Facebook Removes Death Threats Toward Republicans After Lawmaker Calls It Out

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Facebook removed a page Tuesday that posted incitements to violence and implied death threats after a Republican lawmaker called the company out.

During a hearing Tuesday with representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida asked Facebook’s head of global policy management, Monika Bickert, why the social media giant hasn’t removed the page, “Milkshakes against the Republican Party,” for its calls to violence against Republicans.

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“Do you remember the shooting at the Republican baseball game? One of those should happen every week,” one post read, referring to the attempted assassination of GOP members, which almost killed House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La. Bickert read the post back to Gaetz at the hearing.

Another post called for “crazed shooters” to target Republicans at baseball practices, saying, “If you really want to be remembered, that’s how you do it,” before referring to the National Rifle Association as a “terrorist organization.”

“Any call to violence violates our terms of service,” Bickert clarified. However, Gaetz claimed Facebook responded to his staff after reporting the page earlier that “it doesn’t go against one of our specific community standards.” Later that day, Facebook removed the page.

“I am glad Facebook swiftly removed this offensive page; while I unconditionally support the First Amendment, inciting violence against others due to their political affiliation is not constitutionally-protected speech,” Gaetz said in a statement, The Hill reported. “While removing this page was a small step forward to making Facebook a safer place, bigger questions remain.”

“This distinction is not merely academic, as they are governed by different laws and different rules. If Facebook claims to be a neutral forum, it cannot continue to limit conservative content; if Facebook claims to be a publisher, it will lose its legal ‘immunity’ under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act,” he continued.

“They simply cannot have it both ways,” Gaetz said. “My colleagues and I on the Judiciary Committee look forward to exploring this important distinction in the future.”

RELATED ARTICLE: It Took A Congressional Hearing For Facebook To Remove Threats to Republicans

EDITORS NOTE: Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. The featured image is of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) speaking with the media about the memo released by the House Intelligence Committee in Washington, U.S., February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein.

MS-13 Threatens the Legitimacy of Salvadoran Government

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In a recent poll, residents of El Salvador were asked, “Who runs your country?” Forty-two percent reported gangs, while only 12 percent said the government.

These results reveal a huge problem for El Salvador: The public’s lack of trust in its government threatens to dismantle the country’s democracy and stability.

MS-13 is a dominant force in Salvadoran affairs. Outside the U.S., MS-13’s largest presence is in Central America, particularly in the northern triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

MS-13 has become a powerful force, capable of coercing weak Central American governments. For example, in 2012, the Salvadoran government was forced to sign a truce with MS-13 in an effort to reduce skyrocketing homicide rates. Although the truce did reduce homicides, the agreement was widely unpopular. Extortion and associated criminal activity continued at high rates with almost no resistance from the government.

When current President Salvador Sánchez Cerén reversed the 2012 truce and implemented a “mano dura,” or iron-first policy, against MS-13 in 2014, the gang retaliated by dumping bodies on the streets. The homicide rate skyrocketed and in 2015, El Salvador had the highest homicide rate in the world.

MS-13 largely relies on extortion as its largest source of income, but has also been known to engage in drug and human trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping, and theft. MS-13’s growing influence in El Salvador has led to changes in its behavior.

The country’s weak state capacity and inability to deliver social services has paved the way for criminal organizations to step in and assume state functions.

In recent years, MS-13 has launched minor programs to feed children and provide neighborhood security. Bizarrely, the same group that terrorized Salvadorans is now providing much-needed social services.

This change in behavior has undermined the Salvadoran government’s authority. Fragile States Index tracked the public’s perception of the state’s legitimacy. El Salvador saw its sharpest decline in 2015, and perceived authority has continued to plummet ever since.

In 2017, Transparency International’s corruption perception score for El Salvador ticked downward 6 points from 2014, indicating an increased corruption perception. Furthermore, El Salvador scored a 33 out of 100 in the country’s perceived level of public-sector corruption.

In The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, El Salvador’s government integrity score plummeted from 39 percent in 2016 to 25.2 percent in 2018—a clear indication of a serious problem.

Improving the situation will require long-term efforts from the Salvadoran government. Much of the work will be up to the next administration that will take office in 2019. It will be left to vigorously combat the expansion of MS-13 and preserve the government’s legitimacy.

Failure to step up, create economic opportunities, and increase security efforts could collapse what remains of the Salvadoran government’s authority.

COMMENTARY BY

Macarena Martinez

Macarena Martinez is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.

Portrait of Ana Quintana

Ana Quintana

Ana Quintana is a senior policy analyst for Latin America and the Western Hemisphere in The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies. Twitter: .

Ted Kennedy and the KGB: A reflection on the late Democratic Senator’s outreach to the Kremlin to undermine President Reagan.

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Editors’ note: In light of the ongoing controversy surrounding the Trump campaign’s alleged “collusion” with the Russian government during the 2016 US presidential election, which now involves Trump Jr. daring to talk to a Russian woman, Frontpage has deemed it important to bring attention to a forgotten story of verifiable scheming with the Kremlin — by the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy against President Ronald Reagan. We are reprinting below Frontpage editor Jamie Glazov’s 2008 interview with Dr. Paul Kengor, who unearthed documentation detailing Kennedy’s outreach to the KGB and Soviet leader Yuri Andropov during the height of the Cold War, in which the Democratic Senator offered to collude with the Soviets to undermine President Reagan.

Ted Kennedy and the KGB.

Frontpage Magazine, May 15, 2008.

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Paul Kengor, the author of the New York Times extended-list bestseller God and Ronald Reagan as well as God and George W. Bush and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. He is also the author of the first spiritual biography of the former first lady, God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life. He is a professor of political science and director of the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College.

FP: Paul Kengor, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.

Kengor: Always great to be back, Jamie.

FP: We’re here today to revisit Ted Kennedy’s reaching out to the KGB during the Reagan period. Refresh our readers’ memories a bit.

Kengor: The episode is based on a document produced 25 years ago this week. I discussed it with you in our earlier interview back in November 2006. In my book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, I presented a rather eye-opening May 14, 1983 KGB document on Ted Kennedy. The entire document, unedited, unabridged, is printed in the book, as well as all the documentation affirming its authenticity. Even with that, today, almost 25 years later, it seems to have largely remained a secret.

FP: Tell us about this document.

Kengor: It was a May 14, 1983 letter from the head of the KGB, Viktor Chebrikov, to the head of the USSR, the odious Yuri Andropov, with the highest level of classification. Chebrikov relayed to Andropov an offer from Senator Ted Kennedy, presented by Kennedy’s old friend and law-school buddy, John Tunney, a former Democratic senator from California, to reach out to the Soviet leadership at the height of a very hot time in the Cold War. According to Chebrikov, Kennedy was deeply troubled by the deteriorating relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, which he believed was bringing us perilously close to nuclear confrontation. Kennedy, according to Chebrikov, blamed this situation not on the Soviet leadership but on the American president—Ronald Reagan. Not only was the USSR not to blame, but, said Chebrikov, Kennedy was, quite the contrary, “very impressed” with Andropov.

The thrust of the letter is that Reagan had to be stopped, meaning his alleged aggressive defense policies, which then ranged from the Pershing IIs to the MX to SDI, and even his re-election bid, needed to be stopped. It was Ronald Reagan who was the hindrance to peace. That view of Reagan is consistent with things that Kennedy said and wrote at the time, including articles in sources like Rolling Stone (March 1984) and in a speeches like his March 24, 1983 remarks on the Senate floor the day after Reagan’s SDI speech, which he lambasted as “misleading Red-Scare tactics and reckless Star Wars schemes.”

Even more interesting than Kennedy’s diagnosis was the prescription: According to Chebrikov, Kennedy suggested a number of PR moves to help the Soviets in terms of their public image with the American public. He reportedly believed that the Soviet problem was a communication problem, resulting from an inability to counter Reagan’s (not the USSR’s) “propaganda.” If only Americans could get through Reagan’s smokescreen and hear the Soviets’ peaceful intentions.

So, there was a plan, or at least a suggested plan, to hook up Andropov and other senior apparatchiks with the American media, where they could better present their message and make their case. Specifically, the names of Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters are mentioned in the document. Also, Kennedy himself would travel to Moscow to meet with the dictator.

Time was of the essence, since Reagan, as the document privately acknowledged, was flying high en route to easy re-election in 1984.

FP: Did you have the document vetted?

Kengor: Of course. It comes from the Central Committee archives of the former USSR. Once Boris Yeltsin took over Russia in 1991, he immediately began opening the Soviet archives, which led to a rush on the archives by Western researchers. One of them, Tim Sebastian of the London Times and BBC, found the Kennedy document and reported it in the February 2, 1992 edition of the Times, in an article titled, “Teddy, the KGB and the top secret file.”

But this electrifying revelation stopped there; it went no further. Never made it across the Atlantic. Not a single American news organization, from what I can tell, picked up the story. Apparently, it just wasn’t interesting enough, nor newsworthy.

Western scholars, however, had more integrity, and responded: they went to the archives to procure their own copy. So, several copies have circulated for a decade and a half.

I got my copy when a reader of Frontpage Magazine, named Marko Suprun, whose father survived Stalin’s 1930s genocide in the Ukraine, alerted me to the document. He apparently had spent years trying to get the American media to take a look at the document, but, again, our journalists simply weren’t intrigued. He knew I was researching Reagan and the Cold War. He sent me a copy. I first authenticated it through Herb Romerstein, the Venona researcher and widely respected expert who knows more about the Communist Party and archival research beyond the former Iron Curtain than anyone. I also had a number of scholars read the original and the translation, including Harvard’s Richard Pipes.

Of course, all of those steps were extra, extra, extra precautions, since the reporter for the London Times had done all that work in the first place. He went into the archive, pulled it off the shelf, and the Times ran with the story. This wasn’t rocket science. I simply wanted to be extra careful, especially since our media did not cover it at all. I now understand that that blackout by the American media was the result of liberal bias. At first I didn’t think our media could be that bad, even though I knew from studies and anecdotal experience that our press is largely liberal, but now I’ve learned firsthand that the bias is truly breathtaking.

FP: So what shockwaves did your exposure of this document set off in the media?

Kengor: Well, I thought it would be a bombshell, which it was, but only within the conservative media.

I prepared myself to be pilloried by the liberal mainstream media, figuring I’d be badgered with all kinds of hostile questions from defenders of Ted Kennedy. I still, at this very moment, carry photocopies and the documentation with me in my briefcase, ready for access at a moment’s notice. I’ve done that for two years now. The pages may soon begin to yellow.

I need not have bothered with any of this prep, since the media entirely ignored the revelation. In fact, the major reviewers didn’t even review the book. It was the most remarkable case of media bias I’ve ever personally experienced.

I couldn’t get a single major news source to do a story on it. CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC. Not one covered it.

The only cable source was FoxNews, Brit Hume’s “Grapevine,” and even then it was only a snippet in the round-up. In fact, I was frustrated by the occasional conservative who didn’t run with it. I did a taping with Hannity & Colmes but they never used it, apparently because they were so focused on the mid-term elections, to the exclusion of almost any other story or issue. The Hannity & Colmes thing was a major blow; it could’ve propelled this onto the national scene, forcing the larger media to take note. That was the single greatest disappointment. I think Sean Hannity might have felt that I wasn’t hard enough on Senator Kennedy during the interview. He asked me, for instance, if what Kennedy did could be classified as treason. I told him honestly, as a scholar, that I really couldn’t answer that question. I honestly don’t know the answer to that; I’m not a constitutional scholar. I don’t have the legal background to accuse someone of being a traitor. I was trying to be as fair as possible.

Rush Limbaugh, God bless him, appreciated it. He talked about it at least twice. So did blogs like Michelle Malkin’s HotAir. Web sources like FrontPage hit it hard. But without the mainstream news coverage, the story never made the dent I expected it would.

I should note that Ed Klein of Parade magazine recently contacted me. He himself got a rude awakening on the media’s liberal bias when he wrote a negative book on Hillary Clinton. I’ve not heard back from him. But he’s a rare case of journalistic objectivity.

If I may vent just a little more on the mainstream press, Jamie: There’s a bias there that really is incredibly troubling. Over and over again, I’ve written and submitted the most careful op-eds, trying to remove any partisan edge, on issues like Reagan and Gorbachev privately debating the removal of the Berlin Wall (I have de-classified documents on this in The Crusader as well), on Reagan’s fascinating relationship with RFK, on various aspects of the Cold War that are completely new, based on entirely new evidence from interviews and archives. When I submit these op-ed to the major newspapers, they almost always turn them down. The first conservative source that I send them to always jump at them. The liberals, however, are very close-minded. Nothing is allowed to alter the template. You can construct the most fair, iron-tight case, and they turn it down. This is not true for everything I write on the Cold War era, but no doubt for most of it. And certainly for the case of Senator Kennedy and this KGB document.

FP: How about trying to place some op-eds on the Kennedy document?

Kengor: Here again, all the mainstream sources turned me down. I had no alternative but to place the op-eds in the conservative outlets. Liberal editors blacklisted the piece. I began by sending a piece to the New York Times, where the editor is David Shipley, who’s extremely fair, and in fact has published me before, including a defense I wrote on the faith of George W. Bush. This one, however, he turned down. He liked it. It certainly had his intention. But he said he wouldn’t be able to get it into the page.

I sent it to the Boston Globe, three or four times, actually. I got no response or even the courtesy of an acknowledgment. It was as if the piece was dispatched to the howling wilderness of Siberia—right into the gulag—airbrushed from history.

The most interesting response I got was from the editorial page editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, another very fair liberal, a great guy, who since then has retired. He published me several times. We went back and forth on this one. Finally, he said something to the effect, “I just can’t believe that Ted Kennedy would do something this stupid.” My reply was, “Well, he apparently did.” I told the editor that if he was that incredulous, then he or someone on his staff should simply call Kennedy’s office and get a response. Hey, let’s do journalism and make news! It never happened.

For the record, one news source, a regional cable outlet in the Philadelphia area, called CN8, took the time to call Kennedy’s office. The official response from his office was not to deny the document but to argue with the interpretation. Which interpretation? Mine or Chebrikov’s? Kennedy’s office wasn’t clear on that. My interpretation was not an interpretation. I simply tried to report what Chebrikov reported to Andropov. So, I guess Kennedy’s office was disputing Chebrikov’s interpretation, which is quite convenient, since Chebrikov is dead, as is Andropov. Alas, the perfect defense—made more perfect by an American media that will not ask the senator from Massachusetts a single question (hard or soft) on this remarkable incident.

FP: So, Kennedy’s office/staff did not deny the document?

Kengor: That’s correct. They have not denied it. That’s important. Because if none of this had ever happened, and if the document was a fraud, Kennedy’s office would simply say so, and that would be the end of it.

FP: Tell us about the success the book has had in the recent past and the coverage it has received outside of the U.S.

Kengor: The paperback rights were picked up by the prestigious HarperPerennial in 2007, which I’m touting not to pat myself on the back but to affirm my point on why our mainstream press should take the book and the document seriously. The book has also been or is in the process of being translated into several foreign-language editions, including Poland, where it was released last November. It is literally true that more Polish journalists have paid attention to the Kennedy revelation than American journalists. I’ve probably sold about 20 times more copies of the book in Poland, where they understand communism and moral equivalency, than in Massachusetts.

FP: One can just imagine finding a document like this on an American Republican senator having made a similar offer to the Nazis. Kennedy has gotten away with this. What do you think this says about our culture, the parameters of debate and who controls the boundaries of discourse?

Kengor: History is determined by those who write it. There are the gatekeepers: editors, journalists, publishers. The left’s ideologues are guarding the gate, swords brandished, crusaders, not open to other points of view. The result is a total distortion of “history,” as the faithful and the chosen trumpet their belief in tolerance and diversity, awarding prizes to one another, disdainful and dismissive of the unwashed barbarians outside the gate.

You can produce a 550-page manuscript with 150-pages of single-space, 9-point footnotes, and it won’t matter. They could care less.

FP: So, this historical revelation is not a revelation?

Kengor: That’s right, because it is not impacting history—because gatekeepers are ignoring it.

Another reason why the mainstream media may be ignoring this: as I make clear in the book, this KGB document could be the tip of the iceberg, not just with Kennedy but other Democrats. John Tunney himself alluded to this in an interview with the London Times reporter. That article reported that Tunney had made many such trips to Moscow, with additional overtures, and on behalf of yet more Democratic senators. Given that reality, I suppose we should expect liberal journalists to flee this story like the plague—at least those too biased to do their jobs.

For the record, I’ve been hard on liberal journalists in this article, and rightly so. But there are many good liberal journalists who do real research and real reporting. And it’s those that need to follow up on this. I’m a conservative, and so I’m not allowed into the club. Someone from inside the boys’ club needs to step up to the plate.

FP: All of this is in sync with David Horowitz’s and Ben Johnson’s new book, Party of Defeat, isn’t it? As the book demonstrates, many Democrats are engaging in willful sabotage in terms of our security vis-à-vis Islamo-Fascism today. And as the Kennedy-KGB romance indicates, a good portion of Democrats have always had a problem in reaching out to our enemies, rather than protecting our national security. Your thoughts?

Kengor: Obviously, as you know and suggest, this does not apply to all Democrats, needless to say. But there are many liberal Democrats who were dupes during the Cold War and now are assuming that role once again in the War on Terror. President Carter comes to mind, as does John Kerry, as does Ted Kennedy, to name only a few. When I read President Carter’s recent thoughts on Hamas, it transported me back to 1977 and his stunning statements on the Iranian revolution, or to 1979 and his remarks on the Soviets and Afghanistan. Many of these liberals and their supporters on the left literally see the conservative Republican in the Oval Office as a greater threat to the world than the insane dictators overseas that the likes of Reagan and George W. Bush were/are trying to stop. That’s not an exaggeration. Just ask them.

History is repeating itself, which can happen easily when those tasked to report and record it fail to do so because of their political biases.

FP: Paul Kengor, thank you for joining us.

Kengor: Thank you Jamie.

ABOUT JAMIE GLAZOV

JAMIE GLAZOV

Jamie Glazov holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the editor of Frontpagemag.com, the author of the critically-acclaimed, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror, and the host of the web-TV show, The Glazov Gang. Visit his site at JamieGlazov.com, follow him on Twitter: @JamieGlazov, and reach him at jamieglazov11@gmail.com.

The Bias Problem Plaguing America’s Social Media Platforms

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Americans deserve the facts, objectively reported. They know media bias is pervasive.

A recent Morning Consult poll found that only a quarter of voters now trust the media to tell them the truth, a record low.

The media savages President Donald Trump and portrays his administration in the worst possible light. Over 90 percent of his network news coverage has been negative, higher than any other president.

The muting of conservative voices by social media also has intensified. Social media companies have repeatedly censored, removed, or “shadow banned” conservative journalists, news organizations, and media outlets that do not share their liberal political views.

Facebook’s new algorithm for what users see on their timeline has disproportionately harmed conservative publishers. They’re getting fewer readers while their liberal counterparts haven’t been impacted to the same degree.

Recently, Google’s employees easily convinced the company’s management to cut ties to contracts with the military.

And Google has long faced criticism from fact-checkers over manipulating search results to slight conservatives. Google also has deleted or blocked references to Jesus, Chick-fil-A, and the Catholic religion. When will it stop?

Also alarming are the guidelines being written by these companies to define “hate speech.” Facebook’s newly published Community Standards, which determine what content is allowed, define these terms for the American people.

It violates Facebook rules “to exclude or segregate a person or group.” So a conservative organization calling for illegal immigrants to be returned to their home country could be labeled a hate group by the platform and their content removed altogether.

Some platforms have allowed liberal interest groups to determine what information is available to the public.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is allowed to influence platform guidelines and sometimes censor content that it deems “hate” speech.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a “hate map” that lists over 900 organizations. These include pro-life, religious freedom, and border security groups—all popular with the American people. And all are unfairly targeted by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

It’s no secret that social media organizations are typically controlled and run by individuals who lean liberal, sometimes radically so.

It will require a constant effort by these entities to neutralize this relentless bias if, in fact, they really want to do it.

All media entities should give the American people the facts, not tell them what to think.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Rep. Lamar Smith

Rep. Lamar Smith

Rep. Smith is a Republican who has represented Texas’s 21st district since 1987. Twitter: .

See Something, Say Something: A U.S. Classified Brainwashing Program

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I would dare to say that if you asked Americans, specifically our children, if they believe our governments “See Something, Say Something” program is a needed and positive concept 99.9 percent would agree. This operation went into full swing after the 911 attacks by Muslim terrorists on our country. This program is actually a deceptive and very dangerous U.S. classified operation to condition Americans to inform on their friends, family, neighbors and others. Our government unfortunately wants us to follow the same path that Hitler put in place on his fellow Germans. Hitler brainwashed the German citizens that “ratting” on fellow citizens was patriotic to secure the security of Germany.

Adolf Hitler once made the following statement:

“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”

Another quote by Hitler:

“If you control the children you control the future”

This story is true in America. Liberals within our government fully understands that if you control the minds of the children, you will control the future. The U.S. government has now taken over the control of our children by slowly eroding the influence of their parents. Our children are being brainwashed in all levels of the education system.

Our government desires American children to feel comfortable informing on anyone they have been brainwashed by educators to believe have offended them in anyway or poached into their safe zones. This is the BIG picture of what the “See Something, Say Something” campaign is about. The SMALL picture that is fed to the public is that this campaign is to fight the war on terrorism. Don’t fall for it and do not believe one small atom of this lie.

I was a federal agent working numerous Top Secret operations for our government for almost two decades. Without disclosing any classified information, I can inform the American public that disinformation operations are conducted by our government to fool our enemies and in many cases to fool the very American citizens our government is bound to be truthful to and protect. The See Something, Say Something is meant to control the American people more than it is meant to harm our enemies.

This can be proven in various ways, but I will give a very clear example for Americans to ponder: There are dozens of private American counterintelligence and counterterrorism professionals like myself who receive constant calls from Americans about legitimate suspicious activity especially in the area of Islamic based terrorism. I often give them advice to notify the FBI, but I warn them that likely the Agent will not take them serious, ridicule them, or even call them an outright Islamaphobe. I tell them this because numerous Americans have told me this is exactly what the FBI has done to them. This behavior is shameful and very, very un-American.

My point is that liberals (communists) within our government do not care about truly protecting this great land from Islamic terrorists or other threats, nor do they really care about what adult Americans “See and then Say Something” report. Again I repeat, our government (aside from a few within to include President Trump) only desire to brainwash our children to advance their liberal long term agenda to turn America into hell holes like Venezuela and Cuba.

It is the responsibility of conservative Americans to be mindful of what their children are being taught in schools and prepare their families for the soon to be violent civil war in America. Thankfully patriotic citizens elected President Trump because this gives patriots from 4 to 8 years to regroup and acquire the survival tools for the war we will soon have.

HERE ARE A FEW QUICKIES OF INTEL:

  1. There are now over 3000 Islamic mosques in America. 80 plus percent are Sunni Wahhabi and financed by Saudi Arabia. All are anti American.
  2. The FBI and CIA are liberal political machines designed to turn America into a socialist country.
  3. Illegal immigrants are a burden to America ten times more than they do any good whatsoever.
  4. Muslims (both violent and non violent) in America do not want to assimilate and put shariah law above the U.S. Constitution.
  5. ANTIFA and MS 13 are both criminal gangs who have no place in America.

President Putin offers to have Mueller interview the 12 Russians… Mueller declines?

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In an article titled “Vladimir Putin Humiliated Robert Mueller” Steven Ahle wrote:

Putin invited Mueller and some of his team to Russia to interrogate the 12 men. Then Putin took it a step further and reminded Mueller that the US and Russia have an extradition treaty and he could have the 12 men sent to the US to meet with Mueller and face the charges. To no one’s surprise, Mueller has decided to do neither one. I don’t blame him after what happened with the first 16 indictments of Russians. One of the companies they named didn’t even exist until after the time frame in which they allegedly committed crimes. Another company has aggressively answered the bogus charges against them. Therefore setting Mueller into full panic mode because he had no evidence against them.

Ahle goes on to note, “Then Putin hit Mueller with the knockout blow, suggesting that the US intelligence agents had helped Bill Browder funnel 1.5 billion dollars out of Russia, with 400 million being rerouted to the Hillary campaign. He asked for Mueller’s help in investigating the matter.”

Who is Bill Browder?

Politifact’s Jon Greenberg reports:

The Russians say that Browder and his partners at Ziff Brothers Investments, a New York venture capital firm, illegally syphoned billions of rubles out of the country.

In the 2016 election cycle, Ziff Brothers Investments gave $1.7 million. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, nearly two-thirds, or about $1.1 million, went to Democratic committees, and the rest to Republicans.

The center listed the firm’s top recipients:

Recipient Amount
DNC Services Corp $296,966
Senate Majority PAC $250,000
Defending Main Street $200,000
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte $40,000
Democratic State Central Cmte/Louisiana $35,412
National Republican Congressional Cmte $32,400
Democratic Party of Montana $28,622
Democratic Executive Cmte of Florida $27,287
Democratic Party of New Hampshire $27,287
Democratic Party of Virginia $27,287
Democratic Party of Wisconsin $27,287
Georgia Federal Elections Cmte $27,287

Greenberg concluded:

Putin said associates of Bill Browder gave $400 million to the Clinton campaign. The associates appear to be the Ziff brothers. According to public data, Ziff Brothers Investments gave about $315,000 to Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.

Overall, the firm gave about $1.1 million to Democratic committees around the country.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Conservative Lawmakers Say Trump’s Actions, Not Words, Key in Dealings With Putin

Trump’s Russian Reset: He Says He Misspoke on Election Interference

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, shown testifying before Congress while serving as FBI director in 2013. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

Democrat Senator Worries His Party Is Going Too Far Left

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Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., is worried his party is alienating moderate voters by moving too far to the left.

“If we as a Democratic Party are going to move from a minority at every level that is dedicated to resistance, to a majority that is capable of governing, we have got to move from grievance to optimism,” Coons said in a speech on Thursday, according to U.S. News and World Report.

dcnf-logo

“And we’ve got to abandon a politics of anxiety that is characterized by wild-eyed proposals and instead deliver ideas and practical solutions.”

Coons also warned that the growing Democratic push to abolish Immigration and Customs and Enforcement, which enforces the nation’s immigration laws, is counterproductive.

“Abolish ICE is too easily mocked as open borders and no law enforcement,” the senator warned.

“Instead of having something that makes a Twitter hashtag and gets you on Rachel Maddow and fires people up, we need to have something that fires people up and is a policy position we can actually defend.”

“Forty percent of voters self-identify as pragmatic or moderate. We cannot abandon them,” he added.

Coons’ caution comes as the far-left Democratic base is pressuring the party’s leaders to endorse a radical immigration agenda.

EDITORS NOTE: Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. The featured image is of Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Chris Coons, D-Del. as they arrive for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Sept. 26, 2017. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom)

Trump and Senators Offer Plans to Reorganize Bureaucracy, Drain the Swamp

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President Donald Trump’s administration released a plan June 21 that, if enacted, would impose some order on the sprawling administrative state—something that is long overdue.

Decades of ceaseless expansion of the size and scope of the federal government have created a bloated and inefficient federal bureaucracy, replete with agencies and offices with overlapping functions.

The Rube Goldberg-esque structure of the federal bureaucracy is not only expensive, it thickens the web of government red tape, makes government services less efficient, and makes mission failure more likely by splintering simple jobs among diffuse agencies.

Trump’s plan would begin the long process of rearranging the overgrown federal bureaucracy by grafting together agencies that do similar work and pruning away offices that have outlived their usefulness.

More on the specifics of the reorganization plan can be found here.

However, while the president directs the executive branch, its structure is largely the product of Congress. Through the legislative process, it creates departments and agencies, establishes their responsibilities, and determines their funding.

While Congress sometimes delegates authority to the president to determine how staff and funds are deployed or even how an agency is organized, major shakeups require congressional action.

Details of the Reforming Government Act

That’s where legislation introduced June 27 by Sens. Ron Johnson,  R-Wis., and James Lankford, R-Okla., comes in.

Their bill, the Reforming Government Act of 2018, would give the president the power to draw up a broad plan for reorganization—the specifics of which could go far beyond what his administration has already proposed—to be considered under expedited parliamentary procedures in Congress.

If the legislation passes, the president could draft a plan to create, abolish, or move entire departments of the federal government (or sub-units thereof). Agencies that have overlapping functions—for example, the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Food and Drug Administration, which also inspects food—could be merged.

Government services spread across dozens of agencies could be consolidated into the most appropriate agency. Financial education programs, for example, are currently operating across 20 agencies, and job training programs are even more diffuse, spread across 40 agencies.

There are literally hundreds of similar examples of overlap, fragmentation, and duplication that a reorganization plan could address.

The only limitations the Johnson-Lankford bill imposes is that the president’s reorganization plan must be “efficiency-enhancing.” That means that any plan would reduce the number of government agencies and save money, while preventing the merging, abolishing, or moving of independent agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Election Commission.

Once the president formulates a reorganization plan, the proposal would go to Congress for fast-track consideration.

Like other bills, the plan would first go through committees in both the House and Senate. But unlike other bills, those committees would only have 75 days to read it and provide their recommendations to the Congress at large. Once the 75 days lapse, the reorganization plan would leave committees for the floor automatically—with or without the committees’ recommendations.

After moving to the floor of Congress, debate would be limited to 10 hours, and then members would cast an up-or-down vote on final passage of the resolution. At no point along the way would amendments be allowed. Essentially, once a president formulates a reorganization plan, Congress has two choices: Take it or leave it.

Why This Is the Right Approach

Johnson and Lankford are wise to want to empower the executive branch to develop a government reorganization plan, instead of asking Congress to take on such a heavy lift.

Incidentally, they are not the first legislators to suggest such an approach—Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Mark Warner, D-Va., introduced a similar bill in 2012.

The president, along with his or her White House staff and political appointees in the departments are more deeply embedded in, intimately familiar with, and prepared to diagnose the ailments of the administrative state.

Past Congresses recognized the president’s comparative advantage in proposing and carrying out executive reorganizations, and from 1932 to 1984, the U.S. government enacted 93 separate executive reorganization plans. But, in 1984, Congress let this executive reorganization authority lapse.

Aside from expertise, there is another reason it might be better to leave reorganization largely in the hands of the president. Members of Congress—each of whom serves on a number of committees that oversee one or several departments—often have incentives to fight any reorganization plan that lessens their own influence.

While all members of Congress might agree that something must be done to pare back the sprawling federal bureaucracy in principle, each individual member of Congress is likely to adopt a NIMBY—“not in my backyard”—attitude to any concrete proposal that lessens the size and strength of the agencies under his or her committee’s or subcommittee’s jurisdiction.

The Promise of Reorganization

The Johnson-Lankford bill might be a popular way for members of Congress to meet their constituents’ demands to “drain the swamp.”

To be sure, this Congress has already done much to help the president cut back red tape. Using the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to strike down new federal regulations, it kept 16 costly Obama-era rules from going into effect. Prior to the 115th Congress, the Congressional Review Act had been used only once.

Reforming the structure of government is at least as pressing as checking its excesses. After all, the tangled, obscure, and almost impenetrable nature of the administrative state is what makes the swamp analogy such a popular description of Washington.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of John York

John York

John W. York, Ph.D., is a policy analyst in the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation.

RELATED ARTICLE: Government Spends $3 Million to Study Heavy Drinking, Aggression at Nightclubs

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

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

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

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

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

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is of Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. who has introduced legislation with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., that would give President Donald Trump wide latitude to restructure executive agencies. (Photo: Jeff Malet Photography/Newscom)

A Dem Outlook for November

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Here’s a word I never thought anyone would use to describe Senator Dianne Feinstein: “moderate.” But that’s the political twilight zone Democrats find themselves in, now that 28-year-old socialists are heaving the party Left. In California, where the oldest member of the U.S. Senate couldn’t even win her party’s endorsement, people are starting to wonder: could this gamble cost Democrats the midterms?

For Feinstein, the party’s decision to back Kevin de León was even more remarkable this time around, since she trounced him by more than 30 percent in last month’s primaries. Even so, California Democrats announced over the weekend that they were sticking with their guy, insisting that the five-term Feinstein was too much of a “centrist.” That’s news to most of us, who’ve never mistaken anti-gun, pro-abortion, anti-family orthodoxy as anything remotely resembling conservatism. This is, as one California political scientist point out, “the strongest signal yet of just how far to the left California’s Democratic activists have moved, how emboldened they are…” But, as he and others caution, just because the state party is endorsing this over-the-top extremism doesn’t mean American voters are.

“It’s only a signal about the party’s most activist core,” said the University of California’s Thad Kousser, “not a sign that everyday voters are choosing a pure progressive over a pragmatist.” Already, the party’s candidates in other areas are panicking. They see this abandonment of Feinstein as a warning: move Left or move out. Some Democratic House candidates fired off a letter to the California state party, pointing out the devastating ripple effect of their over-the-top extremism. “A divisive party endorsement for U.S. Senate would hurt all down-ballot candidates and our ability to turn out Democrats we desperately need to vote in November,” they caution.

That’s because de León isn’t your garden-variety progressive. This is a candidate, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who would out-radicalize Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) with his campaign to impeach Trump, socialize health care, and open the borders. And while his agenda might attract big party donors, it’s bound to cause a huge split with heartland Democrats who are begging the DNC to get back to basics. When your own party argues you’re “lazy,” “out of touch with mainstream America,” and relying on “too much identity politics” where “winners and losers are picked by their labels” — you’re in trouble.

But that’s the sort of desperation President Trump’s success has created for Democrats. It’s sort of a “derangement syndrome,” John Fund writes, “pushing many [Democrats] into positions that may play well with their base but that will be problematic if they become associated with the party in general elections. Socialized medicine, abolishing ICE, identity politics, political correctness, and sky-high tax rates may quicken the pulse of those who see themselves leading the class struggle.”

Even the more liberal members of the Senate worry where decisions like California’s might lead. This “rift in the nation’s party’s direction,” Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) warns, carries with it some significant risks. The party, he urged, needs to stress “pragmatic ideas,” not “pie-in-the-sky” policies that “might sound great in a tweet, like free college and free health care” (a jab at Ocasio-Cortez’s unrealistic promises). Like a lot of people, he wonders if the Democrats are betting the midterms on a platform light years to the Left of most Americans.

The latest numbers from Brookings would certainly suggest they are. Despite the rise of progressive House candidates (280 this year compared to 97 in 2016), the Establishment is still winning when it counts. “Of course many of the progressive non-incumbents are first-time candidates,” the group explains, “inspired by Bernie Sanders and turned off by Donald Trump. If they stay in politics many of them may do better in future races. But for now their record is… not great.” The more important takeaway for Republicans is this: “Progressive Democrats may not be winning a civil war inside the party. But, if and when Democrats have a chance at power again, progressives will have moved them on some pretty big issues.”

If a woman who’s taken a blowtorch to the First and Second Amendments, declared Christians unfit for public office, and supported partial-birth abortion isn’t liberal enough for the Democratic Party, then it’s a brave new world indeed. Meanwhile, if conservatives want to hang on to their majority, the solution is obvious: be more intentional than ever about highlighting the Grand Canyon-sized gaps in the two parties’ values. In a country that rejected the leftward lurch of Obama, it’s the clearest path to victory.

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

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Let’s Be Honest: Mexico Is A Bad Neighbor

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This is not a shot at Mexicans. They are humans in the exact same way as Americans, Nigerians, Italians, Indonesians and every other people group. In the Christian view, they are made in the image of God. In the American Founders’ view, they like all men are created with inalienable rights granted by God.

But this is a shot at the Mexican government and, to a degree, the Mexican culture. And despite virtually every media story out there fretting and warning about America being a bad neighbor because of Trump’s policies, the actual evidence that Mexico is the bad actor in the relationship is pretty compelling.

We are treated to liberals and Democrats lecturing Americans on being bad neighbors for Mexico, and apologizing to Mexico and the world for being bad neighbors. If you google ‘Mexico is a bad neighbor’ all you get are endless stories about the U.S. being a bad neighbor. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is hogwash.

If these critics really cared about Mexico’s well-being — and the well-being of Mexicans — they would be more critical of the corruption and culture that has left a fertile land with a great climate, access to two oceans and next door to the greatest economic power in history, in impoverished misery. They would be calling on Mexicans’ better angels, calling them to change and actually become more like the United States with individual liberties and market economics and accountable government.

Trashing America is nothing more than political expediency and opponent demonization that causes yet more division.

So let’s look at Mexico and the United States as neighbors. Who is the better neighbor and worse neighbor?

  • Would a good neighbor send their problems next door? Mexico has an undeniably de facto policy of illegally exporting their poorest citizens, and those of neighboring countries. The 11 to 20 million illegal aliens in the United States today almost universally came here poor, uneducated and untrained. The poorest in a country are always a burden, so Mexico encourages them to head north and does nothing — nothing — to stop them at the border. When we see the trains of migrants from Guatemala or Honduras or other Central American countries, that is being done with the active participation of Mexican authorities. They don’t want those poor people in their country — they have too many of their own — so they usher them on to America. How is that being a good neighbor? Canada doesn’t do any of this.
  • Would a good neighbor criticize you for locking your doors at night so they couldn’t break in? Well, Mexico does. President Trump ran on securing our border with Mexico (because the Northern Border does not require this level of security) and he won election as most Americans understand a sovereign nation needs borders and the ability to determine who comes in and out. Yet Mexican leaders were openly hostile, criticizing Trump, with Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said the U.S. was returning to the “era of the ugly American” and repeatedly called a “useless wall”? Why useless? Because Mexican authorities will continue to find ways to ship the poorest, uneducated residents to their neighbor? They don’t want a wall because they don’t want those residents in Mexico, they want them in the United States sending $28 billion in remittances back to Mexico from America. How is that being a good neighbor? Canada doesn’t do any of this.
  • Would a good neighbor take your generous donations to help them with such ingratitude? The U.S. gives Mexico $320 million in aid annually. Yet is there gratefulness for this generosity? Nothing apparent. They take the money and spend it.
  • Would a good neighbor who has received so many benefits by living next to a generous neighbor openly criticize that neighbor? Absurd, yet that is exactly what Mexican authorities do regularly. Whether it is beefing up our Southern Border security, to increasing citizen IDs or deporting those we find to be here illegally, Mexican authorities criticize the U.S. No gratefulness for unburdening them from their poorest citizens. Just criticism.

No. The case is very strong that the Mexican government is the bad actor in this relationship.

Here’s what America has been doing to be a good neighbor — oftentimes to our own detriment:

  • Accepting some of Mexico’s poorest, providing them with healthcare, schooling and opportunities that they had no chance of getting in their home country. We even teach the children of families that break into our country — in their own language. Now that’s being an awfully good neighbor.
  • Providing $320 million annually in direct financial aid to Mexico. The largest chunk goes to security issues and drug cartel fighting, but also to education and infrastructure. Obviously, a portion of it goes to the graft that is undeniably rampant in the Mexican government.
  • Allowing people who sneak into America to transfer back to Mexico a whopping $28 billion out of our economy and into Mexico’s. We don’t tax it or take a portion of it. We just allow it to exit our country and economy and help the nation on our Southern Border. Of course remittances flow everywhere, but from the United States to Mexico is by far the biggest.
  • Of course, Mexico does not really need to spend much money on a large military because they are an ally and because of their geographic location next to the United States. We essentially act as a deterrent for anyone who would be aggressive against Mexico.

If you look at the relationship, and who benefits the most by far and who gives the most by far, there can be no doubt that the United States is the far better neighbor than Mexico. So maybe American politicians and those supporting them should step back and try to appreciate their own country more, and not paint some romantic and unrealistic picture of Mexico.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Immigration Scandal No One Is Talking About

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act. The featured image is from Sopitas.com.

The Western World’s Most Depressing Chart

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Daniel J. Mitchell Western nations are abandoning the policies that made them prosperous.

by Daniel J. Mitchell

Last week, I shared a graph showing there are more guns than people in the United States, and I wrote that it was the “most enjoyable” chart of the year, mostly because it gets my leftist friends so agitated.

But I’m more likely to share gloomy visuals, including:

  • The “most depressing” chart about Denmark, which shows a majority of the population lives off the government.
  • A “very depressing” chart about the United States, which shows how big business profits from cronyism.
  • The “most depressing” chart about Japan, which shows the tax burden has nearly doubled since 1965.

Now it’s time to add to that list. There’s a website called Our World in Data, which is a great resource if you’re a policy wonk who likes numbers. But some numbers are quite depressing.

For instance, if you peruse the “Public Spending” page, you’ll find a chart showing the dramatic expansion of redistribution spending as a share of economic output.

These numbers are very similar to the table I shared from Vito Tanzi back in 2013, which isn’t surprising since Professor Peter Lindert is the underlying source for both sets of data.

While the above chart is depressing to a libertarian, it’s nonetheless instructive because it confirms my argument that the Western world became rich when governments were very small and redistribution was tiny or even nonexistent.

For instance, nations in North America and Western Europe largely made the transition from agricultural poverty to middle-class prosperity during the “golden century” between the Napoleonic wars and World War I. That was a period when redistribution spending basically didn’t exist, and most nations didn’t even have income taxes (the U.S. didn’t make that mistake until 1913).

Even as recently as 1960, welfare states were very small compared to their current size. Indeed, redistribution spending in Western nations averaged only about 10 percent of economic output, about half the size of today’s supposedly miserly American welfare state.

These points are important because some folks on the left misinterpret Wagner’s Law and actually try to argue that bigger government is good for growth.

P.S. South Korea has been a great success story for the past five decades, but that redistribution trendline is very worrisome.

P.P.S. The trendline for Greece helps to explain why that nation is bankrupt.

P.P.P.S. The chart shows that Canada is better than the United States, though that may not last since Canada’s current prime minister is seeking to undermine his nation’s competitive advantage.

P.P.P.P.S. While fiscal trends in the Western world have been unfavorable, that bad news has been offset by positive trends for trade liberalization. Whether we will see a big step backward because of President Trump remains to be seen.

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.

We Cannot Allow Strzokians Back into Power — Elect Matt Rosendale to U.S. Senate

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Peter Strzok’s arrogance displayed at the Congressional Oversight Committee hearing on TV was infuriating. With their superior noses high in the air, Mr Strzok and the democrats behaviorally said f*** you to the Republicans, the law and We the People. It was disgraceful watching Mr Strzok and his democrat posse insult our intelligence by claiming, despite overwhelming evidence, FBI agent Mr Strzok had no bias against Trump.

Mr Strzok and democrats’ insistence that Strzok had no bias against Trump reminded me of a comedy skit with the late Don Adams. In the skit, Adams’ wife came home, catching him in bed with a woman. Adams’ wife ranted expressing her shock and outrage. Adams and his lover calmly got out of bed, got dressed and made the bed. The woman left. Adams behaved like nothing happened and left the bedroom. The skit ends with his wife standing there, questioning her sanity – pondering whether or not she saw what she thinks she saw. Mr Strzok and the democrats are attempting to pull the same trick on America. They are telling us Mr Strzok expressed no bias against Trump while clear evidence of Mr Strzok’s bias is right before our eyes.

The thing that got my blood boiling was Mr Strzok’s snooty attitude. His facial expressions and body language said, “ How dare you question me. I don’t have to answer any of your questions. F*** you Republicans and fly-over-country Trump-supportive Americans.” Mr Strzok and his fellow FBI agent Ms Page impugned Trump supporters as smelly hillbilly Walmart shoppers. Mr Strzok epitomizes the American left’s disdain for everyday Americans –We the People.

I’m in Montana with the Conservative Campaign Committee campaigning for conservative Republican Matt Rosendale for U.S. Senate. We produced a video ad in which I explained how crucial it is that we folks who love the direction Trump is taking our country stay politically engaged. We must get out the vote for the swiftly approaching midterm elections. If the democrats take control of congress, first on their agenda will be impeaching Trump and blocking and reversing Trump’s progress towards rolling back Obama’s punish-America-legacy. The last thing we need is people who share Strzok’s mindset back in power.

Democrats’ behavior during the oversight committee hearing was off-the-chain rude, crude and arrogant – emitting a repulsive stench of superiority. It truly was infuriating watching Democrats, in essence, give the law, Republicans and We the People their middle fingers.

Democrats and the American left truly do believe they are our betters. And when we disagree with their attempts to control every aspect of our lives “for our own good”, they gang assault us in the media, seek to criminalize our opposition and encourage their minions to physically beat us up. Meanwhile, leftist media constantly lectures us everyday Americans to be more tolerant of attacks on our traditional values, principles and institutions. Leftists tell us to be more civil, less hateful and mean-spirited.

This week, leftists have recently declared “cowboys” to be racist and sexist.

Michael Landon’s beautiful classic TV series, “Little House on the Prairie” has been declared racist and homophobic. Awhile back, leftists declared the peanut butter and jelly sandwich racist.

Do we really want people with this insidious wacko kind of thinking back in power – calling the shots, mandating how we must live our lives? If democrats take back Congress in November, rest assured, they will continue leftists’ transformation of America.

Our Conservative Campaign Committee team figuratively rode into Montana on white horses and wearing white cowboy hats because we are excited to provide boots-on-the-ground support for a true rock-solid conservative – Matt Rosendale.

When Montana voted to give their politicians a pay raise, Rosendale turned it down. Who does that folks? As state auditor, Rosendale cut his operating budget 23%.

Rosendale is boldly 100% supportive of Trump’s make America great again agenda. Do we need this guy in Washington or what!

Life has taught me to always look for the blessing in every situation. The Congressional Oversight Committee hearing on TV has exposed the democrats and Strzok as spoiled-brat anti-American obstructionists. We cannot and will not allow these Strzokian villains back into power.

Please help elect Matt Rosendale. 

Illegal Alien Pelts Border Patrol Agents With Rocks As They Gave Medical Aid To Pregnant Woman

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported Wednesday that an illegal immigrant pelted rocks at agents as they provided aid to a pregnant woman.

Weslaco, Texas, agents observed a group of illegal aliens attempting to cross the Progreso Port of Entry by climbing a tree on July 7. While two illegal immigrants were at the top of the bridge, a 25-year old pregnant Mexican nationalist was at the base of the tree in distress.

Border Patrol attempted to provide medical assistance to the woman, but were met with rocks hurled at them by one of the illegal aliens.

Both people at the top of the bridge escaped back to Mexico while the woman was taken to a local Emergency Medical Services center. She will be processed once out of the hospital, according to a CBP press release.

Assaults, whether or not they caused injury, toward CBP law enforcement officials have increased under President Donald Trump’s presidency. CBP faced 584 assaults i n fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2017 saw a total of 847 assaults. The total count of attempted assaults between Oct. 1, 2017 and May 31 is at 540.

COLUMN BY JIM E.

Jim E. is a true political insider, with experience working both in Washington and outside in real America. Jim is hopelessly bound to Twitter, the preferred platform of all the Swamp reporters, and works to give readers all the biggest scoops being talked about in Washington. When something’s breaking, look for Jim’s quick reporting, filled with relevant facts and incisive commentary.

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EDITORS NOTE: Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

HuffPo maligns ‘white Christians’ says ‘White evangelicals will never make America great again’ – Take Action!

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Huffingtonpost.com’s most recent racist anti-white, anti-Christian column titled “White evangelicals will never make America great again” was published on July 1, 2018.  If a HuffPost.com article ever denigrates “black” Christians it would most likely lose all advertisers including Hewlett Packard.  But some advertisers are okay with racist articles directed at white Christians.

The Huffington Post has published numerous articles that promote Islamist propaganda.  Huffington Post articles have defended the Muslim Brotherhood, fundraised for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), blamed Christian Islamophobia for worldwide conflict with Muslims, promoted an anti-Semitic blog, encouraged Islamist demagoguery, and promoted other Islamist propaganda.  The Huffington Post has former Al Jazeera journalists writing articles and Huffington Post Arabic is led by hard line Islamists from Al Jazeera.

The Huffington Post published an article written by Ben Piven on January 12, 2017 titled “Why Al Jazeera America Failed, And Why We Need It More Than Ever.”  The subtitle stated “America desperately needs something similar to pioneer this new era of uncertainty and misinformation.”  Ben Piven “was at Al Jazeera for over 5 years, including several years at AJAM in New York City and also in Doha at AJE during the height of the Arab Spring.”

Huffingtonpost.com calls America’s finest, our soldiers racist in its article titled “Becoming A Racist: The Unfortunate Side Effect Of Serving Your Country?” In addition to smearing America’s finest with the racist title it trashes our police as well.

Twenty one examples of Islamist propaganda articles have been provided to Hewlett Packardofficials.

Why  is  it  important  to  urge companies to stop advertising at Huffingtonpost.com?

  • The Huffington Post’s large number of readers and high volume of pro-Islamist reports makes it a leading proliferator of Islamist propaganda in the United States.
  • Islamophobia propaganda is the top tool Islamists use to influence Americans to ignore advancement of Sharia doctrine in the United States.  Unfortunately, it intimidates people to the point of stifling free speech in a manner that hurts public safety and allows Sharia to thrive.
  • The  Huffington  Post’s  frequent  pro-Islamist reporting feeds the Hate America crowd with more reasons to defend Islamists and ignore the harmful direction that results from its acceptance.
  • HuffPost and HuffPost Arab employ several former Al Jazeera reporters and Islamist advocates who have pushed the Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood agenda.
  • Florida Family Association’s opposition campaign educates thousands of officials at American companies about the harm caused by erroneous Islamophobia propaganda and pro-Islamist reporting.  The thousands of emails that company officials receive reveal that there are many Americans who find Islamist propaganda deceitful, harmful and offensive.

Hewlett Packard certainly has the right to advertise in whatever forum it chooses. You have the same right to voice concern regarding the content on such forums and choose to patronize companies that will not spend your consumer dollars supporting Islamist propaganda and spewing hate at Christians, Jews and white people.

Florida Family Association has prepared an email for you to send to encourage Hewlett Packard officials to stop supporting Huffingtonpost.com propaganda with its customers’ money.

To send your email, please click the following link, enter your name and email address then click the “Send Your Message” button. You may also edit the subject or message text if you wish.

Click here to send your email to encourage Hewlett Packard officials to stop supporting Huffingtonpost.com vitriolic and Islamist propaganda with its customers’ money.

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The Deep State vs. The Dark State

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The FBI IG Report recently presented to Congress demonstrates that the wheels for opening the gates to clean-out the swamp are very rusty but are intermittingly turning; albeit, ever so slightly like the rusty and nearly frozen wheels they are. Some movement is being made in D.C. but sorely much, much less than the predominant majority of Americans could have ever imagined. No longer are there clear and historical examples of Republicans v Democrats. What has become evident is a quickly widening chasm separating those who proclaim and un-hesitantly support the constitutional principles of limited government with respect toward the individual and State sovereignty based on our Judeo-Christian Foundation and values against all others who are aligning with Social Marxism, and the removal of our constitutional heritage and values.

There is a difference between the “Deep State” and the “Dark State.”

The “Deep State” adherents are the long-serving entrenched bureaucrats who are key to making the engine of government function. Presidents come and go, but those in the “Deep State” are 15, 20 and longer in year’s entrenched mid-level managers and upper level managers to which paper work and duties of carrying out the decisions and proclamations of a president must go to be enacted. They sit in very key cubicles and corner offices having worked their way up by knowing how to get along to go along, and to NOT rock the boat of the “Deep State” loyalists who, in many ways, are hand chosen just for such entrenchment. They can effectively misplace paperwork. They can send critical paperwork and files down a very wrong path which will take weeks, if not months, to discover and retrieve. They have an almost unlimited amount of experience gumming up the process of making government ineffective. It requires strong and decisive leaders as Presidential Appointees placed in very strategic positions to compensate for these almost incomprehensible incompetents; which, some are, and many are simply bureaucrats with no skin in the game, and no concept of what is taking place outside the District of Columbia and accompanying commuter communities like Alexandria, Virginia and Bethesda, Maryland to simply name two. Worse…they don’t care what is taking place across the fruited plains.

So…to be clear, the “Deep State” are the very cunning, most screwed and adept managers of keeping all things just as they are, with little to no advancement, and with no one ever becoming wiser. The “Deep State” most senior members are those who actually participate in the briefings to presidential candidates, thereby getting a good close-up assessment of the potential new boss. These close-up meetings actually also allow for decisions to be formulated as to just how much, how deep, and how detailed the information they are to share once a president moves into the Oval. From the late 1990’s the “Deep State” actually became more “in charge” than the public would ever know. This is but another reason the “Deep State” is so intent upon getting rid of Donald Trump. He clearly is not part of the cabal, and Trump represents a massive bomb going off blowing the carefully scripted plans all these years up! They want their power back, and don’t care how they go about it…even if it means coordinating a coop to vacate the Oval Office of the current occupant!

The members of the “Dark State” are a different animal; although, they, too, have gummed-up the effective workings of government to accomplish their goals and agendas; namely, to collapse the United States into the New-World Order, the Global community which will be hedonistic and communistic in style and belief, and worse! The members of this diabolical state are many whose names you are acquainted with; the Clintons, Obamas, Schiff, Pelosi, Schumer, Clapper, Comey, Brennan, Mueller, with a list very long, and many within the list not named in publications often. The list does not exclude Republicans, with many on the Republican side like, McConnell, McCain, Romney, Paul Ryan, examples…and include the Bush Family to this list along with still many others who have adopted the global community goal.

The silent coup that continues some 18 months after Mr. Trump’s election is an example of the crisis our Nation faces, but many are placing a spin on the subject. The entire Russian collusion was a product of the Dark State within the intelligence community as well as the State Department working hand-in-hand to defeat, and now Impeach a properly elected President of the United States who was NEVER a member of the Dark State, and who represents all the opposite the Dark State stands for and has been implementing since Reagan. The combining of our Nation’s intelligence agencies along with cooperation from the Department of Justice and the State Department, with coordination coming from the White House is breathtaking, scary, and unprecedented on many levels. The fact that members of the Dark State are still influencing the appointments to serve in key positions for the President is simply one example of how deep and tangled the swamp truly has become. The ruining of lives and careers, finances and families is another example. The ability to develop sophisticated files and manufactured evidence, and then have almost the entire so-called journalist corps blindly and dutifully report and regurgitate such made-up lies is still another example of just how far reaching the Dark State network has evolved. The Department of Justice is so compromised that the IG Report submitted to Congress was a truly BIG DEAL, and enigma. The report is a disappointment given the grave condition of the FBI and DOJ.

The Attorney General is in over his head.

He is a nice and sincere guy, a manager but not a leader. The position was offered to him after Rudy Giuliani refused to accept. There was no question that Jeff Sessions was loyal to Trump, and really to this day remains so. He is simply the wrong guy in a terribly key position, and is in over his head. Compromised…most likely not. Sobered and even scared to piss off the wrong people and show up not healthy, most likely that hypothesis has more merit. The entire DOJ including FBI is compromised by a trilogy of Dark State, Deep State, and members of the Islamic Movement. The entire DOJ structure needs to be cleaned out boldly. Sessions cannot accomplish this, he is not the leader that is needed for such a massive and far-reaching operation as such. A manager, yes; but a leader who can clean the swamp at DOJ, no! Now I would not want to challenge Mark Levin…I really like him and respect his knowledge, brains, and network of friends. So Levin claims Session has been “black mailed” I will not argue. But I also submit my aforesaid statement for your consideration.

We are observing two America’s colliding within the borders of the United States of America.

While sharing insights is still a much needed work, far more so is the preparing of people as to who shall they serve? Shall they serve God or Man? Shall they be loyal to the Judeo-Christian principles our Nation was founded upon, and submit (cooperate) with God’s Law or will they succumb to Man-made doctrine comprised of humanistic and diabolical schemes and dark values? Does America move closer to the God who inspired her, and for which our Founders acknowledged in so many ways, or the seductive Marxist doctrines steadily seeping into our schools, churches, social structure and government? Sitting and listening to speakers entertain is NOT working. People get up from such meetings and return to their life-styles with no action plan, no support systems, and no leadership willing to restore our American principles. Reminding citizens of the profound reasons our Nation was so conceived is more critical today than at any time in our history. People simply are uneducated about how and why America is exceptional (not perfect or without blemish) among ALL nations except Israel. Trump is attempting to make America Great Again because we are unique, and this contributes to why the “Deep State” hates him so.

So…”Deep State” or “Dark State” both entities represent deep states of rebellion. Mr. Trump truly needs the prayers of We the People to accomplish what he was elected to perform – Make America Great Again!

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