Liberals Propose Soviet Style Housing for the Homeless

Liberals plan to build $3 Billion dollar HomelessTown.  BWHAHAHA!!

California’s homeless population in 2018 was almost 130,000, nearly a quarter of the national total, according to the most recent federal data.

“Qualified citizens” – those who meet as-yet undisclosed criteria – will be allowed to live in the city and are free to leave whenever they wish, says Nason, who adds, “Some might want to stay forever.”

According to a press release, the all-inclusive city will offer high-density housing in dormitories consisting of sleeping quarters and communal bathrooms with private showers.

Residents would be provided RFID-enabled wristbands to gain access to their dorm rooms as well as perform tasks such as job check-in, purchasing items with credits, medicine consumption, and more.

Each of the four neighborhoods will have their own cafeteria and kitchen and multiple scheduled eating times to accommodate a 150,000-person population, according to Nason.

(Image courtesy Citizens Again)

The neighborhoods will also be fitted with tiered seating for residents to watch TV in a community setting within their neighborhood.

Part of the effort will involve building underground tunnels by which deliveries can be made and city workers can commute to job sites in order to “minimize disruption of citizen life”, according to Nason.

And when those living in the city are prepared to leave, they’ll be provided with job and life skills training along with counseling and therapy, Nason said.

“It will be a city they’ll want to live in, a community they’ll want to be part of, and for those that desire, an opportunity to gain life skills to integrate back into society,” according to the Citizens Again website.

A GoFundMe effort with a goal of $50,000 for the proposed city had raised just $60 as of Thursday.

Compare this Soviet Style Apartment living to what Liberals propose.

‘Oh my God, look at that ship!’: massive cruise liners collide off Mexico

December 20, 2019
By Lizbeth Diaz
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Two Carnival Corp cruise ships collided on Friday in the port of Mexico’s Caribbean resort of Cozumel, the luxury cruise operator said, crushing the stern of a 952-foot-long (290-meter) vessel and leaving passengers stunned at the loud impact.
One person was lightly injured while evacuating a dining room on the massive ship named Carnival Glory, according to Carnival, the world’s largest cruise operator. A passenger said the incident occurred during rough sea conditions.
“Carnival Glory was maneuvering to dock when it made contact with Carnival Legend which was already alongside,” the company said in a statement. “We are assessing the damage but there are no issues that impact the seaworthiness of either ship.”
Carnival added that the ship itineraries were not affected.
Civil protection authorities in Cozumel said the incident took place at around 8:30 a.m. (1430 GMT) and that officials were investigating.
Passenger Jordan Moseley said he was eating breakfast on the docked Carnival Legend, a 963-foot-long (294-meter) ship that can hold more than 2,000 passengers, when he felt the crash.
“All of a sudden we felt the ship rock to one side and then back into place,” Moseley told Reuters. “A few minutes later, the cruise director announced that the Carnival Glory had crashed into our ship while docking due to the high winds and rough ocean conditions in Cozumel.”

A video taken from an upper deck of Carnival Glory, which can carry nearly 3,000 passengers, shows pieces of the ship tumble onto the deck of the oncoming vessel, with some splashing into the churning water.
“Oh my God, look at that ship!” an onlooker can he heard saying in the video posted on social media.
Other images of the battered vessel show a railing along the Carnival Glory stern bent downwards at a roughly 45-degree angle, revealing a twisted and mangled ship interior.
Christopher Macijeski, who was on a third cruise ship nearby, said there was a loud boom from the impact.
“Could see it coming before it happened,” he said.

https://www.oann.com/cruise-ships-collide-in-mexicos-cozumel-damaging-carnival-liner/

Tulsi Gabbard Doesn't Regret Her "Present" Vote, and Reasonably Defends It

Brandon Morse reporting for RedState

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard was pretty wishy-washy when it came to impeachment, but my educated guess was that she wasn’t going to along with it when push came to shove. She’s spent quite a bit of time trying to distance herself from the rest of the Democratic party, and one of the biggest messages she could send was to not vote to impeach Donald Trump.

Lo and behold, Gabbard didn’t vote in the affirmative to impeach President Donald Trump, instead simply voting “Present.”

As this had been the Democrat’s ultimate goal for years now, not voting to impeach Orange Man was bad. Really bad. Needless to say, the mob came for Gabbard.

But according to , Gabbard has doubled down on her decision and her reasoning rests mainly on the fact that the process by which Trump was impeached was hyper-partisan and that impeachment “should never come about as a culmination of a highly partisan process”:

“This is something that our founding fathers warned us about,” Gabbard said.

“Making this statement, voting ‘present,’ taking a stand for the center. Standing for our democracy and really that this decision of whether to remove Donald Trump or not must be in the hands of voters,” she added. “I believe that they will make that decision.”

The Hawaii congresswoman noted she has instead introduced a resolution censuring Trump.

“We’ve actually already introduced it,” she said. “It basically points out some of the examples that I’ve raised of actions of wrongdoing by this president and a demand for an apology to the American people.”

While I’m still waiting to hear what Trump did that was worthy of impeachment, Gabbard is absolutely correct in her take and on her decision.

Take the fact this was done strictly down party lines. If Trump had actually done something that deserved impeachment, then there would have been a number of Republicans who would have voted for it as well. No Republican has, and that’s not because they’re so partisan that they’d let actual crimes pass. Trump has committed no crimes and the Democrats have displayed nothing that lends to his guilt. In fact, they’ve said that Trump might be guilty, but that he hasn’t really given congress anything to prove he’s innocent.

That’s not how innocence works in this country.

Still, Democrats are convinced that Trump did something wrong and I think Gabbard is still playing to that. She’s still running for the White House, after all, and the Democrat base has a scratch that needs to be itched. I think she knows Trump hasn’t done anything wrong, but she can’t say that. At least not yet.

Regardless, this was a very risky move by Gabbard, and while the majority of the American people don’t want to see Trump impeached by 51 percent, I’m not sure how this will play to the Democrat base.

Time will tell, but my guess is “not well.” I’ve been very wrong before, however. The impeachment attempts may have created a base of Democrats that, like Gabbard, would rather keep the mainstream part of the party at arm’s reach. It may get her some respect, but it won’t win her an election.

6 Reasons Pelosi’s Senate Obstruction Gambit On Impeachment Articles Is A Disaster

Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway reporting for The Federalist

If Nancy Pelosi truly thought Democrats had made the case that Donald Trump was an "urgent threat" to America, she wouldn't be refusing to send the articles of impeachment against him to the Senate for a full trial. 

Immediately after impeaching President Donald Trump for allegedly obstructing the House and abusing his power as president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi obstructed the Senate’s constitutional obligation to hold an impeachment trial and abused her power by trying to steal power that belongs solely to the Senate under the Constitution. Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that she is in no rush to formally transmit to the Senate the articles of impeachment her party in the House had just approved. Here are six reasons Pelosi’s impeachment obstruction stunt undermines the entire basis of the Democrats’ effort to eject Trump from office.

1) After impeaching Trump for supposed obstruction of House, Pelosi moves to obstruct the Senate

Pelosi said she’ll wait to send over the articles until she finds out how the Senate will conduct the trial, which looks a lot like obstructing the Senate, given that the Constitution clearly states that the Senate has “the sole power to try all [i]mpeachments.” The Constitutional process for impeachment is that the House impeaches and the Senate holds a trial to test the quality of the accusations and the guilt or innocence of the accused. Pelosi apparently wants to control the Senate process from her perch in the House, a power grab that looks a lot like an abuse of power.

What’s crazy about this is that one of the articles of impeachment against the President is that he must be removed from office for the “obstruction of Congress” by asserting his privilege and protecting executive branch communications. If Trump, asserting constitutional privilege as the head of the executive branch, has to be quickly removed from office because he’s not providing a single chamber of Congress what it wants, Pelosi is obstructing the Senate by asserting a privilege to not formally transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial, and abusing her power by demanding authority that under the Constitution belongs to the Senate, not the Speaker of the House.

2) After denying Trump any due process, Pelosi is now denying him a speedy trial

One of the big complaints about the House investigation was that the process followed by Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., denied the president any due process rights. It’s also why the investigation failed to get a single Republican to join with Democrats in their impeachment stunt.

After ignoring the principles of due process guaranteed in the Fifth Amendment, Pelosi’s gambit now is to deny Trump the principle of a speedy trial enshrined in the Sixth Amendment.

The common refrain is that Trump should not be above the law. That’s absolutely true. Nobody should be above the law. It’s also true that nobody is below the law. Over the last three years, however, the so-called Resistance has placed Trump below the law, the target of illegitimate and spurious investigations and impeachments with pre-ordained conclusions. That may be how politics is achieved, but it’s not how justice is achieved.

Police states levy charges, destroy the reputations of their target, deny the accused the ability to do their jobs and, importantly, the chance to ever get out from under the charges.

Democrats knew that Trump would never be removed from office based on the flimsy charges they put against him. They did hope to tarnish his name and harm him in the 2020 election — which is interesting, since their other charge against him is that he can’t conduct foreign policy or investigations that might in any way touch on a potential 2020 election opponent. If they want a cloud over him through the election, denying him the right to a speedy trial makes sure he can’t be acquitted as quickly as possible.

You might call this the Gitmo approach. By treating him as an enemy combatant instead of an American citizen with certain rights, the Democrats can continue to play politics with this indefinitely. Consider it the political version of indefinite detention. The only problem is that only the most hard-core Resistance find this approach fair or reasonable.

3) Pelosi has no leverage

Preventing people from wasting their time on something that they don’t want to waste their time on is not a victory. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would likely rather do anything other than waste his time on an impeachment process that House Democrats failed to manage well, and said as much on Thursday morning.

“Frankly, I’m not anxious to have the trial, if she [Pelosi] thinks her case is so weak she doesn’t want to send it over, throw me into that briar patch,” he told reporters.

Pelosi thinks that holding the articles of impeachment somehow gives her leverage to control how the Senate trial is conducted. But McConnell would probably rather chew gum and confirm judges and keep accomplishing his agenda rather than waste valuable time dealing with an impeachment that has zero chance of resulting in Trump’s removal from office. Pelosi’s threat simply has no weight. Plus, committees in the Senate can handle investigations and throw cold water on the Democrats’ impeachment narrative even without formally receiving the articles from the House. 

4) Pelosi’s obstruction gambit shows her own lack of confidence in Schiff’s work product

McConnell’s plan, upon receipt of the articles, is to run the process the exact same way that Democrats ran the process during the Clinton impeachment. That plan was to receive the articles and hear the case for and against them before deciding on the next course of action. The next course of action could be to dismiss them, to vote them up or down, or to get more evidence to make a decision. Pelosi wants McConnell to agree to Democratic demands on the front end, before the House case is made.

If House Democrats had done their job properly and brought real articles of impeachment to a vote, they wouldn’t just have some Republican support, they could proudly deliver those articles of impeachment with a bow on the same day they voted on them. 

They want more witnesses called because they know that they didn’t do their job even remotely well. It shows a cavalier approach to impeachment.

5) Refusing to transmit impeachment articles undercuts Democrats’ claim that Trump is an “urgent threat” to America

Democrats’ defense of their shoddy impeachment effort was that they had to rush through things in order to get Trump removed before the 2020 election. They claimed Trump was such an “urgent threat” to American national security and the U.S. constitution that he had to be charged and removed from office post-haste. That was never a particularly strong argument, but Pelosi’s attempt to indefinitely delay any resolution of the impeachment effort she rammed through the House shows it was an argument that her own party didn’t even believe. Delaying the transmission of the articles to the Senate for even a moment, let alone weeks or months, destroys Democrats’ claim about the urgent need for impeachment.

6) Democrats continue to destroy norms and institutions while claiming Trump is the real norm destroyer

The last three years of the Resistance–whether in the media, from Democrats, in the bureaucracy, or among NeverTrump activists — has been the story of the destruction of Constitutional norms and institutions. These activists regularly set dynamite at the base of every institution and norm and clack it off — all while decrying Trump as the real saboteur. Whether it was the Mueller probe, the abuse of civil liberties of Trump affiliates, the spurious effort to remove him via manipulation of the Electoral College or the 25th amendment, or the disgusting assaults on Brett Kavanaugh and his family, the Resistance has decided any use of presidential power by a president they don’t like is wrong and maybe even criminal.

Hillary Clinton made much of Trump’s statement during a presidential debate that he’d wait to see the outcome of the election and how it was run before saying he’d agree to the results. This impeachment, though, is the culmination of a multi-year refusal of Democrats to accept the results of the 2016 election. For all the accusations that Trump is destroying vital American norms and institution, it is the continued refusal of Democrats, media, and NeverTrump activists to accept the results of an election they lost that represents the gravest threat to our system of government.

Profiles in Cowardice

 Article by Dennis L. Weisman in "The American Thinker":

In Profiles in Courage, the Democratic Party's apostle, John Kennedy, observed that the difference between a politician and a statesman is that a statesman is willing to "cross the aisle" for the good of the country.  The impeachment vote in the House is proof positive that we have far too many politicians and far too few statesmen.  This is unfortunate but not surprising.  The emergence of the "politician" as profession unto itself is a relatively recent phenomenon in this country and one wholly at odds with what the founders envisioned.  They imagined that accomplished individuals would give back to society in the form of public service.  These individuals, baptized by the fire of the real world, would possess the requisite wisdom, judgment, and acumen to contribute positively to the fair and effective operation of government.  This has all gone by the wayside, and the country is worse off for it.

President Trump's predecessor, Mr. Obama, famously quipped that "elections have consequences."  They do, but a statesman, unlike a politician, understands that just because you have the power does not mean that you should take every possible opportunity to exercise it.  Impeachment is one case in point, and Obamacare is another.  As a rule of thumb, any legislative act that draws little or no support from the other side of the aisle is one that should not be passed despite the power of the party in the majority to do so.  In the case of both impeachment and Obamacare, ego trumped judgment, and politicians prevailed over statesmen. 

   

The impeachment process is not one on which the opinions of reasonable people can differ.  The American people are a fair-minded lot, and at the end of the day, country comes before party.  The Democrats' denial of due process, their refusal to allow the Republicans to call witnesses, and the dubious choice of Democratic henchmen Nadler and Schiff to run the kangaroo court will not resonate well with the electorate.  More than that, it was downright cowardly.  When you have the goods, there is no reason to "cover your ears" and refuse to listen to supplemental information that may constructively inform the debate.  This is what they do in China, North Korea, and Russia and a whole host of other countries that we choose not to emulate.  We don't act this way in the United States of America, and for good reason. 

A good general, like a good politician, knows that winning the war is far more important than winning the battle.  In ceding effective control of the House to the radical fringe of her party, Mrs. Pelosi won the battle over impeachment only to ensure that President Trump will skate handily to a second term.  Madam Speaker was dressed in black at the impeachment vote on Wednesday evening not to signify the solemn nature of the action of the House.  She was dressed in black to mourn the fact that with this action, the Democrats had lost the 2020 presidential election.  We might entitle this saga "Dead Democratic Candidates Walking."

   

John Kennedy was not a great president in terms of his accomplishments, but he was a patriot, and he had a sense of decorum about how to lead this country.  He would not look favorably upon what his party has become or the values it sacrificed in its shameless quest for power.  John Kennedy was flawed, but he was also courageous, and he had a sense of destiny.  A beacon of light for future generations, he was a true champion and not an apologist for American Exceptionalism.  It is a shame that his descendants have seen fit to extinguish the torch that he lit and in the process condemn the party's followers to the darkness that is sure to follow.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/profiles_in_cowardice.html#ixzz68fGB4MYW

 

 

4 Reasons Trump’s Impeachment Is The Weakest In U.S. History

Mollie Hemingway reporting for The Federalist

Critics of Trump note that no crime is necessary to impeach the president. While that's true, it speaks to how weak the Democrats' case against Trump is.

President Donald Trump joined Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson in the club of impeached presidents Wednesday night. Like the other two, Trump will be acquitted by the Senate once the articles of impeachment are delivered.

The case for Trump’s impeachment is the weakest of the three. If we include Richard Nixon, who resigned on his way to impeachment, it’s the weakest of the four. Here’s why.

1. No Actual Crime

Previous impeachments at least had a crime. Andrew Johnson was the first U.S. president to be impeached. He faced 11 articles of impeachment, mostly built around his violation of the Tenure of Office Act of 1867. That act limited the power of presidents to fire employees in Senate-approved positions without the consent of the Senate. While the law was blatantly unconstitutional, Johnson did violate it by getting rid of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

Clinton was impeached for actual crimes that would get the rest of us in a whole lot of trouble. He was impeached for lying to a grand jury about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, false statements he’d made in an earlier deposition, and false statements he allowed his attorney to make about witness tampering. He was also impeached for obstructing justice in a case filed against him by encouraging Lewinsky to make a false statement and give false testimony, by hiding gifts he’d given to her, getting her a job in exchange for favorable testimony, attempted witness tampering with his secretary, and making false and misleading statements to jurors.

Nixon would have been impeached for obstructing an investigation into the unlawful break-in by his Committee to Re-Elect the President at the Watergate building and using the IRS and other agencies to violate others’ privacy.

By contrast, President Trump was not impeached for any recognizable crime. Critics of Trump note that no crime is necessary to impeach the president. While that’s true, it speaks to how weak the Democrats’ case against Trump is.

2. Punishing Trump for Exercising Constitutional Privileges

Trump is being impeached for abusing his power and for obstructing Congress. The first charge relates to complaints with how Trump handled foreign policy with Ukraine. In a friendly phone call with the Ukraine president, Trump asked for help investigating corruption issues in the country. Since some of the corruption touched on the family of Joe Biden, Democrats say Trump abused his power since Biden may be his 2020 election opponent.

Biden was the Obama administration’s point man in Ukraine when his son, Hunter, who had no expertise in the region or industry, was being paid $80,000 a month to sit on the board of an energy concern there. Setting aside that charge, the second charge is more troubling.

Democrats say that Trump’s decision to exercise his constitutional privilege to protect executive communication means he should be removed from office. That’s their second charge — obstruction of Congress. Many presidents have battled with Congress over their executive privilege and what it covers, but the idea that the debate is cause for impeachment is remarkably weak. If President Trump had defied a court order to turn over documents, that would make for a stronger case. But that hasn’t happened.

3. Bipartisan Opposition Instead of Bipartisan Support

Previous impeachments had bipartisan support. In Trump’s case, not a single Republican supported impeachment and several Democrats declined to support it. This is a remarkable turn of events from the time that impeachment first began to be lobbied for. The media and others in the resistance pushed impeachment within hours of Trump’s inauguration.

The initial plan was to spin up a special counsel that would deliver a report on collusion with Russia to steal the election. That dream fizzled with the inability to find a single American, much less anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign, who had done so. But at its onset, the plan allegedly had Republican support. Now, no Republicans are joining Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Jerry Nadler in their impeachment goals.

The plan was clearly to start with limited Republican support and grow from there. Instead, there was no growth in the ranks of Republican support. And while high percentages of Americans have told pollsters for months that they would like the Bad Orange Man impeached, there was no movement in those polls toward more support. Even more surprisingly, Trump’s approval ratings went up. This shows us that the bipartisan growth and momentum that was needed isn’t happening.

4. Failure to Do the Work

Previous impeachments and impeachment efforts required a great deal of work from congressional and other investigators. Some spent years investigating matters before bringing them to Congress.

In this case, impeachment was built entirely around a late July phone call with Ukraine’s president. The original impeachment effort was to say that the phone call violated campaign finance law. That charge morphed into claims of bribery, extortion, and obstruction of justice. By the time two articles of impeachment were drafted, it was clear that the case had lost focus.

After the vote, some Democrats suggested that the House could keep investigating the matter. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi herself signaled a lack of confidence in her members’ work when she said that the House might not even send the articles over to the Senate for a trial. She claimed that was because of how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell planned to run the trial, but he said he would use the same rules that were used in the Clinton trial.

House members also coordinated with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on how the Senate trial should go. He told television cameras that he would like to call witnesses to further investigate the underlying matter. This would only be necessary if the House didn’t bother to complete their investigation because they were rushing.

Democrats hope to tarnish Trump heading into 2020. While they have done their best, what they’ve mostly provided is the weakest impeachment case in U.S. history.

How Democrats Could Undo Trump’s Lasting Legacy in the Courts

 Article by Selwyn Duke in "The American Thinker":

To the delight of conservatives and dismay of liberals, President Trump is doing more to reshape the American judiciary than any president in recent memory. It’s viewed as a “lasting legacy” that will ensure more “conservative” rulings — constitutionalist ones, actually — for perhaps decades to come. Unfortunately, a full understanding of the Constitution and leftists’ nature informs that this is an unfounded assumption.

Illustrating the current transformation of the courts, The Daily Signal wrote last month that “‘[o]ne out of every 4 active judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals have been appointed by President Trump,’ says Adam Kennedy, deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of communications at the White House…. ‘And the average age is actually a full 10 years younger for these justices than under President [Barack] Obama.’”
 
All told, the president has thus far had “158 judicial nominees confirmed to the Federal bench,” WhiteHouse.gov informs, including “two Supreme Court justices, 44 Circuit Court judges, and 112 District Court judges.” This judicial transformation is historic — but it also can be made history. How?

Aside from the well-known power to impeach judges, Congress can also pack the Supreme Court. Yet it apparently has still another power, one little known: to abolish entire federal courts.

The only federal court mandated by the Constitution is the SCOTUS; as to “inferior courts,” Article III states that Congress “may from time to time ordain and establish” them, which it has often done. But implied is that what Congress can make, it can unmake; or, as the Legal Information Institute puts it, the Houses can both “expand and contract the units of the system” (emphasis added). 

This is not just theoretical but has already happened: Upset about outgoing president John Adams’s packing of the judiciary with Federalists, the Jeffersonians in 1802 repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801. They then abolished the courts the legislation had created. Moreover, no provision was made for the displaced jurists even though the Constitution guarantees judges lifetime tenure, and a challenge to this apparent omission was rejected by SCOTUS justice William Paterson. And that was that — and thus was a precedent set.

Now let’s talk about the future. While unlikely in 2020, at some point the Democrats will again control the presidency and both Houses of Congress. We also know that to today’s cutthroat, “woke” Left the end justifies the means. Considering this, do you really think they’re going to let the rulings of some black-robed lawyers — people without an army or police force and who constitute (in theory) the “weakest branch” — stymie their agenda? Not a chance.

The first thing the Left would do is pack the SCOTUS. Know that the number of justices is not constitutionally mandated but is set statutorily by Congress and at times has been more or less than nine.

In other words, a leftist legislature could raise the number to whatever was necessary to ensure an ironclad liberal majority (let’s say, 15), let its fellow traveler president nominate hard-left candidates for those positions and then confirm them. And, “Voila!” the Democrats have a judicial rubber stamp for their whole agenda.

Note that this kind of court packing was not only attempted by Democrat Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, but has already been proposed as a near-future strategy.

Impeachment and removal of “conservative” justices could also be pursued. Outrageous? Well, would politicians willing to impeach a president on phony charges be above doing the same to a judge? Remember here that impeaching Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whom leftists claim is illegitimate, has already been proposed, too.

Of course, complete control of SCOTUS suffices to clear the way for a hard-left agenda.  If the Democrats did want to expedite matters by eliminating all judicial speed bumps, however, they could pursue Article III court abolition and, if necessary, the impeachment of lower court judges. Any challenges to these actions would meet swift rejection, too, by the in-the-pocket SCOTUS.

And just like that, President Trump’s judicial legacy would go out the window. Too radical to happen, you say?  Note that the post-mask-drop Democratic Party is defined by radicalism, wearing it like a badge.

Is the above more radical, after all, than socialism and the Green New Deal? That requires remaking our whole governmental system and economy. Is it more radical than one of the Democrats’ current major causes, eliminating the Electoral College? That requires actually altering the Constitution, which means 38 states would have to sign on. The court-revamping strategy requires only federal control and action, using current constitutional provisions. Sure, the Left would have to misapply them, but has that ever stopped it before?

All this, not to mention that the “power” of “judicial supremacy” is not constitutionally granted but is enjoyed at the other two branches’ pleasure. The moment a president says, paraphrasing Andrew Jackson, “The judges have made their decision — now let them enforce it,” it goes bye-bye.

Anyone who thinks today’s “woke,” Ocasio-Cortez Democrats won’t embrace some combination of the above measures but will instead obediently abide by Trump judges’ inconvenient rulings, doesn’t know the Left. It’s Machiavellian — and it plays for keeps.

If court-reshaping does come to pass, traditionalists’ only recourse may be state-level nullification, which Thomas Jefferson called the “rightful remedy” for all federal overreach. It would be bold action, too, and thus may some find it uncomfortably radical and revolutionary (like the Founders?). But what are they going to do? Keep filing more lawsuits?

Yeah, exactly.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/12/how_democrats_could_undo_trumps_lasting_legacy_in_the_courts.html 

 

NYT Report: John Durham Seeking CIA Director Brennan Communications

source: sundance at CTH

…and CTH has a pretty good idea exactly what “communications” Durham is looking for. It sounds like U.S. Attorney Durham is looking for what Comey outlined in the “crown material” discussion.  First, the article from the New York Times (emphasis mine):

WASHINGTON — The federal prosecutor scrutinizing the Russia investigation has begun examining the role of the former C.I.A. director John O. Brennan in how the intelligence community assessed Russia’s 2016 election interference, according to three people briefed on the inquiry.

John H. Durham, the United States attorney leading the investigation, has requested Mr. Brennan’s emails, call logs and other documents from the C.I.A., according to a person briefed on his inquiry. He wants to learn what Mr. Brennan told other officials, including the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, about his and the C.I.A.’s views of a notorious dossier of assertions about Russia and Trump associates. (more)

U.S. Attorney John Durham appears to be looking for a very specific email written by John Brennan to James Comey.  Because Comey wrote another email saying: ..”Brennan is insisting the Crown Material be included in the intel assessment.”

Do you remember the “crown material“?

The Christopher Steele dossier was called “Crown Material” by FBI agents within the small group during their 2016 political surveillance operation. The “Crown” description reflects the unofficial British intelligence aspect to the dossier as provided by Steele.

In May 2019 former House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy stated there are emails from former FBI Director James Comey that outline instructions from CIA Director John Brennan to include the “Crown Material” within the highly political Intelligence Community Assessment.

Specifically outlined by Gowdy, the wording of the Comey email is reported to say:

…”Brennan is insisting the Crown Material be included in the intel assessment.”

However, on May 23rd, 2017, in testimony -under oath- to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) John Brennan stated [@01:54:28]:

GOWDY: Director Brennan, do you know who commissioned the Steele dossier?

BRENNAN: I don’t.

GOWDY: Do you know if the bureau [FBI] ever relied on the Steele dossier as part of any court filing, applications?

BRENNAN: I have no awareness.

GOWDY: Did the CIA rely on it?

BRENNAN: No.

GOWDY: Why not?

BRENNAN: Because we didn’t. It wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had. It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment that was done. Uh … it was not.

Video of the exchange [prompted 01:54:28 just hit play]

As Victor Davis Hanson wrote at the time:

[…] James Clapper, John Brennan, and James Comey are now all accusing one another of being culpable for inserting the unverified dossier, the font of the effort to destroy Trump, into a presidential intelligence assessment—as if suddenly and mysteriously the prior seeding of the Steele dossier is now seen as a bad thing. And how did the dossier transmogrify from being passed around the Obama Administration as a supposedly top-secret and devastating condemnation of candidate and then president-elect Trump to a rank embarrassment of ridiculous stories and fibs?

Given the narratives of the last three years, and the protestations that the dossier was accurate or at least was not proven to be unproven, why are these former officials arguing at all? Did not implanting the dossier into the presidential briefing give it the necessary imprimatur that allowed the serial leaks to the press at least to be passed on to the public and thereby apprise the people of the existential danger that they faced? (read more)

Fox News Maria Bartiromo has more knowledge of the details within the 2016 political surveillance scandal than any other MSM host. Bartiromo has followed the events very closely and now she is the go-to person for those who are trying to bring the truth behind the scandal to light.

On the morning of May 20th, 2019, on her Fox Business Network show Ms. Bartiromo outlined the current issues between Comey and Brennan. WATCH:

It certainly looks like former CIA Director John Brennan has exposed himself to perjury. However, beyond that and even more disturbing, what does this say about the political intents of a weaponized intelligence apparatus?

CTH has previously outlined how the December 29th, 2016, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russia Cyber Activity was a quickly compiled bunch of nonsense about Russian hacking.

The JAR was followed a week later by the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment. The ICA took the ridiculous construct of the JAR and then overlaid a political narrative that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump.

The ICA was the brain-trust of John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey. While the majority of content was from the CIA, some of the content within the ICA was written by FBI Agent Peter Strzok who held a unique “insurance policy” interest in how the report could be utilized in 2017. NSA Director Mike Rogers would not sign up to the “high confidence” claims, likely because he saw through the political motives of the report.

(JUNE 2019 – New York Times) […] Mr. Barr wants to know more about the C.I.A. sources who helped inform its understanding of the details of the Russian interference campaign, an official has said. He also wants to better understand the intelligence that flowed from the C.I.A. to the F.B.I. in the summer of 2016.

During the final weeks of the Obama administration, the intelligence community released a declassified assessment that concluded that Mr. Putin ordered an influence campaign that “aspired to help” Mr. Trump’s electoral chances by damaging Mrs. Clinton’s. The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. reported they had high confidence in the conclusion. The National Security Agency, which conducts electronic surveillance, had a moderate degree of confidence. (read more)

Questioning the construct of the ICA is a smart direction to take for a review or investigation. By looking at the intelligence community work-product, it’s likely Durham will cut through a lot of the chatter and get to the heart of the intelligence motives.

Apparently John Durham is looking into just this aspect: Was the ICA document a politically engineered report stemming from within a corrupt intelligence network?

The importance of that question is rather large. All of the downstream claims about Russian activity, including the Russian indictments promoted by Rosenstein and the Mueller team, are centered around origination claims of illicit Russian activity outlined in the ICA.

If the ICA is a false political document…. then guess what?

Yep, the entire narrative from the JAR and ICA is part of a big fraud. [Which it is]

(Read ICA via pdf)