How to wash your hands!

In science alert a microbiologist writes a long article about the importance of washing our hands.

To clean our hands, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that we:

wet hands with clean water.

apply soap and lather/scrub every nook and cranny of your hands for 20-30 seconds (about the time to sing "Happy Birthday" twice).

rinse well with clean running water.

dry hands with a clean paper towel or air-dry.

Read more here.

Bait and switch

Paul Mirengoff writes in part in PowerLine,

In reality, the policies Sanders advocates bear little resemblance to those of Denmark and other Scandinavian countries today. They do resemble many of the policies these countries tried 50 years ago. However, these policies failed and were discarded.

The Vermont socialist is getting away with false advertising, including bait and switch.

Read more here.

South Carolina Democrats choose this man

BIDEN: “Guess what, if you elect me your taxes are gonna be raised not cut.”
pic.twitter.com/7kO1m29gvw

— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) February 29, 2020

Finally! We made it to the last day of Obama's economy!

Who is fooling whom?

Ratcliffe nominated to be the Director of National Intelligence

An agency was created to make sure all the intelligence agencies were communicating with each other. Next thing you know is that the agency became bloated and the security clearance process is much worse than it was on 9-11!

Nevertheless, Ratcliffe is a great pick!

White House stepping up travel restrictions

Rob Crilly reports in the Washington Examiner,

The White House stepped up travel restrictions, banning all travel from Iran and the entry of any foreign nationals who visited the country in the past 14 days, as it introduced measures to restrict the spread of the coronavirus.

Vice President Mike Pence announced on Saturday fresh warnings on travel to specific regions of Italy and South Korea, even as President Trump urged the public not to panic.

In the White House briefing room, Trump also announced he would meet the heads of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies on Monday to discuss progress on a vaccine and said he was considering closing the southern border with Mexico.

Read more here

No, just No!

First U.S. death from the coronavirus

Keith Griffith reports in the Daily Mail that the first U.S. death from the coronavirus has occurred in the Seattle area. Read more here.

America signs historic agreement with Taliban

Joel Gehrke reports in the Washington Examiner,

American and Taliban officials signed a historic agreement Saturday that sets the table for a reduction of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and unprecedented negotiations between the militant group and the central government.

“We're just at the beginning,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said prior to the signing of the deal in Doha, Qatar. “Furthering the cause of peace would require serious work and sacrifice by all sides.”

The ceremony took place following the successful conclusion of a seven-day “reduction in violence” deal. The essence of the agreement involves a renunciation of terrorism by the Taliban, which sheltered Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in the lead-up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the start of peace talks in exchange for a gradual American withdrawal from the country.

“It doesn’t happen immediately,” a senior administration official said of the plan to cut the American troop presence down to 8,600. “It takes a while to get out. It’s not going to happen overnight. But that is the commander on the ground’s recommendation, that is the president’s intention, and that’s in the agreement.”

Go here to read more details.

"That's a wild guess on your part. You have no evidence to the contrary!"

Now for hour two of this video. Klayman is really on a fishing expedition in the second half of this video. At one point he brings up a political campaign in which Roger worked as a consultant to Klayman. Apparently, Klayman was having problems with Judicial Watch Director Tom Fitton. Roger denies any memory of any such discussions. Time and again Roger answers, "categorically false!" Klayman then just fishes in another direction. Roger, time and again: "If you have some evidence, produce it!"

At 1:42 Stone says, "God you are an asshole. You really are a jerk!" At the 1:54 mark Roger says, "You can go running back to the judge like a little bitch!" Klayman asks, "Did you just call me a bitch?" Stone replies, "You're acting like one, yes! If you have some evidence, produce it! You got nothing!" Klayman says, "We'll look for evidence!" Stone says, "You can look for it all you fuckin want. You'll find nothing!"

Roger Stone deposition

In this video, Roger Stone is being interrogated by attorney Larry Klayman in a defamation lawsuit filed against Stone by Jerome Corsi and Klayman. At the 33 minute mark in this YouTube video the questioning turns to Stone's relationship with Donald Trump. Stone says, Donald Trump decides what he thinks, he decides where he's going to go, he decides what he is going to do. He is not handled or managed or scripted. No one tells Donald Trump what to think. From there up to the 40-minute mark Klayman questions Stone about the Obama birth certificate.

Then, he asks Stone who killed Kennedy! Stone mentions the involvement of organized crime. "Big Texas oil is involved!" "Vice President Lyndon Johnson is involved!" Are you concerned for the safety of President Trump? "I pray for the president's safety every single day!"

Stone expresses affection for Corsi but a strong dislike for Klayman. Klayman was founder of Judicial Watch, an organization I appreciate very much.

I think I may be back later, but I now have watched this for one hour, and so I will post this much.

He definitely enjoys it!

"I'm sorry, what was that?

I’m sorry, what was that? pic.twitter.com/emMgb5frQn

— Kate Hyde (@KateHydeNY) February 27, 2020

The right to say no

In Today.com, Rachel Paula Abrahamson reports,

Alicia Hobson’s 11-year-old daughter, Azlyn, was counting down the days until the Valentine’s Day dance at her Utah middle school.

“She was so excited she could barely sleep,” Hobson told TODAY Parents, noting that the sixth grader picked out her outfit a week ahead of time.

"It was supposed to be the best day ever," Hobson, 37, said.

But it wasn't.

That afternoon, when Azlyn got home, she had an "emotional explosion" in the kitchen, while recounting how a boy who makes her uncomfortable had asked her to dance.

“She politely said, ‘No thank you,’” Hobson revealed. The problem? At Rich Middle School in Laketown, Utah, it's against the rules to say "no," and principal Kip Motta allegedly intervened when he heard Azlyn decline the invitation at the dance.

“He said something like, ‘No, no. You kids go out and dance,’” Hobson revealed. “He basically shooed Azlyn and the boy off onto the dance floor.”


Azlyn told her mother she “hated every minute” and was “so relieved” when the song finally ended.

Motta and Rich School District Superintendent Dale Lamborn did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. But Motta stood by the school’s policy in a letter to Hobson.

“We do ask all students to dance. It is the nice thing to do and this will continue to be our policy,” Motta wrote on Feb. 15. “There have been similar situations in the past where some students have felt uncomfortable with others, and, as stated prior, the issues were discreetly handled. This allowed all students to feel welcome, comfortable, safe, and included.”

Motta added that Hobson always has the option to check Azlyn out of school during dances, which are held in the daytime.

Hobson isn't satisfied with Motta's response — she wants the policy revised and will go to the Utah Board of Education if it isn't.

“Girls HAVE to learn that they have the right to say no and that those around them have to respect that,” Hobson wrote on Facebook. “I’m not going to quietly stand by while my daughter and all of her classmates are being wrapped up in rape culture. No way.”

Dr. Rebecca Schrag Hershberg, a New York City-based clinical psychologist, agrees with Hobson and believes the rule is "dangerous."

"Policies like this one not only overlook, but completely fly in the face of, what we need to be teaching young children — of all gender identities — about the importance of consent," Schrag Hershberg told TODAY Parents. "Essentially, it is saying that a child needs to say 'yes' no matter how they feel, as a blanket rule. I don't think it's a stretch to say that such a message is very much in alignment with rape culture and, therefore, very dangerous if perpetuated."

Kanesville Elementary School in West Haven, Utah, changed its policy saying kids must accept dance requests after a parent complained in 2018.

"CNN hosts called for Texas to designate their churches "gun-free zones," so that the mentally ill can do whatever they please without being stopped by deranged conservatives."

Another satirical gem from the Babylon Bee:

ATLANTA, GA—Churchgoer Jack Wilson shot and killed a mass shooter at West Freeway Church of Christ, preventing what could have been a much worse shooting.

But CNN reported on the event with the headline and caption "Trump voter shot a mentally ill man in a Texas church," causing some to question whether CNN might be a biased source of news.

"Once again we see that Trump voters are hopelessly wicked," said one somber anchor as footage came in of a shooting in a Texas church. "There is nothing they won't do to attack the oppressed, mentally ill community. All this man wanted to do was express his true identity and live out who he really is, and he was stopped by yet another psychotic Trump voter."

CNN hosts called for Texas to designate their churches "gun-free zones," so that the mentally ill can do whatever they please without being stopped by deranged conservatives.

"It's unfair to criticize the whole thing!"

From the Babylon Bee:

U.S.—In a televised interview, Bernie Sanders has praised slave owners for their free housing program offered to all slaves working the plantations.

"Of course, the slavery was bad, but the slaves were housed, for free I might add, for their entire employment," Sanders said in an interview with 60 Minutes. "So it's unfair to criticize the whole thing. Also, the slaveowners were pretty impressive guys. The plantations were very clean, very nice buildings. I actually honeymooned at one in Virginia back in 1845, and it was an eye-opener for me as to how much propaganda has been used to malign slaveowners and their healthcare, housing, and literacy programs."

At publishing time, sources had also confirmed that Bernie Sanders had defended hell itself, saying the place of eternal torment has "gotten a bad rap" and "isn't such a bad place."

"Whoever sent those workers to handle possibly infected Americans without proper training or protective gear and then allowed them to go their way and mingle with the general population needs to be fired."

In PJ Media, Rick Moran reports in part,

A whistleblower has filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel alleging that Health and Human Services Department officials sent workers to process evacuees from Wuhan, China, without proper training or protective gear.

Wuhan is the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.

The whistleblower also alleges that HHS dismissed her concerns and she was threatened with the loss of her job if she didn't accept reassignment.

Fox News:

"We are hopeful that Congress and the OSC [the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel] will investigate this case in a timely and comprehensive manner," the whistleblower's attorney, Lauren Naylor, told Fox News, adding that the team could not provide a public copy of the complaint. "This matter concerns HHS’s response to the coronavirus, and its failure to protect its employees and potentially the public. The retaliatory efforts to intimidate and silence our client must be opposed."
The American evacuees were in quarantine at the time, but the workers who were potentially exposed to the virus were allowed to interact with the public. Did HHS violate its own protocols? Did HHS have any protocols in place?

Politico:

The complaint alleges that teams from HHS’ Administration for Children and Families were deployed to air force bases from Jan. 28-31 and Feb. 2-7 to receive Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China — the center of the virus outbreak — and that HHS officials broke protocol and ignored concerns about coronavirus exposure in the process.
The whistleblower also says that the workers were not consistently tested for the virus after being exposed. This is the sort of stupidity that leads to epidemics.

An HHS spokesperson said whistleblower complaints are taken very seriously, and that the department is “providing the complainant all appropriate protections under the Whistleblower Protection Act. We are evaluating the complaint and have nothing further to add at this time.”

Two people with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO the whistleblower’s claims were accurate.

Naturally, Democrats pounced.

Reports of the complaint outraged some on Capitol Hill, and at least one lawmaker, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), called on HHS Secretary Alex Azar to resign Thursday night.

“Allowing HHS workers to be exposed to Wuhan evacuees without adequate protection is gross mismanagement that jeopardizes American lives,” Markey wrote on Twitter. “We need someone in charge who will rise to the level of responding to this threat.”

Some small-minded stupid bureaucrat goofs up and then panics when his monumental errors are pointed out to him, threatening to fire the underling who tried to do the right thing. Except, in this case, we're not talking about a paperwork snafu or even malfeasance. This is out and out stupidity. Whoever sent those workers to handle possibly infected Americans without proper training or protective gear and then allowed them to go their way and mingle with the general population needs to be fired.

Libertarians now come in all sorts of flavors!

In the Ace of Spades blog, Buck Throckmorton writes about libertarians and their favorite forms of authoritarianism.

Ace recently had some fun at the expense of self-proclaimed libertarians whose politics are clearly far-left, even though they choose not to identify as Democrats.

In my younger days I kind of considered myself a libertarian, until I realized that the most vocal libertarians tended to be either pot-heads or anarchists. Nowadays I don’t even know what “libertarian” means any more, nor do I understand why people identify as libertarian when their agenda is actively anti-liberty.

Libertarians actually seem to come in all sorts of flavors now – none of which have much to do with limited government. Here are some of the libertarian sub-groups and the poster child for each:

SOCIALIST LIBERTARIANS: Megan McArdle. McArdle’s form of principled libertarianism compels her to vote for a communist, Bernie Sanders, because she disapproves of Donald Trump using his 1st Amendment right to mock journalists.

POLICE STATE LIBERTARIANS: Rep. Justin Amash: Amash’s principled libertarianism believes that unelected officials in America’s intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have a duty to try to unseat politicians that the deep state doesn’t approve of. Further, he supports spy agencies trying to frame and entrap law-abiding associates of those politicians as punishment for politically consorting with the wrong people.

TAX AND SPEND LIBERTARIANS: William Weld: Weld is a big government tax and spend liberal. As Massachusetts governor he not only went on a major spending spree with taxpayer money, but he was also anti-2nd Amendment, and a big fan of eminent domain. Weld was the Libertarian Party’s Vice-Presidential candidate in 2016, which makes perfect sense in a world where libertarian doesn’t mean libertarian.

BAKE THAT CAKE LIBERTARIANS: Gary Johnson: While Johnson is certainly a classic libertarian when it comes to dope – the dude likes to toke – he supported the government’s right to shutter a bake shop for not creating a custom cake that violated the business owner’s Christian faith. All the same, as Libertarian presidential candidate in 2016, Gary Johnson was the top choice among people who had to lie about the fact that they were actually going to vote for Donald Trump.

CORPORATIST LIBERTARIANS – Koch Brothers: The Kochs’ brand of libertarianism believes the government’s role is to serve and protect the largest corporations, providing them with a steady supply of cheap foreign labor, and protecting those corporations from upstart competition.

TECH TYRANNY LIBERTARIANS – Silicon Valley Executives & NeverTrump: Libertarian tech company executives atone for their massive profits, unfathomable wealth, and monopoly market shares by de-platforming citizens for expressing the wrong opinion. The authoritarian dream of denying Americans their Bill of Rights protections is being realized by outsourcing tyranny to monster tech monopolies. NeverTrump “conservatarians” who want to elect Democrats and have Trump voters de-platformed from American society are well represented here.

It seems that the definition of libertarian has transitioned. It was once the identity of individuals with varied “leave me alone” priorities. Now it is simply a euphemism embraced by anti-freedom leftists who no longer want the stigma of identifying as a Democrat.

New deal to be signed soon with the Taliban

The Associated Press reports in part,

President Donald Trump said Friday that he's dispatching Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the signing of an agreement with the Afghan Taliban aimed at beginning a draw down of thousands of U.S. troops and ending America's 18-year involvement in the war.

Trump said Pompeo would soon, at the president's direction, witness the signing of an agreement with the Taliban, an event that will see America's top diplomat stand with leaders of militants, who harbored al-Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks and are responsible for the deaths of thousands of American servicemen and women.

He said Defense Secretary Mark Esper also will issue a joint declaration with the government of Afghanistan.

Trump did not say where the deal would be signed, but it's been previously reported that it would occur Saturday in Doha, Qatar.

The signing comes after a week in which both U.S.-led forces and the Taliban committed to a reduction in violence. Under the plan being signed, the U.S. is to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan to 8,600 from about 13,000.

Read more here.

Don't get cocky!

In PJ Media, Victor Davis Hanson writes in part,

Donald Trump has at least five strong historical arguments for his re-election.

One, he is an incumbent. Incumbent presidents have won 14 of 19 re-election bids since 1900.

The few who lost did not enjoy positive approval ratings. In a Gallup poll from earlier this month, Trump enjoyed his highest approval rating since his inauguration, squeezing out a 49 percent favorable rating vs. 50 percent unfavorable.

Two, the public perception of the economy usually determines any presidential election -- as incumbents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Herbert Hoover learned the hard way. Currently, the U.S. is enjoying low inflation, low interest rates, positive economic growth, near-record-low unemployment, rising workers' wages, and record gas and oil production.

Three, unpopular optional wars derail incumbent presidencies.

...Four, scandals also can destroy a presidency, as when Watergate forced the resignation of Richard Nixon.

Five, the opponent matters. Barry Goldwater was caricatured as an out-of-touch extremist and made incumbent Lyndon Johnson's election a sure thing in 1964. George McGovern's radicalism ensured that Richard Nixon would be re-elected in 1972. Ronald Reagan was assured of a second term by Walter Mondale's anemic candidacy.

Hanson then goes on to assess Trump against each of those five points and concludes,

Add it all up, and if one looks at 2020 dispassionately and historically, the election appears to be Trump's to lose.

Read more here.

A cure for cancer and a vaccine for the coronavirus!

Israel, the country that announced last month that they may have a complete cure for cancer, now is saying that they will soon have a vaccine for the coronavirus. Ryan Saavedra has the stories here.

"the Democrat-Media Complex never lets a crisis go to waste."

JJ Sefton writes in part in his Morning Report,

...But the Democrat-Media Complex never lets a crisis go to waste. For them, the crisis is utter failure in their attempts to oust President Trump, and the even more disastrous failure of having his policies help every American better themselves, especially traditional Democrat constituencies which have been mired in misery for decades. Being demonstrably shown to be frauds, failures and swindlers, they could not allow that to stand. So, if causing a panic to spread 1,000 times faster than the actual virus wipes out close to $1 Trillion of average Americans' investments and retirement accounts, with the added benefit of blaming it on the President's tax and tariff policy along with general OrangeManBad and stupid, then so be it. What they are really doing, and they know they're doing it, is inflicting pain and suffering on the American people as punishment for rejecting them in 2016 and most likely 2020. That, to me, goes beyond the merely criminal - it's pure evil.

...Lastly, on a very positive note, it looks as if Israeli researchers might be well on their way to a vaccine, and not two years down the road either. Yes, I can see the likes of Bro-Fo Omar and Bernie Sanders already, spewing "the evil Yahoodies have a cure because they created the virus in the first place, and now they want us to pay for it!" Well, they can always boycott the vaccine since they don't want to chance getting Joo-Cooties. By the way, the same Israeli research center that might have a vaccine is the same one that is going full steam ahead on the total cancer cure.

Read more and click on his links here.

"Don't be like George Bush I"

In his Morning Rant in the Ace of Spades blog, Oregon Muse writes,

During Monday's rant, I wondered whether Trump will have any 'coattails' in November that will help other Republicans, senators and representatives, get elected.
But the downticket Repubs do not have to sit passively by and wait for it to happen. There is something they can do. They can reach out and grab onto the coattails. They can climb aboard the Trump train.

They can be like Trump.

I don't think it's that difficult. They can put America first. They can eschew the globalist agenda that has somehow managed to become the default position ever since the end of WWII. They can support Trump's trade deals. He may even campaign in your district for you if you support him.

So be like Trump. Don't be like George Bush I.

Why not? What was wrong with George Bush I?

When we voted for George Bush I, we thought we were getting a third term of Reagan. Indeed, that is how he campaigned. We did not want to remember that he once dismissed Reagan's economic policies, you know, the ones that brought prosperity to America in the 80s after the stagflation of the Carter years, as "voodoo economics." We thought, maybe he learned his lesson.

Nope.

Because as soon as he was elected, he started babbling about "a thousand points of light" and "a kinder, gentler America", which was his way of extending his middle finger toward the man who had set him up to win the presidential election.

Here's an example of what that looked like:

Science fiction author Jerry Pournelle had a quiet network of conservative contacts inside the Reagan White House, promoting things like ballistic missile defense.

He recalls what happened in the one week following the inauguration of Poppy Bush in January of 1989 -- the sweeping purge. Every single one of Pournelle's conservative contacts were *gone*, replaced by what he terms "the country club set".

It takes a certain kind of hubris to look at what Reagan built and say "screw that, let's do something else."

Of course, Poppy Bush paid for his hubris: he was unelected just as soon as it was possible to unelect him, but by then the damage had been done: his utter fecklessness paved the way for the Arkansas Grifter and her horndog husband.

So, don't be like Poppy Bush. Look at Trump. See how he wins. And go and do thou likewise.

(h/t moron commenter torquewrench for the Pournelle story)

Trump's approval ratings drop

Paul Bedard reports in the Washington Examiner,

President Trump’s sky-high approval rating took a beating overnight after stocks crashed amid a wave of negative stories on his handling of the coronavirus epidemic.

Trump’s favorite pollster, Rasmussen Reports, said that the president’s approval rating dropped from 52% to 47%.

“The drop in Trump’s approval rating follows more news about the spreading coronavirus and the steep drop in the stock market,” said the polling analysis shared with Secrets.

“The latest figures include 35% who ‘Strongly Approve’ of the job Trump is doing and 44% who ‘Strongly Disapprove.’ This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -9,” it added.

Read more here.

"The President is a crime victim, and no one has done a darn thing about it so far!"

No hearing was held in any of the four FISA court actions taken to spy on members of the President's team! The Justice Department assures us they can fix the problem, but we have still not seen the evidence used against the Trump team. Tom Fitton: "FISA is just the tip of the iceberg!"

Visiting India

Pope Francis "slightly unwell."

Maybe it is time for Pope Francis to hold off on kissing little kids and elderly women. 12,000 people came to worship with him on Ash Wednesday. The coronavirus has hit Italy hard. The 83-year-old Pope has cancelled all events today because he is "slightly unwell."



Tim Stickings reports more at Mailonline.

An update from Rush

The latest from Rush on his treatments:

Okay, I have to address something. A lot of people, many of you, more than I can count, are sending emails asking me for a health update or just saying, “You haven’t spoken about your treatment lately. What’s going on?”

Let me remind you, I told you at the beginning of this that I’m very flattered by all of you who care. Don’t misunderstand. But I vowed not to let this take control of my life. I’ve seen that happen. It’s hard not to. It’s a terminal disease for a lot of people. It takes over your life. I’ve vowed to not let that happen as much as I can.

Besides, who wants to listen to somebody talk about cancer treatment all the time? That’s not fun. And there’s another thing. If I were to get into any kind of detail — I mean, if they’re making up that I claim the coronavirus was invented by the deep state to use against Trump, if they’re willing to make that up, can you imagine what they would do if I went into detail? I don’t even want to give them a window to open to start lying and making things up or investigate.

All I will tell you is this. I get treated every day. I get treated every day at 1 p.m., folks, within a five-minute window here at the top of the hour, 1 p.m., and then again at 11 p.m. Every day. And then four times a week I have to do something else, which I’m not gonna describe and I’m not gonna explain or any of that.

But it’s ongoing. It’s been two weeks now. It’s not enough time to know anything, although I’m extremely optimistic about it for a host of reasons, not the least of which — and I mean this from the bottom of my heart — is all of you. I believe God is good. I believe that there is good in everything that happens. Let me give you an example of that. It’s not good for me that I have contracted this. But there’s good in it. There’s good in it maybe for other people who might be inspired to change their life, so they don’t get it or whatever — there’s good in everything, if you just look for it. And ultimately there’s gonna be good in it for me. It already has been good for me.

The outpouring of love and affection that I have received is unlike anything I’ve ever dreamed of or experienced. So you have to try to stay positive, you have to try not to panic, you have to try to do the best you can with what is learned about, in my case the specifics of what I have, deal with it with the latest available treatment and adapt and try to establish as normal an existence as you can and not be dominated by it.

Which is why I don’t issue reports, status, whatever, each and every day because A, I don’t want to do it, and I don’t want to be dominated by it, and I also don’t want to have that become what the program is. It wouldn’t be fair to bleed on all of you every day about this. Your support and your ongoing support is more than I could have ever dreamed about. And when there’s more to tell, up or down, then I will tell you.

I will tell you that there have been two days this week I got up, I said, “Gosh, I can’t do it.” I’ve tried to, you know, not artificially push myself here every day as a sign of toughness. I’ve tried to push myself every day here because this is what I love doing. This is my natural, normal, happy state and place. But there have been a couple days this week when I got up and said, “Oh, I can’t do it today.” But I pushed through. And once I got here and got started, it was a long three hours of show prep, jeez, I could barely stay awake, I was all kinds of stuff. The program starts, the microphone goes on, and magic happens. And in about 20 minutes, when this is over, I’m gonna decompress like you can’t believe. I don’t know what it is.

And there are gonna be days where I’m gonna cave to it and not be here, and when those days happen, just chalk it up to the fact that it’s fatigue because that’s the primary thing that I have to deal with.

Bernie and nuclear waste disposal

Guy Benson reports in Town Hall,

As someone who follows politics quite closely, I'm often fascinated when a potent piece of opposition research against a major candidate for office percolates below the radar for years, yet never quite breaks through. Have you ever heard of 'Sierra Blanca,' as it relates to Bernie Sanders? Neither had I. Neither had hardly any voters, I'd wager. Well, expect that to change, sooner or later. Tim Miller, a hardcore anti-Trump conservative, is adamantly opposed to Democrats nominating Sanders. He's written a piece outlining a somewhat obscure episode that he anticipates would be used as a powerful cudgel to clobber Bernie in a general election. Out of pure curiosity, I clicked the link in one of his tweets, and...wow:

(1) In 1998, then-Rep. Sanders cosponsored a bill that would allow Vermont and Maine to dump their nuclear waste in a poor and largely Latino town in Texas called Sierra Blanca.

(2) A Texas Observer article in 1998 covered protestors from Sierra Blanca confronting Rep. Sanders and being given the stiff arm. The story’s headline was “Sanders to Sierra Blanca: Drop Dead.” Sanders even rebuffed an offer to visit Sierra Blanca, telling its residents, “Absolutely not. I’m gonna be running for re-election in the state of Vermont.”

(3) Liberal hero Paul Wellstone—an actual progressive Democrat—gave a speech on the Senate floor calling this dump “environmental racism.” Former Texas Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes called Sanders actions “insanely callous.”

(4) After Congress approved the proposal, environmental regulators rejected the Sierra Blanca site. But a different site in Andrews County, Texas gained approval a few years later and Vermont/Texas maintain an interstate waste agreement.

(5) In 2016, Sanders’ tax returns revealed that as of 2014 Jane Sanders was still drawing a small salary as an alternate commissioner for the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission as part of the agreement with Vermont that her husband pushed.

This story is, well, toxic. Bernie drew up an environmentally-controversial proposal to dump nuclear waste in a Latino community, then refused to meet with the people it impacted. Oh, and he managed to secure a little sweetheart deal to enrich his wife in the process. Funneling public and campaign money to his spouse (no stranger to financial scandal) has been something of a pastime for this socialist, who was a jobless deadbeat before becoming a career politician who is now a millionaire with three homes. This episode is problematic for Bernie on the subjects ranging from environment, to race, to his "man of the people" persona, to graft.

Read more here and watch an ad being used against Bernie.

Levin and Kirk tweets on coronavirus

Tweets from Mark Levin and Charlie Kirk:
Mark R. Levin
✔
@marklevinshow
· 11h
1. I’m waiting for the Schumer-Pelosi-Sanders-Biden- Buttigieg-Warren-Klobuchar-Steyer coronavirus plan. Open borders? Eliminate ICE? No vetting? Sanctuary cities? Nationalize the greatest health care system? Massive taxes on pharmaceutical companies and R&D?
Mark R. Levin
✔
@marklevinshow
2. What’s their containment plan? What’s their vaccination development plan? Meanwhile, all they know is to attack, blame, and politicize. Like their media propagandists.

10.8K
5:55 AM - Feb 27, 2020
Twitter Ads info and privacy
3,520 people are talking about this

Charlie Kirk
✔
@charliekirk11
BREAKING:

Three Chinese nationals were apprehended trying to cross our Southern border illegally

Each had flu-like symptoms

Border patrol quickly quarantined them and assessed any threat of Coronavirus

Our weak border is a health risk

Close the border—Build. The. Wall.
Thanks to Doug Ross

Chinese destroyer lases U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft

A U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft was lased by People’s Republic of China (PRC) navy destroyer 161 on Feb. 17 while flying in airspace above international waters approximately 380 miles west of Guam.

The P-8A was operating in international airspace in accordance with international rules and regulations. The PRC navy destroyer’s actions were unsafe and unprofessional.

Additionally, these acts violate the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a multilateral agreement reached at the 2014 Western Pacific Naval Symposium to reduce the chance of an incident at sea. CUES specifically addresses the use of lasers that could cause harm to personnel or damage to equipment.

The destroyer’s actions were also inconsistent with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between U.S. Department of Defense and the Ministry of National Defense of the PRC regarding rules of behavior for safety of air and maritime encounters.


The laser, which was not visible to the naked eye, was captured by a sensor onboard the P-8A.
Weapons-grade lasers could potentially cause serious harm to aircrew and mariners, as well as ship and aircraft systems.
Read more here.

Investors worried about coronavirus

Fred Imbert reports in CNBC,

Stocks fell sharply in volatile trading Thursday as investors worried the coronavirus may be spreading in the U.S. A slew of corporate and analyst warnings on the virus dragged down the major averages, tipping them into correction territory.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 1,190.95 points, or 4.4%, to close at 25,766.64. The S&P 500 slid 4.4% to 2,978.76 while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 4.6% to 8,566.48. The Dow had its worst day since February 2018 while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 posted its biggest one-day loss since August 2011.

It was also the Dow’s biggest one-day point decline in history, surpassing Monday’s 1,031-point drop. The S&P 500 also closed below 3,000 for the first time since last October.

Read more here.

Barr telling it like it is!

After reading this article in the Daily Caller or watching this video, or both, Ace of Spades is calling for Barr to be the nominee for president in 2024! Read or watch here.

Do I need to be uber careful? No!

When will Democrats tell Biden enough is enough?

Were you watching the Democrat debate this week when Joe Biden said 150 million Americans have been killed in gun violence incidents since 2007? Kim Hirsch reports in Victory Girls,

The Biden campaign, of course, shrugged off the gaffe. “He meant 150k. He’s used that line multiple times before.”

Read more here.

Optimism

Andy Peth writes in part in The Party of Choice,

2018 was exactly what it was predicted to be—a midterm pummeling, made worse by numerous, unresolved concerns surrounding our President.

Those concerns are gone now. Way gone. I can’t even count the disadvantages then which are advantages now, but here are a few:

The Economy - Then: Trump’s economic plan was in its infancy. Now: We’re booming.

Russian Collusion - Then: A major concern. Now: A national joke. Mueller’s meltdown on Capitol Hill was one for the ages.

Impeachment - Then: Gaining steam, with many Americans wondering how Trump could stay in office. Now: Totally derailed, being grossly unfair from the start. Americans greeted it with laughter, yawns, and disgust.

Deep State - Then: Held in high regard, with operatives commanding intel agencies casting deep doubts on Trump. Now: The Durham Report will unveil spying, lying, and subterfuge by those intel “leaders.” It’s our turn, baby.

ISIS - Then: Still a big concern. Now: ISIS is gone, having lost all its territory.

Trade Deals - Then: Deemed the impossible dreams of a rookie President. Now: Massive Pro-USA deals with Mexico, Canada, China, and Japan…are actually happening.

Trump’s Approval - Then: Two years ago, Gallop had Trump’s approval rating about 20% below his disapproval rating. Now: Approval and disapproval are within a few points either way.

Read more here.

What should his punishment be?

Fox News has an AP story about a California inmate killing two convicted child molesters.

A California prison inmate confessed in a letter that he beat two child molesters to death with a cane while behind bars just hours after his urgent warning to a counselor that he might become violent was ignored, a newspaper chain reported Thursday.

Jonathan Watson, 41, confessed in the letter to the Bay Area News Group in Northern California that he clubbed both men in the head on Jan. 16 at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran.

Prisoner David Bobb, 48, died that day. Graham De Luis-Conti, 62, died three days later at a hospital. Both were serving life sentences for aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14.

“We can't comment on an active investigation," Dana Simas, spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, wrote in an email.

Watson is serving a life sentence for a 2009 murder conviction.

Days before the attack, he said his security classification was changed and he was transferred from a single-person cell to a lower-security dormitory pod at the Central Valley facility. Watson called the switch a “careless" mistake and said he had protested the decision.

Watson wrote that six days after he arrived at the prison, a child molester moved into the pod. Watson believed the man began taunting other inmates by watching children's television programming. Watson said in the letter he couldn't sleep that night “having not done what every instinct told me I should’ve done right then and there."

Two hours before the attacks the next day, Watson told a prison counselor that he urgently needed to be transferred back to higher-level security “before I really (expletive) one of these dudes up,” but the counselor “scoffed and dismissed" him.

Watson said he returned to his housing pod.

“I was mulling it all over when along came Molester #1 and he put his TV right on PBS Kids again,” he wrote, according to the newspaper chain. “But this time, someone else said something to the effect of ‘Is this guy really going to watch this right in front of us?’ and I recall saying, ‘I got this.’ And I picked up the cane and went to work on him.”

Watson said he then left the housing pod to find a guard and turn himself in, but on the way, he saw “a known child trafficker, and I figured I’d just do everybody a favor,” Watson wrote. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

Watson said he then told a guard, who didn't believe him “until he looked around the corner and saw the mess I’d left in the dorm area,” Watson wrote.

Watson is in segregated housing while he is under investigation for the killings. He hasn't been charged yet.

“Being a lifer, I’m in a unique position where I sometimes have access to these people and I have so little to lose,” Watson wrote. “And trust me, we get it, these people are every parents’ worst nightmare."

The "Kill it!" debate

Andrew shows highlights and lowlights from last night's debate, then answers questions from subscribers.

#Haney didn't kill himself!

I plan to continue learning about Philip Haney and blogging about what I learn. In American Thinker, James Simpson writes in part,

...He was found by his car at a park-and-ride about three miles from his home. In a True Pundit interview, Haney's stepmother, Judith Haney, stated: "No one in the family believes this is a suicide; I mean he was enjoying doing talk radio and was working on another book and was excited about that. With his history with the government and everything, it is very, very suspicious..."

Haney was also engaged to be married and was enthusiastic about his future. His fiancée, Denice Gary-Pandol, shared how happy they both were, looking forward to marriage in April and beginning a new chapter in their lives. She spoke with him throughout the day on Thursday and texted him just prior to heading into an evening class she teaches. He responded affectionately at 5:45 P.M.

...No one among us who knew Phil believes that it was possible for him to kill himself. He was a committed Christian, was looking forward to his upcoming marriage and the publication of his new book and possibly a new position in Washington, D.C. None of it adds up. I and countless others sent a blizzard of inquiries to the Amador County Sheriff's Department in the days following his death, both to seek details and lodge our objection to the "self-inflicted" characterization of Phil's cause of death.

...The sheriff now says the FBI has been called in, has detailed more aspects of the investigation, and clarified that it has not determined how he died.

...But media outlets quickly concluded that this was a case of suicide and said little, if anything, else about the explosive charges Haney had leveled against the Obama administration's deliberate efforts to shield U.S.-based Islamic terrorists from discovery. Nothing to see here...move along now. This perfunctory characterization itself reflects the Deep State effort to discredit anyone critical of Democrats. So Haney made allegations; now he committed suicide. That decides it. End of story. Sure. It seems that despite its virtually nonstop record of traitorous actions, the Obama administration and its associates remain Teflon-coated.

...As a DHS agent, Haney had hundreds of files of U.S. individuals tied to terrorism and the organizations they were associated with. The Obama administration deleted those files from the federal database and launched a total of nine investigations against Haney for supposedly violating the civil rights of Muslim terrorists. In his book, See Something, Say Nothing, Haney claimed that had the administration allowed his work to go forward, it may have identified the Boston Marathon bombers, the San Bernardino and Orlando terrorists, and possibly more before those attacks occurred.

The information Phil compiled was kept and shared with trustworthy individuals, despite Obama administration efforts to wipe the records clean. This has been known for some time, however, so why was Phil targeted now?

He had been working on a new project. What did this entail, and was it similarly secured? Phil was meticulous in his work and documentation. It is a main reason he survived the Obama administration's repeated efforts to entrap him, using the same kind of techniques they applied to Gen. Mike Flynn and others embroiled in the "Russia Collusion" hoax.

Joe Martin, a retired Special Forces officer, wrote of Haney:

Given the enemies he hunted — both foreign and domestic — there are plenty of people and groups who have a strong motive to kill him. And that's a testament to his tremendous work and his meticulous defense of our country.

Bill Marshall of Judicial Watch writes, "Goodbye amigo, and Rest in Peace, Patriot":

Philip Haney was the embodiment of logic and resilience. I could only hope to have a fraction of the fortitude he demonstrated if similarly confronted. He was not a quitter. Ever.

Phil Haney had developed many enemies, both within the Deep State and within the Islamist movement in the United States, with his absolutely fearless expositions of their treachery. Again, I call upon Attorney General Barr to conduct an exhaustive investigation into the circumstances surrounding Phil's death.

...
The Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney wrote:

As you may know, we lost this week one of our most brilliant, most dedicated and most devout comrades-in-arms: Philip Haney[.] ...

It is hard to overstate the magnitude of this loss to the cause of freedom. Phil's service to our country — both as a "plankholder" (founding member) of the Department of Homeland Security and during his subsequent years as a private citizen and watchman on the wall — was characterized by tireless, intrepid and, in certain quarters, unwelcome research and analysis about the Islam's totalitarian code known as Sharia and the supremacists who seek to impose it on all of us. Phil was fond of saying that his academic training as an entomologist, with its required skill sets of categorization and observation, perfectly suited him for a career spent monitoring jihadists and following them to their "nests."

With his self-taught fluency in Arabic and his encyclopedic knowledge of Islam's Koran, other sacred texts, traditions, jurisprudence and institutions, Phil was an indispensable warrior in the War for the Free World. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude for his life and his innumerable contributions to the cause of freedom — many of which will never be publicly acknowledged or otherwise made known to his countrymen and women whom he did so much to secure.

Read more here.

Panic about Bernie

Angelo Codevilla writes in part in American Greatness,

...The DNC forbade, and continues to forbid, any independent analysis of its server. It rejected the possibility that a disgruntled employee had given the emails to Wikileaks, and blamed “the Russians” for having hacked the server. The FBI accepted this story without the slightest shred of factual evidence to back it up.

The fact that one such employee, Seth Rich, was murdered, did not inspire the FBI to investigate. The murder remains unsolved. But the FBI rushed to help launch investigations that drew upon the U.S government’s every intelligence resource in probing Donald Trump’s purported association with the Russians.

We know, of course, that these investigations not only turned up zero evidence of “collusion” but also that turning up facts was not why the agencies, the Democratic Party, and the media engaged in them. No. For all of the above, the investigations were premises—“predicates” in current lingo— for endless media stories pyramided on stories about Trump ’s villainy. They were agitprop.

...The Democratic Party’s establishment—very much including the intelligence and media combine—would be the first to experience the Sandersista regime’s delights. That, and not fear of Trump, is what explains their panic.

Read more here.

First Amendment does not apply on YouTube?

Jon Brodkin reports in ars Technica,

YouTube is a private forum and therefore not subject to free-speech requirements under the First Amendment, a US appeals court ruled today. "Despite YouTube's ubiquity and its role as a public-facing platform, it remains a private forum, not a public forum subject to judicial scrutiny under the First Amendment," the court said.

PragerU, a conservative media company, sued YouTube in October 2017, claiming the Google-owned video site "unlawfully censor[ed] its educational videos and discriminat[ed] against its right to freedom of speech."

PragerU said YouTube reduced its viewership and revenue with "arbitrary and capricious use of 'restricted mode' and 'demonetization' viewer restriction filters." PragerU claimed it was targeted by YouTube because of its "political identity and viewpoint as a non-profit that espouses conservative views on current and historical events."

But a US District Court judge dismissed PragerU's lawsuit against Google and YouTube, and a three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld that dismissal in a unanimous ruling today.

...PragerU claims YouTube is a "public forum" because YouTube invites the public to use the site to engage in freedom of expression and because YouTube representatives called the site a "public forum" for free speech in testimony before Congress.

Read more here.

Introducing the coronavirus foot handshake

Introducing the Coronavirus foot handshake: #COVID19

pic.twitter.com/2wTUGMfuP7

— Zachary (@Zachary31411891) February 24, 2020

#Haney didn't kill himself!"

The California Sheriff is backing off his department's earlier "apparent suicide" determination. Philip Haney was the man who blew the whistle on the Obama administration efforts to protect Islamic jihad terrorists. Here is the new statement of the Sheriff:
"On February 22, 2020 the Amador County Sheriff’s Office released initial details regarding Philip
Haney being found deceased in our jurisdiction. Mr. Haney was located in a park and ride open
area immediately adjacent to State Highway 16 near State Highway 124. Highway 16 is a busy
state highway and used as a main travel route to and from Sacramento. The location is less
than 3 miles from where he was living.

Currently we have scheduled a forensic autopsy to be performed by forensic pathologists from
the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office. Additionally we have reached out to our law
enforcement partners in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to assist in analyzing
documents, phone records and a lap top that were recovered from the scene and Mr. Haney’s
RV. We are currently in possession of his vehicle, the firearm located at the scene, and his RV
and we will be requesting evidence processing assistance from the FBI on those items as well.
Our investigators conducted a neighborhood canvas and interviewed his RV park neighbors on
the day of the incident along with checking key areas for any video surveillance that may exist
from that time. The investigators are continuing to follow-up with the overwhelming number of
persons who are calling our office from throughout the United States asking for detailed
information on our investigation.

Unfortunately, there was misinformation immediately being put out that we have determined
Mr. Haney’s death to be a suicide. This is not the case. We are currently in the beginning
phase of our investigation and any final determination as to the cause and manner of Mr.
Haney’s death would be extremely premature and inappropriate. No determination will be made
until all evidence is examined and analyzed.

This investigation is still active and will be ongoing. No further details will be provided at this time."

Thanks to Gateway Pundit and The Conservative Treehouse for not letting this story end!

Barr is "hesitant." A politicized court system!

"The Trump administration can now withhold funds from any city and state that declares themselves a ‘sanctuary‘ from immigration enforcement."

Sundance reports in the Conservative Treehouse,

A group of seven states including New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Washington, Massachusetts and Virginia, along with New York City, sued the DOJ in 2017 after then-AG Jeff Sessions announced the DOJ would start withholding funding from local governments that refused to share information about undocumented immigrants or provide jail access to federal authorities investigating inmates’ immigration status.

Today a three-judge panel on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned a prior district court ruling saying the DOJ lacked the authority to impose immigration-related conditions on funding. [Ruling Here]

The Trump administration can now withhold funds from any city and state that declares themselves a ‘sanctuary‘ from immigration enforcement.

Read more here.

ABC suspends top newsman after Project Veritas interviews him via hidden camera

Chris Kensler and Brian Flood report in Fox News,

ABC News has suspended veteran Washington correspondent David Wright for remarks he made that were captured on video by Project Veritas.

Wright was disciplined after higher-ups at ABC News reviewed footage in which Wright describes himself as a "socialist" and appears to criticize the network for the way in which it chooses to present the news.

“I feel terrible about it. I feel that the truth suffers, the voters are poorly informed, and people also have the opportunity to tune into whatever they want to hear,” Wright said in the video, which also features an ABC News producer.

“And so, it’s like there’s no upside, or our bosses don’t see an upside in doing the job we’re supposed to do, which is to speak truth to power and hold people accountable.”

Read more here.

Here is the Project Veritas hidden camera interview with Wright.

BREAKING: Senior @ABC correspondent David Wright(@WrightUps) reveals he is a “Socialist,” Admits bosses spike news important to voters, says ABC doesn’t ‘give Trump credit for what things he does do’

Breaking updates: https://t.co/A6H42NYi20#ExposeABCpic.twitter.com/likVc6Km7s

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 26, 2020

Where Bloomberg stands

In the Daily Wire, Ryan Saavedra takes a close look on where Mike Bloomberg stands on the Constitution, Economy, Health care, Immigration, Foreign Policy, Abortion, and Guns here.

Last night's Democrat debate

Joe Biden, who earlier in the day had told an audience that he was running for the US Senate, made another huge gaffe in last night's debate in South Carolina, but none of the other people on the debate stage called him on it. Speaking about the need for gun control, Biden made the ridiculous claim that "One hundred and fifty million people have been killed since 2007, when Bernie voted to exempt the gun manufacturers from liability. More than all the wars, including Vietnam, from that point on."

Byron York writes in the Washington Examiner,

It was a crazy statement. One hundred and fifty million people would be nearly half the population of the U.S., all killed by guns. Someone would have noticed. The real number for the period from 2007-2020 was in the hundreds of thousands, not millions. Biden's gaffe drew ridicule on Twitter, but not a single one of his opponents corrected him onstage.

Biden's performance might have been seen as a loser were the others not so bad. Bernie Sanders, leading the Democratic race after winning the most votes in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, was everyone's target at the beginning of the night. The criticism began with a cheap shot from billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who said to Sanders, "Russia is helping you get elected, so you will lose to [President Trump]." And then the other candidates launched a swarm-of-bees attack on Sanders that included so many allegations that he was not able to address them all.

Sanders seemed off balance for a good bit of the time but regained his bearing with a strong appeal at the end of the debate when he argued that his "radical" ideas are not actually radical in other parts of the world. That is undoubtedly true but might not be very persuasive to voters in South Carolina and some of the less deeply blue Super Tuesday states.

Finally, there was Bloomberg. The billionaire Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat sometimes brags about the massive donations he made to the Democratic Party in the 2018 midterm elections. There's no doubt he believes he deserves some credit for the Democrats' pickup of 40-plus House seats. But he would never go so far as to say he bought the election.

Or would he?

"They talk about 40 Democrats," Bloomberg said. "Twenty-one of those were people that I spent $100 million to elect. All of the new Democrats that came in and put Nancy Pelosi in charge and gave the Congress the ability to control this president — I bough ... I, I got them."

To many ears, it sounded as if Bloomberg began to say that he "bought" a Democratic House. But he didn't get it fully out and then said he, and his money, simply "got" the new Democratic representatives.

After the debate, the Bloomberg team chose to ignore the moment. "I didn't hear that," said adviser Howard Wolfson when asked if Bloomberg said he bought the Democratic House.

On the Sanders side, top aide Jeff Weaver did not point fingers, but he couldn't keep from smiling as he answered the question. "You know, I'm not really sure what he was trying to say," Weaver said. "I think to many people it sounded like that. But he corrected himself in the process. It's hard to know what someone intends to say. It's a very stressful environment."

As for the rest of the field, the other candidates onstage, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Tom Steyer, did not have much effect.

The polls still show Biden in the lead in South Carolina, although by a much smaller margin than just a few weeks ago. Apart from an apparent outlier poll from the Democratic firm PPP that showed Biden with a 15 percentage point lead, other surveys have shown him with a 4-5 percentage point advantage. It's not much, but there are still moderate Democrats, both black and white, in South Carolina who find Biden a more acceptable choice than Sanders, who they view as an extremist, and Bloomberg, who they view as an unappealing billionaire who spent most of his career not being a Democrat.

Read more here.

"You can't support socialism and oppose authoritarians. They are the same!"

Here's where Bernie is getting the real pass: Authoritarianism is part and parcel of all true socialist movements. You can't support socialism and oppose authoritarians. They are the same. #DemDebate2020

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) February 26, 2020

"I bought ...I got them elected!"

Yes, Bloomberg takes credit for the Democrats who got elected to the House in 2018. Video of him bragging he bought their election is found here.

Embarrassing!

Biden gives a speech today telling South Carolinians he is "running for the United States Senate, and if you like what you see, help out. If not, vote for the other Biden."

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then @PeteButtigieg must really be trying butter up @BarackObama. pic.twitter.com/zqcxiccs1i

— John Heilemann (@jheil) February 25, 2020

..."national security against foreign powers is not a fit responsibility for police agencies and courts."

In the Washington Examiner, Andrew McCarthy writes,

...The immense powers wielded by our law enforcement and intelligence apparatus are essential to protecting the United States. The agencies that wield them, as currently constructed, are not.

...If the FBI and the courts are doing national security, they are necessarily practicing politics. Arms of government that make political determinations cannot properly be independent of political oversight and accountability.

...I’ve always believed the FBI could handle these related but different responsibilities. History proved me wrong. The bureau arrogantly insists on independence from political oversight not just in criminal cases but even when it is carrying out national security functions. It wants a free hand to act and even make policy judgments in the political realm, but it demands insulation from political accountability.

FISA was a well-meaning effort to give a modicum of due process to Americans suspected of acting as foreign agents. In point of fact, it does not provide meaningful due process because it cannot replicate the adversarial search for truth that is the hallmark of judicial proceedings. The FBI and Justice Department appear ex parte before the court; the surveillance subject cannot be effectively represented, and the proceedings are classified, so the expectation is that no one will ever check the executive’s representations. This is unlike criminal cases, which lead to prosecution, discovery, and significant legal consequences if government agents duped the judge into granting warrants.

...And now, with the Trump-Russia investigation, we’ve witnessed the abuse of power many FISA critics predicted for decades: the pretextual invocation of FISA surveillance powers to conduct a criminal investigation for which the investigators lack a criminal predicate — in this instance, the hunt for some crime that might render Donald Trump unelectable or removable. Worse, and quite naturally, the abuse has happened in a political context: the incumbent Democratic administration using the threat posed by a hostile power, Russia, to rationalize foreign counterintelligence surveillance of the opposition party’s political campaign, an abuse that continued for two years and impeded the Trump administration’s capacity to govern.

The FBI should be relegated to the investigation and prosecution of crime. The bureau excels in executing its law enforcement duties and can be trusted to operate with minimal political supervision because the criminal justice system features transparent judicial oversight. The foreign counterintelligence mission should be transferred to other intelligence community components and subjected to beefed-up congressional regulation and oversight. FISA should be repealed, with the courts returned to their judicial role of providing a forum for those injured by governmental overreach, rather than aiding and abetting in the overreach.

Much more rethinking of the intelligence community needs to be done. The Claremont Institute’s Angelo Codevilla, an insightful and provocative intelligence expert, argues the CIA is obsolete, politicized, and counterproductive. He would assign foreign intelligence responsibilities to the departments that carry out national defense and foreign relations missions — mainly, the Defense and State Departments — tailoring the gathering of intelligence to the practical needs of these missions. This would strip down the so-called “deep state,” a leviathan that warehouses mountains of intelligence to the detriment of our liberties and with dubious benefits to our security. Codevilla would also repeal FISA.

His ideas are worth exploring. What is already clear, however, is that national security against foreign powers is not a fit responsibility for police agencies and courts. Assigning it to them is a failed experiment: a temptation to intrusive surveillance of innocent citizens and politicized law enforcement. We should end the experiment before the public, in its frustration over the lack of accountability, clips the powers vital to our national defense.

Read more here.

"Even if Trump builds his “big, beautiful wall,” he is creating a massive backdoor and giving the key to corporations eager to feast on a buffet of cheap labor."

This is the first article in American Greatness critical of President Trump that I have seen. Pedro Gonzales writes in part,

President Trump’s rhetoric is aimed at the heart of the American worker, but his policies have delivered one gut punch after another. Now three administration officials have confirmed plans to invite 45,000 seasonal guest workers this summer under the H-2B visa program—the most since Trump sailed into the White House on a working-class wave.

...while visa overstayers account for the vast majority of illegal immigrants, the Trump Administration is welcoming with open arms record numbers of guest workers from countries with high overstay rates.

...Even if Trump builds his “big, beautiful wall,” he is creating a massive backdoor and giving the key to corporations eager to feast on a buffet of cheap labor.

Why hire an American with worker’s rights to do a job for $23 per hour, when you can beef up your bottom line by paying a guest worker with no rights less than half of that?

...While the rich celebrate and donate to their favorite Democrat or “principled” Republican, the American working class suffers. When they suffer, they turn to opioids. Families and communities fall apart.

If President Trump had pledged to facilitate illegal immigration, undermine the wages of the most vulnerable Americans, and to perpetuate a system rife with exploitation, it’s unlikely he would have won his seat in the Oval Office. Now that is precisely what he is doing. The people being run down, run over, shot, stabbed, and beaten in the streets for supporting the president, deserve better.

Read more here.

Political suicide

In his Morning Report, JJ Sefton writes,

Good morning, kids. Tuesday and the race for the Democrat nomination is in the lead, with several interesting angles that are at once encouraging and frightening at the same time. Let's unpack it. First up, with openly in-your-face commie Bernie Sanders notching wins in the first three primaries, and the crucial South Carolina and 14-state Super Tuesday primaries on deck, the Democrat establishment is in absolute panic mode that they will be unable to stop him (DNC shenanigans with super-delegates and other cheating notwithstanding). How panicked are they? James Clyburn, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus gave what some consider a key endorsement to Joe Biden, in an attempt to rally the black vote ahead of South Carolina. Considering the Biden campaign is about to flat-line, the endorsement seems idiotic on the face of it. Then again, with all due respect, back folks don't exactly cotton to homosexuals so Pete Puffer is a non-starter, Little Big Gulp Bloomberg's words and deeds as NYC mayor vis-a-vis stop and frisk and black youth as the cause of all crime are less than helpful, and absolutely no one likes Fauxca-Has-Been Warren, period. I guess Biden was it, but then again Clyburn could've just kept his mouth shut and not endorsed anyone. Not that that would have made a difference either.

Barring some sort of unforeseen events between now and the primaries, Sanders might find himself beyond even the ability of the DNC to steal it from him at a brokered convention. But that said, Bernie's inability or unwillingness to conceal who and what he is - an unreconstructed Communist - is causing him to say things that even the lowest of low-information voters is raising an eyebrow at. Case in point are his comments on 60 Minutes praising Cuba's "literacy program," which if one asks escapees from that island gulag is nothing more than coerced propaganda and brainwashing. Florida Democrat Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a South American immigrant herself, ripped the old coot a new one:

"As the first South American immigrant member of Congress who proudly represents thousands of Cuban Americans, I find Senator Bernie Sanders' comments on Castro's Cuba absolutely unacceptable... "The Castro regime murdered and jailed dissidents, and caused unspeakable harm to too many South Florida families... "To this day, it remains an authoritarian regime that oppresses its people, subverts the free press, and stifles a free society."
Smelling blood in the water, as well as good polling news in South Carolina, Tom "Styrene" Steyer pounced:

"...I don't think it's appropriate to look at a dictator in Cuba who's been there for 60 years, who has really done a terrible job for the Cuban people, who's an autocrat who's never allowed dissent or elections and who has done exactly - he's had the government own the economy and people are hungry and he's been a cruel controller of the country... I don't think it's appropriate to be giving him a lot of compliments."
Of course, Little Big Gulp himself got in on the act:
"Fidel Castro left a dark legacy of forced labor camps, religious repression, widespread poverty, firing squads, and the murder of thousands of his own people. But sure, Bernie. Let's talk about his literacy program."
But ol' Bolshie Bernie wasn't just going to lie there and get curb-stomped, so he defended himself by belching up this little gem:

"I happen to believe in democracy, not authoritarianism. But you know, you can take China as another example. China is an authoritarian country becoming more and more authoritarian. But can anyone deny, I mean the facts are clear, that they have taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history. Do I get criticized because I say that? That's the truth. So that is a fact. End of discussion."
Wow. Just effing wow. I like that "end of discussion" bit. You know who else said "end of discussion" many, many times? Meh, why does this shock me? We've been hearing this bilge from him and his fellow travelers for nigh on 100 years. Bernie is nothing if not consistent. In one way, I respect the guy because at least he is honest about who he is and what he believes. Oh, don't get me wrong; his views are the most utterly abhorrent, absolute lies and distortions of the worst kind about the most evil, murderous, destructive political force in history (along with its kissing cousin Islam), as well as the concomitant trashing of America, Americanism, free market capitalism and post-Scottish enlightenment civilization. But now that he's got his distended geriatric scrotum caught in a vice, of course he's going to double down, because if he tried to backtrack, he'd risk losing his base of true believers and he'd be finished.

A few observations vis a vis the above spat about Cuba, the Chi-Coms and the wages of Socialism. First, where's Michael "Tubby Riefenstahl" Moore, or Sean Penn, Danny Glover or Harry Belafonte? Considering that collectively they are the official government house organ of Cuba, their silence about the attacks on Castro and the Revolution (spit) is rather telling. Surely the man who gave us Sicko which praised to the hilt Cuba's healthcare system by damning ours would like to weigh in (no pun) and defend Sanders. Crickets.

Second, and more crucially, if you did not know who was ripping Sanders, you'd swear it was Ronald Reagan or Rush Limbaugh. Funny how Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, an immigrant from Ecuador, can so eloquently and accurately lay into Sanders yet is oddly silent about Obama's normalization of relations with the Castros while posing in front of that giant statue of Che Guevara, a cruel, mass-murdering, homophobic racist. Not that anyone has bothered to ask her about that. Then there's Styrene Steyer who waxes so eloquently about the evils of communist Cuba and it's command and control economy; the guy who made his fortune by swindling the government out of green energy subsidies while openly advocating for the destruction of our economy by killing the petrochemical industry. And then there's Little Big Gulp Bloomberg, who absolutely flayed Sanders during the Las Vegas debate about his love of communism and rank hypocrisy of his own lifestyle. Too bad about his own raging hypocrisy involving Communist China, where he has massive business dealings, and his doing everything in his power to squelch any and all criticism of that country. Yes, Xi Jinping has to take care of the citizens lest he be voted out of office.

Third, and most importantly, all of this Democrat-Media Complex trashing of communism and socialism as a means of destroying Bernie is truly a thing of beauty to behold. It's an indicator that despite 50 years of brainwashing in our schools, most people reject socialism/communism and that to openly run a national campaign as a champion of those systems is political suicide. Also, despite the Dems' protestations about the aforementioned, they have been the driving force of trying to "fundamentally transform" America into a socialist nation since at least 1913 and perhaps earlier. It's just that they were able to nuance and message Medicare, Medicaid, the Great Society, the EPA, Hope and Change and all the rest as somehow in keeping with the Constitution and the American ideal, while trashing those who opposed them as racists and reactionaries. The coming of Trump, which was a reaction/rejection to/of Obama, has engendered not a Democrat-Left period of self-examination and introspection but the attempt to destroy him. In that effort, they created a monster in the ascendancy of Bernie Sanders. So now they have to openly attack and dismantle everything in their political philosophy and agenda they have striven for for over 100 years to take out Bernie Sanders, ironically that agenda's biggest, loudest champion.

That is going to leave a mark for a very long time to come. The last thing the Democrats wanted was a showdown and stark contrast between a pro-American free market Donald Trump and an aged, loud, rumpled old bull Bolshevik. Beyond the optics of each man is the optics of their achievements and what they represent. The former with a revitalized nation, economy and spirit, the latter... Cuba, Venezuela and Communism.

For that I am grateful and optimistic. But the fly in the ointment to all of this is the fact that there are still so many people gullible and ignorant enough about history and the world - thanks, academia - to actually listen to the likes of Sanders, Toothy McBigTits AOC and their fellow travelers and pull the lever for their own extermination. Perhaps the ultimate showdown between Trump and Sanders will be a gigantic first step in setting things right. We shall see. But for now, I'm happy to listen to Democrats sound like the second coming of Joe McCarthy and William F. Buckley and make the heads of all the little campus commies and aging hippies heads explode.

Go here to click on his links.

Going there!

Tonight will be the night Bloomberg goes after Bernie!

JUST NOW: @MikeBloomberg Senior Adviser @TimOBrien goes there on @BernieSanders.

Orgasms. Rape fantasies. Children running naked. All there.@NewDaypic.twitter.com/EUckLVYNR0

— John Berman (@JohnBerman) February 25, 2020

#Haney didn't kill himself!

In American Greatness, Debra Heine extends our knowledge about DHS whistleblower Philip Haney who was found dead this week.

In October 2019, Haney warned in an interview with American Truth Project that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamic advocacy group believed to be a front group for Hamas, had saturated three major arenas in the country: the social arena, the political arena, and law enforcement arena.

CAIR has, I use the word saturation, saturated into the three major arenas of our country, and that would be the social arena, in particular, the catalyst in that area is immigration reform. And they’ve attacked and have gone after immigration reform, calling it the Muslim ban. So in that area, they’re very visible. The second one is the political arena, and they’re very active in promoting pro-Islamic causes in whatever arena you want to discuss up to and including the State Department. And the third arena is law enforcement, and they constantly file lawsuits and send threatening letters to local law enforcement, sheriffs, and police that want to have training about the threat and coerce and intimidate them into shutting the programs down. So every one of the major three arenas in our society CAIR is there exerting an inordinate amount of influence on the affairs of our country. And it’s unfortunate because they should have been shut down more than ten years ago.

Just last month, he warned in another interview of a growing jihadist threat in Germany.

“[Islamists] are penetrating right into the heart of Germany, [which] means they are already spread out all over the country,” he said.

Haney’s friends stressed to Law Enforcement Today that there was “absolutely no way he would have taken his own life” and pointed out that he had made many enemies when he blew the whistle on the Obama administration.

American Greatness will provide an update when additional details emerge about Haney’s death.

Read more here.

Deport George Soros?

The headline in FrontPage Magazine for the latest article by Daniel Greenfield:

ICE Should Deport George Soros as a Nazi Collaborator

...The deportation of a Nazi death camp guard from his residence in Queens, New York, in 2018 by ICE was described as the removal of the "last known Nazi collaborator from the United States."

That’s not quite true.

There’s another Nazi collaborator living on Fifth Avenue. He’s a billionaire and untouchable because his dubious fortune has been used to finance the Democrat Party, radical leftists, assorted anti-Semites, and opponents of ICE: the agency that should step in to remove the aged Hungarian from the United States.

The legal basis for removing Soros is quite clear.

...There might be a debate about whether a teenager should be punished for his actions during the war. But no one is putting Soros on trial. Courts have held that deportation is not a punishment. As an unrepentant adult, he is eligible to be deported from the United States for his voluntary collaboration in the persecution of Jews because his past renders him inadmissible to remain on American soil.
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George Soros never paid for a lifetime of misdeeds. And it would also be fitting to start with what may be his oldest crime. The Holtzman Amendment leaves no room for Nazi collaborators in America.

Not even when their billions have funded politicians, judges, organizations, and the Democrat Party.

Read more here.

"the greatest political conspiracy in modern American history"

In American Greatness, Sebastian Gorka writes in part,

...While many in the MAGA community are still smarting from the Barr Department of Justice’s recent decision not to prosecute corrupt FBI agent Andrew McCabe, they miss the point. The charges in question were related exclusively to his lying to officials over his leaking details to the media about the Clinton email investigation. They have nothing to do with the current, and far, far larger investigation into the origins of the Russia hoax by U.S. Attorney John Durham. No one has been exonerated or had charges dropped against him when it comes to the greatest political conspiracy in modern American history, the use of the FBI, NSA, and CIA to spy on a presidential campaign and White House, Operation Crossfire Hurricane. No one, not McCabe, not Comey, not John Brennan, not Jim Clapper, not Rice, and not Barack Obama.

Lastly and most promising to those who believe in Lady Justice truly being blindfolded, nothing—and I mean nothing—has leaked from the Durham investigation. In fact the only time that Barr’s handpicked team has said anything on record in relation to its work is to correct the sweeping claims made by the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz that there was no detectable political bias at the highest levels of Obama’s Department of Justice and that the rules for predication were followed.

Attorney General William Barr may not like the president tweeting about cases that are sub judice, but he is clearly a man on a mission to clean the Augean Stables that are the post-Obama Department of Justice, and in the most under-reported story of the last four years, his man Durham’s mandate was changed from heading an administration review, to heading a criminal investigation, which means he has found evidence of felonious acts and can (is?) impaneling secret grand juries.

All the above is a start. It comes very late. But it’s a start. The deep state beast is writhing in discomfiture. If God blesses us again and President Trump is reelected this November, it would be nice to have people working for the man chosen by the American voters to lead them and upon whom we don’t have to use lie detectors.

Read more here.

"In capitalism, man oppresses man — and in communism it is the other way around."

Dov Fischer writes in part in Spectator,

There is absolutely no correlation between money and goodness of soul. Rich people can be good, and they can be evil. Poor people can be good, and they can be evil. I have met clergy whom I aspire to emulate though I know I never will reach their level of character purity and spiritual excellence, and I have met a discrete handful of clergy, some who believe themselves to be prominent, whom I cannot respect because I have encountered their egos when their congregants were not around. I have met many attorneys whom I admire for their character and their unyielding passion to help others, and yet the single most evil person I ever have met in my life is a family law attorney.

In capitalism, man oppresses man — and in communism it is the other way around. Think about that.

...Elizabeth Warren herself is a mega-millionaire. She built her $12 million fortune in part by snatching an affirmative action opportunity that otherwise would have gone to an authentic Black, Hispanic, or Native American. Instead, she lied about being an “American Indian.” Then, once in the door at the Harvard faculty, she made millions on the side by working for corporate America. That is why she hates the billionaires — with a “B” — but does not incite hatred and jealousy against the millionaires — with an “M”. She is phony, despicable. She speaks not only with a shrill and cracking voice but also with a forked tongue.

The same shameless hypocrisy is manifest in Bernie Sanders, who dares not call his ideology “communism” because that term reminds all Americans of Stalin and Mao, midnight show trials and firing squads, forcible removal to reeducation camps and mass slaughter. So he calls it “socialism.” But it is the communism that sees him honeymooning in the Soviet Union and praising Soviet communist bread lines without advocating for freedom of the oppressed seeking to leave. It is the communism of praising Castro in Cuba, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and himself calling for government reining in private enterprises and capital. As Michael Bloomberg noted, this is quite some country where a communist who attacks capitalism himself owns three houses and is a millionaire. So Sanders, like Warren, now attacks the billionaires, but not the millionaires.

...Beyond the remarkable contempt Bloomberg has manifested towards Blacks and Latinos, his comments about farmers and factory workers render him utterly and udderly unfit for the presidency. Maybe a mayor of New York City can get away with contempt for farmers, but not a president of the United States. His remarkable condescension, speaking of farmers as morons and idiots lacking “gray matter” and as too dull-witted to grasp his thoughts, is amplified by his describing contemporary farming as entailing digging a hole, dropping in a seed, and watering it. No wonder he avoided campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Nevertheless, there is a discernible difference between Bloomberg and Sanders–Warren. Sanders and Warren know better but are evil demagogues. They eagerly have leveraged the system to become millionaires themselves without getting their fingers dirty, then have manipulated their less sophisticated acolytes to believe their mendacities. Like the bullfighter who waves a red flag that makes a bull crazy and induces it to surge straight to its death, these evil cynics wave their red flags and shout “RACIST!” to incite hate among their mobs of the Envious. It is despicable. Bloomberg is different. He instead is so utterly out of touch that he does not even realize how condescending, arrogant, and uninformed he is. Like a Mitt Romney who troglodytically offers a debating opponent a “gentleman’s wager” of $10,000, Bloomberg knows how to make money — and good for him! — but the only human faces he comfortably can look directly in the eye with currency are those of Washington, Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson, Grant, Franklin, and Grover Cleveland. Since joining the race, he has recanted, reversed, and apologized for most of the more sensible policies he pursued when he was New York’s mayor. Because he unknowingly is so elitist, he believes that he knows what is best for the rest of us: how much soda we may drink, how much food we may eat. We all may regard ourselves blessed by providence that he now is exposed as having no personality and as being especially uncomfortable when situated among people he deems below him — which is pretty much everyone. His attitudes towards women should help close the deal.

Joe Biden is finished. More than a “has-been,” he really is a “never-was.” His prior campaigns for the presidency, from 1988 to 2008, failed. His myth is that he has great foreign policy experience. Yet when Obama named him as vice presidential running mate, Biden reflected remarkable foreign-affairs ignorance while debating Sarah Palin, whose own foreign policy inexperience allowed him to escape public shame. Four years later, he reflected mental imbalance when he giggled moronically throughout a vice presidential debate with Paul Ryan. We have continued to watch this “man who rides the trains” continue to derail — sharing stories about young boys rubbing his leg hair, falsifying tales of personal heroism in Afghanistan, falsifying his life by stealing the speech of British Labour leader Neil Kinnock, and never being quite sure which state he is in. He has reversed himself this year on virtually every policy for which he stood previously. His lifetime of racist comments would leave an observer bewildered that any African American ever could vote for him — but for Obama having propped him as a shield. As Biden exits the stage during these months, his twilight months, the whole country now knows that the convivial “Uncle Joe who rides the trains” corruptly filled Biden pockets with overseas millions from Ukraine to China, as his misfit son, discharged from the military because of drugs and now enmeshed in a messy paternity dispute with a pole-dancing stripper, raked in the payoffs under his father’s aegis.

Fischer ends his lengthy post with paragraphs critical of Buttigieg and Klobuchar here.