Tag Archive for: DOJ

AG Barr has authorized federal prosecutors to pursue ‘substantial allegations’ of voting irregularities before the 2020 presidential election is certified

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Breaking! Attorney General William Barr has authorized federal prosecutors to pursue “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities before the 2020 presidential election is certified.

AP: Attorney General William Barr has authorized federal prosecutors across the U.S. to pursue “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities before the 2020 presidential election is certified, despite little evidence of fraud.

Barr’s action comes days after Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump and raises the prospect that Trump will use the Justice Department to try to challenge the outcome. It gives prosecutors the ability to go around longstanding Justice Department policy that normally would prohibit such overt actions before the election is formally certified.

Trump has not conceded the election and is instead claiming without evidence that there has been a widespread, multi-state conspiracy by Democrats to skew the vote tally in Biden’s favor.

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UPDATE: Real Clear Politics has not called NC, GA, AZ, AK and never called PA

AOC says she might quit politics as Dems pin losses on progressives and top black lawmaker James Clyburn says defund the police was a disaster

Fox News’s Neil Cavuto Abruptly CUTS OFF White House Press Secretary, CNN, Media Lavish Praise

AOC: I’m Doing ‘Everything’ To Win Georgia For Democrats So We Don’t Have To ‘Negotiate’ With Republicans

Fox News Ratings CRASH, Ends Week In THIRD PLACE

10 GOP State AGs Announce Brief to SCOTUS on Pennsylvania Mail-in Ballots Case

Report: In 353 U.S. Counties, 1.8 Million More Voters Registered Than Eligible Citizens

MARCH FOR TRUMP: Washington DC, 12 PM, November 14th, Saturday, Freedom Plaza

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Justice Department Designates Al Jazeera ‘Agent of Qatari Government’

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AJ+, a subsidiary of Qatar’s media arm Al Jazeera, will now be required to register in the U.S. as a foreign agent, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Justice Department also declared the Al Jazeera Media Network an “agent of the Qatar government.” Al Jazeera is owned by Qatar’s ruling family.

The new requirement falls under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a safeguard that was put in place in 1938 for the purpose of addressing threats to national security and promoting transparency with respect to influence ops conducted by foreign governments within the U.S.

The act requires that the government, as well as the public, are kept abreast of the source of information coming from foreign governments aiming to influence American public opinion, policy and laws.

Under FARA, AJ+ will have to disclose that information to the government which, in turn, will make the information available on a database accessible to the public.

Al Jazeera spends hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbyists, think-tanks and U.S. universities to influence American public opinion and policy. The emir of Qatar personally appoints its board.

In August of 2013, the network launched Al Jazeera America. Outrage was felt in a number of circles and pressure was put on the channel’s advertisers. Three years later, Al Jazeera America, which generated consistently poor ratings, shut down citing the “economic landscape.

Qatar has a history of aiding and supporting terror groups, including Al-Qaeda, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood as well as the Iranian regime.

Al Jazeera media outlets are known for its parroting of the regime’s views. They also have long histories of spreading antisemitism.

In 2019, AJ+ Arabic came under fire for producing a Holocaust-denial video. The video denied exterminations at the Nazi concentration camps and accused “the Zionists” of being the main beneficiary of the Holocaust.

One of the most egregious acts by the network occurred in 2008 when Al Jazeera made an on-air birthday party for notorious Palestine Liberation Front terrorist Samir Kuntar.

In 1979, Kuntar headed a group of four terrorists who infiltrated Israel, killed a policeman, broke into an apartment and shot a father to death and murdered his four-year old daughter by smashing her skull against a rock. During the attack, the mother, who was hiding with her two-year old daughter, accidentally smothered the child to death trying to keep her quiet.

In the letter sent to AJ+, the Justice Department noted that the Qatari government was free to “withdraw or limit funding at any time.”

The letter coincided with a visit to the U.S. by top-ranking officials from Qatar to strengthen US-Qatar diplomatic and economic relations.

Other media outlets required to register as foreign agents include Russia’s RT and Sputnik, Turkish public broadcaster TRT, and five Chinese media outlets

The letter was also sent the day before two historic peace treaties were signed with Israel by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain. The two countries are among a number of Arab countries at odds with Qatar over their support of terror.

While Left-wing media outlets opined that the designation was pushed by the UAE as a condition to signing the treaty, the UAE ambassador to the U.S. flatly denied that claim.

“At no point in our discussions was Al Jazeera or even Qatar raised,” Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba told The New York Times.

“They [Al Jazeera] are really not as important as they think they are,” al-Otaiba added.

Three years ago, a coalition of Gulf States including Saudi Arabia and the UAE as well as Egypt and other Sunni states in North Africa cut off relations and trade with Qatar for their support of terror.

SEE MORE ON JAZEERA & QATAR

Questioning Qatar’s Terror Financing? Here Are the Facts

Al Jazeera Opens Propaganda Front on U.S. Shores

Northwestern University Partners with Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera Wants You to Hate Thanksgiving

Al Jazeera Arabic: Should All the Alawites Be Slaughtered?

Islamic Scholar Pledges Allegiance to ISIS on Al Jazeera

New York Times Shills for Al Jazeera

Rep. Sherman on Al Jazeera: Your Owners Fund Hamas

Watch Clarion Project’s latest documentary Covert Cash on the influence foreign money has on American Universities:

EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

At Least 3 Federal Agencies Investigating Ilhan Omar

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With President Trump acquitted of impeachment charges, the focus is back on at least three federal agencies investigating Ilhan Omar.

David Steinberg, who has been closely tracking Ilhan Omar’s legal controversies offers a breakdown on the latest investigations against the freshman congresswoman. Steinberg reports that Omar is under investigation by at least three federal agencies: the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Education (DOE) Inspector General, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

  • In 2019, the FBI held a formal meeting to discuss the evidence against Omar. It has since found this evidence compelling enough to share with the other agencies
  • The DOE is evaluating evidence that Omar married a UK citizen in 2009 with the possible intent to commit student loan fraud
  • ICE is looking at the marriage to a UK citizen through the lens of immigration fraud. This is in reference to the widely circulating rumor that Ilhan Omar married her brother

Possible crimes by Ilhan Omar date back to 2016 when there was already enough evidence to formally look into her background. Publicly available state records plus her own social media posts were significant first-hand evidence. Most were saved before Omar began scrubbing the evidence.

Throughout the investigations, Omar has sailed through media scrutiny because she was packaged and presented by liberals as an opportune foil against President Trump.

The most recent controversy around Omar includes accusations that, while married, she is was having an affair with her political consultant Tim Mynett, which resulted in a divorce for the Mynetts. Despite Omar denying the affair, Mynett’s wife pointed to the affair with Omar as grounds for the divorce.

In January 2020, it was also confirmed that 40 percent of Omar’s campaign fourth-quarter spending in 2019 went to Mynett’s political consulting group. Total amount to Mynett at the tail end of 2019 comes out to $216,564.64.

The only media outlets that challenge Ilhan Omar’s identity-based narrative and are doing their job as journalists are independent personalities and outlets. Those include Scott W. Johnson, Preya Samsundar, PJ Media, Judicial Watch, and Laura Loomer.

Omar’s 2020 re-election for Minnesota’s 5th district is being challenged by Dalia Al-Aqidi.

Al-Aqidi represents the same diverse identity markers the Left loves: She’s a refugee; she’s an immigrant; she’s escaped a war zone; and she’s a Muslim American. Dalia is also a journalist, bringing the same grit to the race to challenge Omar on the one thing that matters most: ideas, service to constituents and community.

Clarion Project spoke with Dalia Al-Aqidi on the issue of multiple law enforcement branches looking into Ilhan Omar’s history. Dalia shares,

“While the FBI does its job, I will continue to do my job as a congressional candidate in Minnesota’s 5th district. The constituents need someone to work for them and that’s what I’m doing. I’m here but where is she?”

While the race is on, journalists with integrity like David Steinberg continue to do the heavy lifting that mainstream media outlets have long abandoned in favor of agenda-driven journalism.

As Steinberg warns Americans of Ilhan Omar’s conduct, he underscores that, “The facts describe[d] perhaps the most extensive spree of illegal misconduct committed by a House member in American history.”

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Ilhan Omar Asks for Protection of a Somali Company Linked to Terror

Dalia Al-Aqidi: The Interview Ilhan Omar Refused to Accept

Ilhan Omar Forces New Conversation Around Somali Refugees

EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Trump Admin to Create Special “Office of Transparency” to Expedite Release of Stalled DOJ Docs

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Posted by Eeyore

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Report of Investigation of Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey’s Disclosure of Sensitive Investigative  Information

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The Plot Thickens: Grassley-Graham Letter Sheds New Light on Steele Dossier, Nunes Memo

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While politicians, pundits, and the people continue to react to (and spin) the contents of the Nunes memo that was released last Friday, and await the release of the Democrats’ rebuttal, a new document has been released that contains tidbits of illuminating information.

On Jan. 4, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on crime and terrorism, submitted a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray requesting that they consider investigating Christopher Steele for lying to the FBI, which is a federal crime.

Steele is the former British spy who was hired and paid $160,000 by Fusion GPS, a research company working on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to do opposition research on Donald Trump. Steele is also the individual who produced a dossier that was used to support an application for a warrant to engage in electronic surveillance of Carter Page, a suspected foreign agent (wittingly or unwittingly) of the Russian government who was also working as an unpaid foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign.

And it is Steele’s credibility, as well as allegations of political bias at senior levels of the FBI, that are the center of this dispute.

Grassley-Graham Memo Informs Our Understanding of Nunes Memo

Attached to that referral letter was an eight-page classified memorandum (“Grassley/Graham memo”) setting forth the basis for the referral. Wray, very much to his credit, has declassified much (but not all) of the information in that memorandum, which has now been released.

The initial application (which was subsequently renewed three times) was filed on October 21, 2016, pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and was signed by a judge on the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

As I wrote in a previous article, Former FBI Director James Comey has testified that the information in the Steele dossier was “unverified” at the time the initial FISA application was submitted, and, according to the Nunes memo, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified before the House intelligence committee that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] with the Steele dossier information,” suggesting the FBI did not believe probable cause existed based on the information it gathered on its own.

Several Democrats have charged that the Nunes memo mischaracterized McCabe’s testimony and have implied that there was more than enough information in the FISA application to support issuing the warrant without information from the Steele dossier.

In their referral memorandum, Grassley and Graham, who have reviewed all four FISA applications in their entirety, “as well as numerous other FBI documents relating to Steele,” make statements which, assuming they are true, tend to support what is contained in the Nunes memo.

Specifically, the Grassley/Graham memo states that the Steele dossier “formed a significant portion of the FBI’s warrant application,” that the application “relied more heavily on Steele’s credibility than on any independent verification or corroboration for his claims,” and that the basis for the warrant “rests largely” on Steele’s credibility.

The Steele dossier contains explosive allegations that the Russian government, acting under orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin, was carrying out an operation to tilt the election in Trump’s favor and that the Russian government had compromising information of a financial and sexual nature against Trump that could be used to blackmail him at some point in the future.

Why the FBI Trusted Steele

The FBI, it seems, trusted Steele and relied on this information because of his background as a spy and because he had provided the bureau with reliable information on several occasions in the past.

According to the Grassley/Graham memo, the FBI stated in its initial FISA application that, “based on [Steele’s] previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby [Steele] provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes [Steele’s] reporting to be credible.”

While that may have been so in the past, there was plenty of reason to distrust Steele in this case.

In addition to the fact that he was working on behalf of the DNC and Trump’s opponent in the presidential election, Steele detested Trump. A month before the government filed its first FISA application, Steele told Bruce Ohr, a senior Justice Department official whose wife worked for Fusion GPS, that he was “desperate” to see that Trump not win the election.

Moreover, the Steele dossier itself is replete with statement allegedly provided to Steele by various unnamed sources whom Steele claims are or were senior Russian officials or people who were close to them. In other words, the validity of the dossier depended not only on the credibility of the man preparing the dossier (whose credibility was subject to doubt in this case), but also his assessment of the credibility of other unidentified sources who were feeding him information.

Did Clinton Sources Contribute to Steele Dossier?

As disturbing as that is, another revelation in the Grassley/Graham memo is even more concerning.

The memo suggests that some of the information being fed to Steele and included in his dossier did not come from highly-placed Russian sources, but from people associated with the Clintons.

There has been some speculation that this individual may have been Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and employee of the Clinton Foundation and a long-time close confidant of Hillary Clinton.

As the memo states, “[i]t is troubling enough that the Clinton Campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but that these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele allegations raises additional concerns about his credibility.”

Steele’s Relationship With FBI

The nature of the lies that Steele may have told the FBI are also significant.

Given the fact that the information in the Steele dossier was “unverified” and was central to the FISA application, the FBI was looking for some, any, information that might be deemed corroborative. According to the Grassley/Graham memo, at the time of the initial FISA application, Steele had told the FBI that he had not disclosed the contents of his dossier to anyone other than the bureau and Fusion GPS.

Roughly one month beforehand, Yahoo News, presumably doing its own investigative work, published an article that, as the FISA application stated, “generally match[ed] the information about [Carter] Page that [Steele] discovered doing [his] own research … .”

According to the Grassley/Graham memo, the FBI affirmatively stated in the FISA application that it did not believe Steele was the source of the information that appeared in the Yahoo News article, which attributed the source of its information to “a well-placed Western intelligence source … .”

If the Yahoo News source was indeed an independent source, this would be significant, but it wasn’t. Contrary to what he told the FBI, Steele had, in fact, provided information in his dossier to others. The source of the information in the Yahoo News article was Steele himself.

Steele, no doubt anxious to get his revelations into the public domain before the election, was leaking like a sieve. In addition to speaking to Yahoo News, Steele provided background briefings to CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and possibly other media outlets.

Shortly after the initial FISA warrant was obtained, Mother Jones published its own article in which Steele outed himself as an FBI confidential source, which prompted the FBI to formally terminate Steele’s designation as a trusted source.

Friends of Steele’s have stated that Steele was deeply troubled by what he learned during his investigation of Trump and that he felt like he was “sitting on a nuclear weapon.” Perhaps that was so.

But given the explosive nature of charges, the relationship of the target (Page) to the Trump campaign in the heat of a close election battle, the fact that Steele was paid by (and possibly given unsourced information by) the Clinton campaign, it was incumbent on the FBI to verify as much of this information as it could or, at the very least, to reveal to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court every bit of information it had that might cast doubt on Steele’s credibility.

In summary, the initial FISA application and, most likely, the renewal applications, relied extensively on the credibility of Steele. Yet in addition to the fact that it failed to disclose the full extent of Steele’s known or potential bias in the initial application, when the FBI learned that Steele had not been truthful during the process, it did not, it seems, tell that to the FISA court.

As Graham has stated: “You can be an FBI informant. You can be a political operative. But you can’t be both, particularly at the same time.”

All attorneys before a court have a duty of candor, which means they must disclose “all material facts known to the lawyer that will enable the tribunal to make an informed decision, whether or not the facts are adverse.” Would the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge have signed the warrant if this information had been disclosed? We will never know.

This is, of course, a developing story, and more information will likely be revealed once the memo from Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is disclosed, assuming that it is disclosed.

Speaking of the Schiff memo, some Democrats have expressed the fear that the president, who must approve the memo’s release, will make “political redactions” to the memo to prevent the disclosure of information that will be unfavorable to him.  And some Republican sources have expressed the fear that the Democrats may have intentionally included highly sensitive information in their memo so that, if redacted by Trump, it would enable them to argue that the president is hiding something.

Let’s hope neither of these is true.

It is, of course, vital that the president protect against the disclosure of sensitive “sources and methods” that could imperil the integrity of current or future national security investigations. That having been said, it is also important that the public get to the bottom of what happened here. As I have previously stated, this “matter should be thoroughly and dispassionately (to the extent that is possible in Washington, D.C.) investigated. The matter is too important to do otherwise.”

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of John G. Malcolm

John G. Malcolm

John G. Malcolm oversees The Heritage Foundation’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as director of the think tank’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Read his research. Twitter: .

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Jeff Sessions’ Devotion to the Constitution Shines Through in Contentious Confirmation Hearing

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On January 10 and 11, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held the confirmation hearing for President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for United States Attorney General, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Throughout his distinguished career in public service, which includes 12 years as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, Sessions has exhibited the utmost respect for our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and has worked tirelessly to prosecute those who use guns in the commission of a crime. Despite the best efforts of some to disrupt the hearing and promote scurrilous allegations, an image of the real Sessions came through during the hearing – that of a principled statesman devoted to our Constitution.

Since his days as a U.S. Attorney, Sessions has pursued the vigorous prosecution of those who misuse firearms to prey on the public. During his opening remarks, Sessions made clear that he will make the prosecution of armed criminals a priority, noting, “If I am confirmed, we will systematically prosecute criminals who use guns in committing crimes. As United States Attorney, my office was a national leader in gun prosecutions every year.”

Later in his opening remarks, Sessions spoke of the importance of the Constitution, stating, “The Justice Department must remain ever faithful to the Constitution’s promise that our government is one of laws, not of men. It will be my unyielding commitment, if I am confirmed, to see that the laws are enforced faithfully, effectively, and impartially.” Given the prior administration’s propensity to stretch federal statute beyond its plain or intended meaning, gun owners should find such devotion to the rule of law a refreshing change.

From the outset, many of Sessions’ Senate colleagues were effusive in their praise of the nominee. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) noted that Sessions “is a man of honor and integrity, dedicated to the faithful and fair enforcement of the law who knows well and deeply respects the Department of Justice and its constitutional role.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) stated, “I can vouch confidently for the fact that Jeff Sessions is a person of integrity, a principled leader, and a dedicated public servant.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told Sessions, “You’re a good and decent and honorable man. You’ve got an outstanding record that you should be proud of, and I know you are and you should be.”

Pointing to NRA-supported Project Exile, Cornyn went on to ask Sessions, “Can you assure us that you will make prosecuting those people who cannot legally possess or use firearms a priority again in the Department of Justice?” Sessions responded “I can,” adding that Project Exile “highlighted the progress that was being made by prosecuting criminals who use guns to carry out their crimes.” Sessions further noted that as a result of the strict enforcement of federal gun laws against armed criminals “Fewer people get killed,” and that “we need to step that up. It’s a compassionate thing.”

During his time, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pointed out some of the dangerous and partisan actions taken by the DOJ under Barack Obama – including Operation Fast and Furious and Operation Chokepoint – and asked whether Republicans, having taken control of the executive branch, should respond in kind by using the DOJ to “advance political preferences favored by the Republican party.” Sessions replied “No,” and explained that such partisan actions have “a corrosive effect on public confidence in the constitutional republic of which we are sworn to uphold.”

Anti-gun Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) questioned Sessions on the topic of gun control, asking, “Will you rigorously enforce statues that prohibit purchase of guns by felons or domestic abusers or drug addicts and use the statues that exist right now on the books to ban those individuals from purchasing guns?” Sessions responded adeptly, explaining, “Congress has passed those laws, they remain the bread and butter enforcement mechanisms throughout our country today to enforce guns laws. The first and foremost goal I think of law enforcement would be to identify persons who are dangerous, who have a tendency or have been proven to be law breakers and been convicted and those who are caught carrying guns during the commission of a crime.”

Despite the fact that, if confirmed, Sessions would be moving from a law-making capacity to enforcing the laws created by Congress, Blumenthal went on to ask Sessions if he supported so-called “universal” background check legislation for firearm transfers. Sessions dismissed the notion as impractical in many circumstances.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) used his time to ask Sessions to share his thoughts on the Second Amendment. Sessions responded with a staunch defense of the right to keep and bear arms, stating, “I do believe the Second Amendment is a personal right. It’s an historic right of the American people, and the Constitution protects that and explicitly states that. It’s just as much a part of the Constitution as any of the other great rights and liberties that we value.”

As befitting his character, Sessions was not fazed by repeated attempts to disrupt his confirmation hearing. Some of the professional agitators that could be seen in the crowd have previously protested and attempted to disrupt NRA events and business. During the Sessions hearing, one such provocateur from Code Pink was removed from the hearing while carrying a sign that in part read, “Support Civil Rights.” The scene will strike many gun rights supporters as bizarre, given that the protestor’s group has a history of opposing the natural right to self-defense and the corresponding right to keep and bear arms.

In closing the first day of the committee hearing, Grassley told Sessions, “You’re imminently qualified to serve as attorney general and I have every confidence that you’re going to do a superb job.” Grassley is right. However, whether due to petty partisan politics, or attempts at personal political profit, there are still some who seek to derail Sessions’ confirmation.

That is why it is vital that gun owners take the time to urge their Senators to confirm Sessions as U.S. Attorney General. NRA has made it easier than ever for gun rights supporters to contact their elected officials. To help ensure Sessions is the next U.S. Attorney General please use the following link to register your support: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20170105/urge-your-senators-to-confirm-jeff-sessions. You can also call your U.S. Senators via the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

VIDEO: Princeton Professor debunks climate change propaganda

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John Casey, author and former NASA rocket scientist, has taught me three facts about the climate:

  1. The climate changes.
  2. The changes are cyclical.
  3. There is nothing mankind can do to change these natural cycles.

As John notes the only thing that mankind can do is prepare for these changes using good science and the best climate prediction tools to warn us of the coming changes.

The New American (TNA) interviewed Princeton University Professor William Happer on the notion that CO2 is a pollutant and is the cause of climate change, formally known as global warming. TNA reports:

Physics Professor William Happer discredits the negative effects of CO2 on the planet and whether or not climate change is man-made. He also goes into detail of why the United Nation’s models are incorrect despite their overwhelming confidence that significant warming is taking place due to human activity.

Erick Erickson in a column titled The Real Reason Leftwing Groups Are Freaked Out by Trump’s EPA Pick reports:

Leftwing groups are freaking out about Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s Attorney General and Donald Trump’s nominee for the EPA. It is safe to say that the collective meltdown over Pruitt is greater than over any other Trump pick. You probably have no idea why and it has nothing to do with climate change.

Superficially, progressives are saying that Pruitt is a climate change denier and has no business managing the agency he sued so often. But that’s just cover.

The real reason has everything to do with money.

With the blessing of the Department of Justice, the EPA has been going after major corporations and telling those corporations that they can pay a massive fine to the federal government or pay a lesser amount to various environmentalist groups.

Read more…

Its always about the money. Radical environmentalists are being funded by the EPA. The EPA is using its power to regulate and partnering with the DOJ to harm every business in America.

Well there’s a new sheriff in town and this government theft is going to stop.

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Kosovo Muslim arrested for hacking U.S. Military files for the Islamic State

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“A statement from the U.S. Department of Justice said Mr Ferizi, known by his moniker ‘Th3Dir3ctorY’, hacked into a U.S. company’s systems in order to take the personal details of 1,351 U.S. military and government staff.” The repercussions of that theft could be felt for quite some time.

“Malaysia arrests Kosovo man for ‘hacking US files for IS,’” BBC, October 16, 2015 (thanks to Lookmann):

A Kosovan man has been arrested in Malaysia for allegedly hacking into a computer database and providing information on US security officials to the so-called Islamic State group.

The man, who is in his 20s, was detained on 15 September, Malaysian police said in a statement on Thursday.

Separately, the US identified him as Ardit Ferizi, thought to head a hacker group called Kosova Hacker’s Security (KHS).

Mr Ferizi will be extradited to the US.

A statement from the US Department of Justice said Mr Ferizi, known by his moniker “Th3Dir3ctorY”, hacked into a US company’s systems in order to take the personal details of 1,351 US military and government staff.

He will be charged with computer hacking and identity theft, and faces up to 35 years in jail, the statement added….

Between June and August this year, Mr Ferizi is alleged to have passed the data on to IS member Junaid Hussain, also known as Abu Hussain al-Britani, who later posted the details online along with a threat to target the officials….

Malaysia has arrested more than 100 people this year, suspected of links to IS, including ten people in August – six of them members of Malaysia’s security forces.

What? 100 people in modern, moderate Malaysia misunderstood Islam so drastically as to adhere to the Islamic State?

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Goodbye Eric Holder

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In a nation where there is a scarcity of good news, hearing Eric Holder give a farewell speech upon his announcement that he will be leaving as the Attorney General was surely welcome in some circles. I was never a fan of his because he was in my opinion always more of a politician than someone with the responsibility to enforce the laws of the nation.

I first took notice of Holder when, in the pre-dawn hours of April 22, 2000, as the deputy attorney general serving under Janet Reno, he oversaw the seizure of Elian Gonzalez, a seven-year-old whose mother had died in an effort to escape Cuba and find sanctuary in the United States. Holder was doing what he had to do after a court ruled that Gonzalez be returned to his father in Cuba, but I thought then and still do that Gonzalez should have been allowed to remain with his U.S. relatives.

When Barack Obama became President, he selected Holder as his Attorney General. Both had made history being the first blacks to hold either job. Within three weeks or so, Holder was saying that Americans were “cowards” for not addressing issues of race in America. That told me all I needed to know about him. Whatever would follow would frequently be judged on the basis of race, not justice. I wouldn’t want a white attorney general to act in that fashion, but a black one nursing feelings of victimization despite his personal achievements did not bode well.

I have not been alone in my misgivings. On news of Holder’s announcement, The Heartland Institute, a free market think tank, called on some of its advisors for their opinions.

Ronald D. Rotunda, the Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence at Chapman University, had his own memories of Holder:

“Mr. Holder is leaving the office, but he cannot so easily leave the controversies that have surrounded his tenure, including: the scandal surrounding the IRS, the missing emails, and his role in investigating the scandal; the ‘Fast and Furious’ scandal, which made him the first cabinet member in U.S. history that Congress held in contempt; his decision to drop a prosecution against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation, after the Department of Justice successfully secured an injunction; and the unprecedented decision, which Holder personally approved, to subpoena, monitor, and issue a search warrant involving James Rosen, a Fox News Reporter” “Holder will leave the office, but is unlikely to leave the national stage because these controversies remain,” said Prof. Rotunda.

Jane M. Orient, M.D., Executive Director of the Association of Physicians and Surgeons, said:

“The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons first got to know Eric Holder when he represented the government in our lawsuit about the illegal operations of the Clinton Task Force on Health Care Reform. The pattern then was stonewalling and obfuscation. Even when task force members finally turned over some documents on court order, many of the floppy disks were blank. Holder declined to prosecute Ira Magaziner, head of the Task Force Working Group, for perjury.”

‘It seems,” said Dr. Orient, “that some government officials never learn that the cover-up can be worse than the underlying conduct,’’ Judge Lamberth added. ‘Most shocking to this court, and deeply disappointing, is that the Department of Justice would participate in such conduct… This type of conduct is reprehensible, and the government must be held accountable for it…The pattern has only worsened with Holder as the highest law enforcement officer in the land. Who will ever hold him and the White House accountable?”

Jesse Hathaway, Managing Editor of Heartland’s Budget & Tax News, said:

“Eric Holder’s resignation represents an opportunity for the President to appoint an Attorney General willing to end what some have seen as a witch-hunt against American banks. Under Holder, the Department of Justice shook down Bank of America for billions of dollars, as punishment the bank’s alleged crime of complying with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and lending money to individuals unable to repay. The CRA mandated that banks must make bad loans, the banks complied with the bad policy, but the bank is not at fault for the results of that bad policy.”

“Hopefully, said Hathaway, “whomever replaces Holder as ‘top cop’ will understand how causality works, and end the practice of shaking down the finance industry as punishment for following Washington DC’s orders.”

Holder’s instincts as Attorney General generated a huge public outcry when he decided to try the September 11 plotters in a New York courthouse within walking distance of the destroyed Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Lawmakers, New York City officials, and some of the victim’s families thought that was a very bad idea and Holder reversed the decision and sent the cases to military court. 9/11 was clearly an act of war, but neither the President, nor Holder saw it that way.

Holder made a bit of history when he refused to defend a law that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. He made more history when, refusing to hand over documents regarding Fast and Furious, a scandal involving gun trafficking to Mexican drug cartels, Congress voted to hold him in contempt, the first time an attorney general had been censured in that way. Holder, however, held onto his job because the President had thrown a cloak of “executive privilege” over the scandal, stonewalling Congress.

To be fair, Holder has been lauded for policies that were applauded for reducing crime during his tenure in office and urging a revision to sentences that did not reflect the crimes, reducing the nation’s prison population in the process.

In the end, though, it seems like everything was about race for him and the President. Holder inserted himself into the Ferguson, Missouri, shooting of a black youth by a white police officer and, while the facts are still being investigated, the likelihood is that it was justifiable self-defense. And the President, speaking at the United Nations last week also mentioned Ferguson as an example of America’s racial bias. What happened in Ferguson was about law enforcement and justice, but neither saw it in that fashion.

What America needs now for the remainder of Obama’s term in office is a colorblind Attorney General.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

RELATED ARTICLE: Obama: Holder ‘Opened Door’ to Same-Sex Marriage by Refusing to Defend Law

Connecting the Red Dots: Where convicted illegal alien murderers were released

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I grew up believing you people in Washington took your oaths seriously to protect the citizens yet ICE released 169 convicted killers and a total of 35,000 other criminals back into our society because their home countries won’t take them back. Together, they committed nearly 88,000 crimes, according to recently released report.

Question: A total of 36,000 illegal aliens involved whose countries won’t take them back must be a large number of countries. So how many are there?

Do you in Congress have the names of the countries refusing to back their citizens? Do you know which of those countries we currently give financial aid? Do you plan on stopping all aid immediately to any country that won’t take back their citizens? If not, why not?

What about transferring them all to Guantanamo Bay so they won’t be a threat to U.S. citizens?

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Click on the map for a larger view.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Feds Let Go of Dozens of Convicted Murder Illegal Immigrants, See Where They Are on This Map | National Review Online

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of 100PercentFedUp.com.

Scandal Exhaustion

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Listening to President Obama respond on May 21 to the latest scandal regarding something about which he knew and did nothing—the mess at the Veterans Administration—was such a familiar event that I have reached a point of exhaustion trying to keep up with everything that has been so wrong about his six years in office. As he always does, he said was really angry about it.

Writing in the May 20 Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin said, “Forget ideology for a moment. Whether you are liberal or conservative, the Obama presidency’s parade of miscues is jaw-dropping.”

Stacked against the list of Obama scandals and failures, Rubin could only cite the Bush administration’s 2005 handling of Hurricane Katrina, the seventh most intense ever, and, as anyone familiar with that event will tell you, the failure of FEMA’s response was matched by the failures of Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and the New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Bush had declared a national emergency two days before it hit the Gulf coast.

Rubin concluded that the Obama administration scandals “reflect the most widespread failure of executive leadership since the Harding administration”, adding “The presidency is an executive job. We hire neophytes at our peril. When there is an atmosphere in which accountability is not stressed you get more scandals and fiascos.”

Obama spent his entire first term blaming all such things on his predecessor, George W. Bush, until it became a joke.

One has to wonder about the effect of the endless succession of scandals and fiascos have had on Americans as individuals and the nation as a whole.

While it is easier to lay all the blame on Obama, the fact is that much of the blame is the result of a federal government that is so big no President could possibly know about the countless programs being undertaken within its departments and agencies, and all the Presidents dating back to Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive initiatives have played a role in growing the government.

It is, however, the President who selects the cabinet members responsible to manage the departments as well as those appointed to manage the various agencies. Kathleen Sebelius, the recently resigned former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, responsible for the implementation of Obamacare, comes to mind. She had solicited donations—against the law—from the companies HHS regulates to help her sign up uninsured Americans for Obamacare and signed off on the millions spent on HealthCare.gov and other expenses leading up to its start.

AA - Obama's Scandals

For a larger view click on the graphic.

There are lists of the Obama scandals you can Google. One that continues to fester is the attack on September 11, 2012—the anniversary of 9/11—that killed an American ambassador and three security personnel in Benghazi, Libya. It has been and continues to be investigated, mostly because of the lies told by Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of “What difference at this point does it make?” fame. Clinton was asked what she had accomplished in her four years as Secretary and was unable to name anything.

Eric Holder, our Attorney General, continues in office despite having been held in contempt of Congress, professing that he knew nothing about “Fast and Furious”, the earliest scandal involving a gun-running scheme to Mexican drug cartels by the ATF presumably to track them, but they lost track and many were used in crimes including the killing of a Border Patrol agent.

Holder also told Congress that he was not associated with the “potential prosecution” of a journalist even though he had signed the affidavit that named Fox News reporter, James Rosen. as a potential criminal. Holder was also in charge when the Justice Department culled the phone records of Associated Press reporters to find out who they deemed was leaking information.

Keeping track of the solar power and other “renewable” and “Green” energy companies like Solyndra that received millions in grants and then rather swiftly went bankrupt became a fulltime effort and, of course, there was the “stimulus” that wasted billions without generating any “shovel ready jobs” qualifies as a fiasco.

In the midst of the recession that was triggered by the 2008 financial crisis various elements of the Obama administration continued to spend money in ways that suggested their indifference. In 2010 the General Services Administration held a $823,000 training conference in Las Vegas, complete with a clown and mind readers.

An Agriculture Department program to compensate black farmers who allegedly had been discriminated against by the agency turned into a gravy train that delivered several billion dollars to thousands of recipients, some of whom probably had not encountered discrimination.

The Veterans Affairs agency made news when it spent more than $6 million on two conferences in Orlando, Florida, and is back in the news for revelations about alleged falsified records concerning the waiting times veterans faced amidst assertions that many died while waiting for treatment surfaced. This was a problem of which the then-Senator Obama was already aware, but six years into his presidency it still existed despite his early promises to fix it.

Obama has been the biggest of Big Government Presidents since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, and Obamacare put the federal government in control of one sixth of the nation’s economy while putting the government in charge of the care Americans expect to receive. Obamacare will dwarf the problems associated with the Veterans agency.

Meanwhile, we have been living with a President who is so indifferent to working with Congress that he has gained fame for his use of executive orders such as the decision to not deport illegal immigrants. His aides have promised more executive orders.

All this over the course of the last six years has left Americans exhausted by the incompetence and wastefulness of an administration that now presides over the highest national debt in the history of the nation and the first ever downgrade of our credit rating.

It has also left them angry if they were conservatives and disillusioned if they were Obama supporters. The Veterans Administration scandal is likely a tipping point for the independent voters and even for longtime Democrats who will want a change.

It is increasingly likely that the November midterm elections give the Republican Party control over the Senate as well as the House and then to hope that it will begin to rein in the spending and save the nation from a financial collapse that will rival the one in 2008.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

Catherine Engelbrecht v. United States

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Catherine Engelbrecht’s testimony at House of Representatives hearing on the IRS targeting her and True the Vote.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/xxcMKtsm5BU[/youtube]

ABOUT TRUE THE VOTE:

Unfortunately, Americans have lost faith in the integrity of our nation’s election results and fraud and law-breaking has become all too common in our electoral system. We hope to change that perception. True the Vote is a citizen-led effort to restore truth, faith, and integrity to our elections.

True the Vote is an initiative developed by citizens for citizens, meant to inspire and equip volunteers for involvement at every stage of our electoral process. We promote ideas that actively protect the rights of legitimate voters, regardless of their political party affiliation.

We are working to restore integrity to the American system of electing its leaders. With True the Vote, we have, “deconstructed the entire process, focusing on educating voters, examining the registry, recruiting, training and mobilizing election workers and poll watchers, training how to collect data all along the way, then use the data to shape government action and legislative agendas to support desperately needed election code reform.”

Our government was built upon the belief that election results represent the true will of the people and our election processes were always intended to be supported by citizen volunteers. We are helping stop corruption where it can start – at the polls.

Our initiatives include:

  • Mobilizing and training volunteers who are willing to work as election monitors
  • Aggressively pursuing fraud reports to ensure prosecution when appropriate
  • Providing a support system for our volunteers that includes live and online training, quick reference guides, a call bank to phone in problem reports, information on videotaping at polling places, and security as necessary
  • Creating documentaries and instructional videos for use in recruiting and training
  • Raising awareness of the problem through strategic outreach efforts including advertising, social networking, media relations, and relational marketing
  • Voter registration programs and efforts to validate existing registration lists, including the use of pattern recognition software to detect problem areas

Based in Houston, Texas and headed by Catherine Engelbrecht (President), True The Vote is staffed by volunteers all across the country. Essentially, True The Vote is you and me. Every day Americans interested in the integrity of the elections in the home district.

 

DOJ: Terrorists now control terrorist investigations, no-religious profiling!

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I receive all Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) newsletters. Today ISNA sent out a newsletter pertaining to their petitioning the Department of Justice (DOJ) to no longer consider religion in their investigations.

What does this mean? It means Islamic based terrorist supporters such as ISNA and CAIR continue to control Islamic terrorist investigations by our top investigative agencies.

Whether on 9/11, at Ft. Hood, the Trolley Square Mall Murders, the Boston Marathon bombing and a dozen other murderous attacks by Islamic terrorists in the name of Islam have soiled our beautiful country with the blood of thousands of Americans through their hate and violence. Hate and violence is Islam.

As a former U.S. Federal Agent my hands would be tied if I were investigating for instance the Ft. Hood murders by a Muslim named Major Malik Hasan. Although Hasan shouted throughout his court hearings he acted in the name of Islam, I would not be able to report this in my investigation.

U.S. Federal Agents cannot protect our country from Islamic based terrorist attacks if they have to ignore and omit the name of Islam in their investigations.

One need only look around the world at the violence and wars being fought. Islamic murderers are killing innocent people around the world as they have done for 1400 years.

During the ‘Mapping Sharia Project‘ and on my own research I have been to over 250 mosques in America. They are putting out violent material in over 75% of the 2300 mosques scattered across our country. This is just one example of what is put out from Brooklyn, NY at the mosque bookstore of Imam Siraj Wahhaj. He is often called by Congress to provide their opening prayers!

Read below what ISNA put out today.

From ISNA: 22 Jan 2014…ISNA Cautiously Hopeful on New DOJ Position on Racial Profiling:

(PLAINFIELD, IN, 1/20/14)The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) said it is cautiously hopeful with the recent announcement from U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that it will revise its policies of profiling to include prohibiting agents from considering religion in their investigations.

“The Quran says, ‘God commands justice and fair dealing…’ (16:90),” says ISNA President Imam Mohamed Magid. “On the occasion of the holiday celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who dreamed one day that ‘people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,’ we are cautiously hopeful that the Justice Department’s new policy will put this into practice by ending racial and religious profiling.”

In 2012, ISNA was among 35 organizations to send a joint letter to the Senate Subcommittee in support of the hearing to “End Racial Profiling in America.”

SEE: Senate Holds Hearing to Discuss “Ending Racial Profiling in America”

ISNA previously submitted testimony for the Subcommittee’s hearing on the issue of broad-based discrimination against American Muslims the year before.

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is the largest and oldest Islamic umbrella organization in North America. Its mission is to foster the development of the Muslim community, interfaith relations, civic engagement, and better understanding of Islam.

I urge every American to call law enforcement agencies assigned to DOJ and demand they return to protecting innocent Americans and stop standing up for Islamic terror supporters like CAIR and ISNA.  Call your Senators and Congressmen.  You do not have to be nice and respectful to them as many conservative action leaders urge you to do.  These people work for you…the American citizen.  They do not work for non profit IRS sponsored Islamic organizations.

Scream at the top of your lungs demanding they protect America and our children’s future.  If you don’t, no one will.

RELATED COLUMNS: 

Toronto: Muslim slit girlfriend’s throat from ear to ear, set her on fire
Pentagon to relax uniform rules to make religious allowances; beards, turbans, jewelry OK
Florida: Muslim arrested after runaway Illinois teen found – pregnant & committed to Islam
Connecticut: Muslim pours hot oil on sleeping wife (video)

New Government Report Undercuts Anti-Gun Agenda

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A report issued by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS-a component of the Justice Department) shows that firearm homicides in general, and violence at schools, have decreased substantially during the last two decades; the percentage of homicides committed with firearms has decreased; and only a tiny percentage of state prison inmates imprisoned for gun offenses obtain their guns from gun shows.

As the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin characterizes it, the report is “wonderful news for the country and rotten data for anti-gun advocates.” 

To make matters worse for anti-gun advocates, the story has been picked up by the national news media. In an article for U.S. News and NBCNews.com, veteran reporter Pete Williams points out that the BJS report shows that 40 percent of criminals get their guns from friends and family members, and another 37 percent get theirs from theft or other illegal sources. Lest gun control advocates accuse the BJS or Williams of having a pro-gun political agenda, Williams notes that “The report is strictly factual.”

In his article for the Washington Post, Jerry Markon says that while “gun shows were central” to the recent debate in the U.S. Senate over expanding background checks to cover private firearm transactions, “Less than 1 percent of state prison inmates who possessed a gun when they committed their offense obtained the firearm at a gun show,” according to the report. The figure reported by the BJS is 0.8 percent.

NRA members probably are not surprised at the gist of the BJS report.

In the NRA’s magazines and NRA-ILA’s Grassroots Alerts, we’ve been reporting the decline in violent crime, the relative safety of schools, and the relative rarity of criminal acquisition of firearms at gun shows, for nearly 20 years. But for the general public, the contents of the BJS report may come as a revelation, especially given the way that many in the media have reported on the gun control issue over the last few months.

As another U.S. News article and a Fox News article that covered the BJS report point out, a recent Pew Research Center poll found that while “The gun homicide rate in 2010 was the lowest it had been since [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] began publishing data in 1981,” 56 percent of respondents believe that gun crime is higher than it was two decades ago, against 12 percent who believe it is lower.

To be clear, 2010 is the most recent year for which the CDC has released homicide data. For the record, FBI data show that the murder rate dropped again in 2011, and again in the first half of 2012.