, according to Enos.

This would ensure that the sanctions impact not the suffering North Koreans, but rather the regime itself.

In terms of human rights, the legislation involves studying the possibility of bringing cellular and internet communications to the people of North Korea, the State Department investigating and shedding more light on the political prison camps, and the State Department identifying severe human rights abusers in North Korea.

“It is past time to hold Pyongyang’s elites responsible for their actions,” Engel said in a press release. “This bipartisan legislation would strengthen U.S. sanctions and close loopholes used by the Kim regime to profit from illicit activities.”

Lee has some ideas of her own for policy changes that could benefit North Koreans.

As it stands now, Chinese policy is to forcibly repatriate any North Korean defectors they catch, releasing the refugees back into the hands of the aggressor nation. Upon returning, the defectors face harsh punishment in the kwanliso—torture, starvation, execution—as do their families. This is the biggest problem for defectors, Lee explained.

China is the only path to South Korea, where defectors are granted automatic citizenship due to their asylum status. Throughout their escape journey to South Korea, North Koreans fear for their safety in China, the possibility of being sent back to a wretched life always looming.

“Please don’t catch them,” Lee pleaded to the Chinese government while speaking at an event Wednesday at The Heritage Foundation.

“They don’t want to stay in China; they want to come to South Korea for asylum. I don’t ask for [China] to give ID cards or citizenship, it’s too much for them. At least stop trying to catch them,” she begged.

No matter how the world chooses to combat this humanitarian crisis, North Korean defectors and policy experts alike advocate for an urgent and effective response from the international community.

Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow on Northeast Asia in the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, urged the world to stand up to the Kim regime in an issue brief last year, writing that there “should be widespread international outrage against the horrors systemically perpetuated on the North Korean people by their leaders.”

“Time is running out for the North Korean people, but too many have already perished as the world turned its back,” Klingner warned.

COMMENTARY BY

Chelsea Scism

Chelsea Scism is a reporting intern for The Daily Signal and member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: @chescismlsea.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Media Fawning Over North Korean Envoy Does No Favors for an Oppressed People

Washington Post, CNN, NPR, PBS all praise murderous North Korea and its slave state leaders

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.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

VIDEO: Germans Fight Back Against the Migrant Violence Toward Young Girls and Women!

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Rebel Media’s Tommy Robinson reports:

The first in our three-part series in – where we document the resistance coming from ordinary Germans who are fed up with what’s been happening to their country.

We started out in Cottbus, where we heard about the fatal stabbing of a 15 year old girl called Mia in Kandel, by a ‘child’ migrant who was taken in and looked after ‘like a son’ by her parents.

We also heard about a young boy who was stabbed in the face when trying to protect his girlfriend from a Syrian migrant who was groping her as they walked through a local park.

Keep your eyes on Germany, 2018 is the year when German women will lead the way to speak out against the horrific crimes taking place across Europe thanks to undocumented, mass migration.

VIDEO: Why the ‘White Privilege’ Label is by Definition Racist in Less than 2 Minutes

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Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was asked a question about using the label “white privilege” on college campuses and in the public square. His answer is powerful and worthy of listening to.

Mr. Kirk takes  less than 2 minutes to explain “white privilege.”

ABOUT TURNING POINT USA

Turning Point USA is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded on June 5, 2012 by Charlie Kirk. The organization’s mission is to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.

Since the founding, Turning Point USA has embarked on a mission to build the most organized, active, and powerful conservative grassroots activist network on college campuses across the country. With a presence on over 1,000 college campuses and high schools across the country, Turning Point USA is the largest and fastest growing youth organization in America.

National Field Program

Turning Point USA achieves its mission of identifying, organizing, and empowering free market activists through the National Field Program, which aims to:

  • Launch, organize, and support student groups that exist to educate students about the benefits of limited government, capitalism, and freedom
  • Build and maintain the largest national database of students who believe in capitalism and free markets
  • Unite like-minded campus organizations in an effort to increase impact and activism collaboration
  • Educate students about the importance of free market values through well-planned, effective activism initiatives
  • Re-brand free market values on college campuses through student-driven messaging efforts and face-to-face conversations
  • Effectively push back against intolerance and bias against conservatives in higher education
  • Empower and train students to join the movement and become activists on their campuses and within their communities

Turning Point USA’s National Field Program is the largest and most powerful campus activist program in America. For years, the left has dominated college campuses with paid field organizers, daily activism initiatives, and endless waves of leftist propaganda. With a presence on over 1,000 college campuses nationwide, Turning Point USA has a stronger, more organized presence than all of the left-wing campus groups combined.

RELATED ARTICLE: Anne Hathaway denounces white privilege in award speech

VIDEO: Watch Jordan Peterson React to Justin Trudeau’s Telling a Woman to Say ‘Personkind’

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Some in the crowd cheered when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau corrected a woman’s usage of the word “mankind” to “peoplekind” — a word more politically correct, but not found in either the Merriam-Webster Dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary.

Had he been there, Dr. Jordan Peterson, a Canadian clinical psychologist, would not have been one of those cheering.

“We like to say ‘peoplekind,’ not necessarily ‘mankind,’ because it’s more inclusive,” Trudeau said at a town hall meeting in Edmonton, Alberta, on Feb. 2, interrupting the woman, who had asked him about Canadian laws on volunteering with religious organizations.

Peterson weighed in on TV’s “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday on the prime minister’s interjection. Besides being a psychologist, he is a professor at the University of Toronto and a best-selling author.

Peterson has been an outspoken critic of the government compelling individuals to refer to others by their “preferred” pronouns and making it illegal to “misgender” someone.

An example of “misgendering” someone is the act of referring to a man who “identifies” as a woman as “him” or even calling a man “him” when he uses the artificial pronoun “ze.”

“It’s completely inappropriate of the government to decide which language the citizenry should speak,” Peterson said.

He described Trudeau as someone only capable of “running his ideas on a few, very narrow ideological tracks.”

The “most egregious example,” Peterson said, occurred when Trudeau assembled his Cabinet in 2015 and mandated that it be made up of 50 percent women and 50 percent men, despite the fact that only “about 22 percent” of the elected members of the Canadian Parliament are women.

“It was easier for him to do that than it was for him to screen people for the sort of competence that would actually be necessary to be Cabinet members,” he said.

When Trudeau, who took office in November 2015, was asked why he chose to make his Cabinet 50 percent women and 50 percent men, he replied, “because it’s 2015.”

“It’s quite the performance,” Peterson said. “I think we’re really going to pay for it in Canada in ways that we can’t yet imagine.”

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.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Dr. Jordan Peterson who took issue with the Canadian prime minister’s recent claim that “peoplekind” is a more “inclusive” term than “mankind.” (Photo: Carlos Osorio/ZUMA Press/Newscom)

VIDEO: Gulen and the Gulenist Movement in America

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ABOUT CLARE M. LOPEZ

Clare M. Lopez, Vice President for Research and Analysis at the Center for Security Policy, is the co-author of the recently published book “Gülen and the Gülenist Movement: Turkey’s Islamic Supremacist Cult and its Contributions to the Civilization Jihad.” Fethullah Gülen is the head of a vast political network in Turkey that promotes theocracy and has infiltrated the Turkish state. Gülen lives in the U.S. where he has established a significant number of charter schools. Her remarks included commentary on Gülen’s erstwhile ally, now opponent, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Lopez is a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Canadian Mackenzie Institute. In 2016, she was named to Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign national security advisory team. Since 2013, she has served as a member of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi. Formerly Vice President of the Intelligence Summit, she was a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005-2006, and has served as a consultant, intelligence analyst, and researcher for a variety of defense firms. She was named a 2011 Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute. Already an advisor to EMP Act America, in February 2012 Ms. Lopez was named a member of the Congressional Task Force on National and Homeland Security, which focuses on the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) threat to the nation. She serves as a member of the Boards of Advisors/Directors for the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, the United West, and the Voice of the Copts. She has been a Visiting Researcher and guest lecturer on counterterrorism, national defense, and international relations at Georgetown University.

VIDEO: Remembering what Bill, Hillary, Barack, Michelle and Chuck Schumer said about illegal aliens

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A Whatfinger News column titled Democrats Admit They All Agree with Trump’s Immigration Plan and Building The Wall to Stop Illegals presents a video compilation of statements by past and current leaders of the Democratic Party outlining their official positions on illegal immigration. Whatfinger News notes:

Show this to every liberal who says Donald Trump is racist for wanting to secure our border.

We agree. Watch and be amazed.

EDITORS NOTE: Click here for Whatfinger Breaking News. For the latest commentary, current events. politics and political humor.

VIDEO: How ‘fake’ political research was used by the FBI to spy on American citizens

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Sean Hannity in his opening monologue on February 2nd, 2018 explained the FBI was weaponized to spy on Americans. The explosive memo released by the Permanent Committee on Intelligence disclosed the abuse of the FISA act to wrongly spy on Americans not just once but four times in just one case.  Jay Sekulow and others also discuss why the FBI and DOJ lied to the FISA Court.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Trump Says FBI Leadership Politicized ‘Sacred Investigative Process’

5 Things You Need To Know About The Bombshell House Intelligence Memo.

House Memo States Disputed Dossier Was Key To FBI’s FISA Warrant To Surveil Members Of Team Trump