Report: Philip Haney, Obama Administration Whistleblower, Shot to Death

 
Article by Elizabeth Vaughn in "RedState":

Law Enforcement Today (LET) has learned that Philip Haney, a one-time DHS whistleblower who was repeatedly dismissed by Democratic lawmakers and officials inside the Obama Administration as well as their affiliate, the mainstream media, is dead. Haney retired from the DHS in 2018 after fifteen years of service. He has appeared on both the Megan Kelly and the Sean Hannity shows.

Haney’s job involved searching for individuals with links to terrorist groups. In a 2016 interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, he explains that on two occasions, his carefully prepared files had been “purged.” He also believes that, if the Obama Administration had maintained this database, several mass shootings, including the December 2015 Orlando, FL nightclub massacre and the June 2016 San Bernardino, CA mass shooting could have been prevented.

Although he had retired, he remained active professionally. Friends told LET that Haney was planning to go back on the road in advance of the election. He’d said he would be doubling down on efforts to “protect Americans from progressives, leftists and socialists.” According to LET, in 2018, he told an “Intercessors for Prayers” group he had been working on an assignment in Minnesota to stop Rep. Keith Ellison from being elected as the state’s attorney general.

Friends also doubt that he had taken his own life. He’d never seemed happier they told LET and was engaged to be married later this year.

Haney was the author of a book entitled “See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad” and was a founding member of DHS.

LET reports that, as of 10 am on Saturday, they had not “received independent confirmation from the Sheriff’s Department, but sources within law enforcement have verified there’s a death investigation underway.” LET’s statement said “it is unclear when it happened or how” and that “details are still emerging.”

On Friday morning, Haney’s body was discovered outside of San Francisco with a gunshot wound to the chest. His vehicle was nearby. Haney had been missing since Wednesday.

In the video below, Sean Hannity interviews Haney in June 2016. Hannity plays a clip of then-President Obama stridently denigrating the “presumptive Republican nominee,” Donald Trump over his proposal to “bar all Muslims from emigrating to the United States.”

Hannity: Your job was to identify people with terror links in the early 2000s, you were profiling people with links to terror groups.

Haney: …We were focusing on individuals and organizations, networks across the United States and with affiliations in foreign countries.

Hannity: Six years into your tenure, in 2009, you were ordered to scrub the records of Muslims with these terror ties by our government. Who told you to do that?

Haney: It was directed from DHS headquarters. It’s important to keep in mind that that was one year after the November 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terror trial in American history that irrefutably proved that these individuals from the Muslim Brotherhood front groups were in direct financial support of Hamas.

Hannity: That’s the trial where CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator, if I’m not mistaken?

Haney: Yes, along with Islamic Society of North America and North American Islamic Trust.

Hannity: You were identifying individuals. You built up a computer database. Obama becomes President. You are literally ordered to scrub the names of Muslims with terror ties…You believe you could have stopped what happened in Orlando [nightclub shooting on June 12, 2016 – two days before this interview] and San Bernardino [mass shooting on December 2, 2015 – six months before interview] had you not been ordered by Obama’s DHS to do this?

Haney: That was the first “great purge,” that was in 2009 with more than 800 records.

Haney talks about a second document purge in 2012. Haney had identified a mosque which he believed Syed Farook, the shooter, and Tashfeen Malik, his wife, had been affiliated and we should have been paying attention to.

Haney: There’s an entire network of those kinds of mosques across the U.S…

Hannity: Do you believe in your heart, that the information you had gathered, if you had kept that information, you might have been able to prevent the terrorist attacks in both San Bernardino and Orlando?

Haney: To clarify, I wasn’t told to scrub, my agency deleted them themselves, but yes, I believe I have a plausible premise that we could have stopped it by two major ways. Either Syed Farook would have been put on a “no fly” list and not allowed to travel or his pending fiance would have been denied a Visa because of his affiliation with an organization with plausible ties to terrorism. That’s at least two different ways we could have stopped it.

Hannity: …You did your job and other people did their jobs and in comes the Obama administration and they wipe out all the work that could have potentially saved the lives of Americans. Is that a fair statement?

Haney: Yes, it’s a fair statement.

(Note: In the second video, then-Fox New host Megan Kelly interviews Haney. He tells her that “about a year into an investigation that had led his team to one of the mosques that San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook had attended, officials from the State Department and the Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties showed up at his office to pull the plug.”)

https://youtu.be/Ea6pt13Jp5Q

https://youtu.be/bClwr4osp50

https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/02/22/report-obama-administration-whistleblower-found-shot-to-death/

Justice Sotomayor Accuses Her Conservative Supreme Court Colleagues of Doing Trump’s Bidding

Article by Bonchie in "RedState":

Remember when Justice Roberts got really mad at President Trump for daring to suggest that “Obama judges” exist? Yeah, about that.

Justice Sotomayor, perhaps the most partisan appointment to the court in several decades, has decided to come out and accuse her conservative colleagues on the nation’s highest court of being stooges for the Trump administration. This is the kind of criticism (i.e. accusations of doing political bidding) that have mostly been off limits in the past.

Keith Boykin ✔ @keithboykin

Justice Sotomayor is warning us.

If Trump wins, the Supreme Court and the federal bench will be lost for decades.

And all of your progressive plans on jobs, health care, education, immigration or criminal justice reform will be struck down by the courts.


Here’s a report from Slate (obviously supportive) on Sotomayor’s dissent. It revolves around the public charge issue in dealing with new immigration.

“But this application is perhaps even more concerning than past ones,” Sotomayor continued. Previously, the DOJ “professed urgency because of the form of relief granted in the prior case—a nationwide injunction.” Now there’s no nationwide injunction, so there’s no apparent “urgency.” The DOJ “cannot state with precision any of the supposed harm that would come from the Illinois-specific injunction, and the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has scheduled oral argument for next week.” Yet SCOTUS lifted the injunction anyway. “It is hard,” Sotomayor wrote, “to say what is more troubling: that the Government would seek this extraordinary relief seemingly as a matter of course, or that the Court would grant it.”

Normally, “to justify upending the normal rules,” the government “must also show a likelihood of irreparable harm.” And “it has not made that showing here.” But this shortcut to SCOTUS has become “the new normal”; it has happened over and over and over again, as the DOJ leapfrogs over the lower courts to seize a victory at the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor has long been an activist. Just recently, she proclaimed that the “gender pay gap” is one of the biggest issues facing the country (in reality, any gaps in pay are due to differences in circumstances, not discrimination). What exactly that has to do with being a Justice on the Supreme Court is an open question, but it’s one in a litany of examples of Sotomayor playing politician throughout the years.

But don’t you dare call her an Obama judge.

But the Supreme Court’s conservatives repeatedly accept the DOJ’s declarations of an “emergency,” giving Donald Trump whatever he wants.

This practice, Sotomayor wrote, has “benefited one litigant over all others”: the Trump administration. And the injustice of this favoritism is especially painful in light of the court’s recent refusal to halt unconstitutional executions. “This Court often permits executions—where the risk of irreparable harm is the loss of life—to proceed,” Sotomayor noted, blaming death row inmates for their ostensible failure “to raise any potentially meritorious claims in a timely manner.”

Let me help the Justice out. The reason that the conservatives on the court are hearing these cases is because there has been rampant abuse in the lower courts of injunctions. Whether it’s making them nationwide when they clearly don’t have the authority to do so, or providing explanations that don’t even begin to pass any legal standard, judges have been at war with the Trump administration for political reasons since the moment he took office.

Instead of continuing to allow it, the conservatives on the court have decided enough is enough. They are hearing these cases in an expedited manner and ruling on them based on their constitutional merits. That obviously offends Sotomayor, who instead chooses to often rule based on emotionally charged, partisan arguments. In the case of the “wealth test” she’s decrying, the President obviously has the constitutional authority to vet immigrants for public charge. If the Congress doesn’t like that, they can pass new laws that limit the President’s wide latitude over our immigration system. What doesn’t get to happen is un-elected judges arbitrarily deciding something is unconstitutionally based on clearly political grounds.

Further, Sotomayor gives no logical explanation for why it is somehow wrong to hear these cases in a timely manner. A case, whether it’s heard today or two years from now, has to be decided. If it’s decided today, that’s certainly preferable to it languishing in limbo, is it not? But being who she is, Sotomayor is obviously in favor of the judicial activism that has taken place, i.e. attempting to stall out constitutional actions simply because Trump took them.

This is yet another example of why it’s so important for Trump to win in November. The Supreme Court is still hanging on a knife’s edge and it needs to be solidified with traditionalists who take their jobs seriously. Sotomayor is not one of those people.

https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/02/22/justice-sotomayor/ 

Our Intelligence Community Is Meddling in Electoral Politics and the People Doing It Need to Go to Prison

 
Article by streiff in "RedState":


Sometime in January, Democrat presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and key members of his campaign staff received a counter-intelligence briefing from Office of Director of National Intelligence. This is as it should be. And the Trump administration, unlike the Obama administration, did not seed the briefing with FBI agents who were charged with spying upon the candidate under the false pretense of rendering assistance. Yesterday, the day before the Nevada Caucuses, someone, probably Adam Schiff but certainly some Democrat member of the House Intelligence Committee, did a politically motivated leak to the Washington Post that resulted in this headline: Bernie Sanders briefed by U.S. officials that Russia is trying to help his presidential campaign.

U.S. officials have told Sen. Bernie Sanders that Russia is attempting to help his presidential campaign as part of an effort to interfere with the Democratic contest, according to people familiar with the matter.
…
It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken. U.S. prosecutors found a Russian effort in 2016 to use social media to boost Sanders’s campaign against Hillary Clinton, part of a broader effort to hurt Clinton, sow dissension in the American electorate and ultimately help elect Donald Trump.
…
The disclosure of Russian assistance to Sanders follows a briefing to lawmakers last week in which a senior intelligence official said that Russia wants to see Trump reelected, viewing his administration as more favorable to the Kremlin’s interests, according to people who were briefed on the comments.
In that closed hearing for the House Intelligence Committee, lawmakers were also told that Sanders had been informed about Russia’s interference. The prospect of two rival campaigns both receiving help from Moscow appears to reflect what intelligence officials have previously described as Russia’s broader interest in sowing division in the United States and uncertainty about the validity of American elections.

 

This follows on the heels of a similar leak directed against the Trump administration that appeared in the New York Times and Washington Post on Wednesday.

What these leaks seem to have in common is this. Campaigns are briefed by ODNI staff, it seems that a woman named Shelby Pierson, who allegedly is directing efforts to prevent interference in the 2020 campaign by foreign powers, is at ground zero here. During that briefing the warning is given that the Russians are helping the campaign. There is no specific threat or activity or indication of activities mentioned in the briefings, that is, it is ‘the Russians are helping you guys.’ And then that briefing is revealed to a gaggle of Democrat politicians so it is ensured that it will leak. The press then picks up on the fact that a briefing was given as a way to legitimize the allegation. We all recognize this strategy. James Clapper and James Comey conspired to ensure that President-elect Trump was briefed on the more salacious parts of the fraudulent Steele dossier, in particular the part dealing with hookers peeing on the Obama’s bed in Moscow. When the briefing was given, Comey, with near mathematical certainty, knew the allegation was total crap. But he briefed Trump and then leaked to CNN the fact that he had briefed him which allowed Jake Tapper to make a breathless report that the allegations in the dossier were so important that the head of the FBI had to do a personal briefing of the new President.

Not to point fingers, but the counter narrative that emerged yesterday was that the ODNI briefer, Pierson, overstated the value of the intelligence behind her warning and produced zero evidence to substantiate a politically damaging statement. You have to ask yourself why that would be the case? How could such malpractice even come to be? Why would someone who has spent their entire career in the intelligence community overstate an intelligence assessment on a subject that is so politically charged that it resulted in a three-year investigation of the Trump campaign and administration? How is ‘the Russians want to elect you’ useful information to any campaign in protecting itself from Russian meddling?

None of this is innocent. None of it is accidental. This is meddling in our democratic processes with much greater impact than the $100,000 in Facebook ads that the left and NeverTrump claim catapulted Donald Trump into the White House.

The hit against President Trump last Wednesday was calculated to breathe new life into tired, debunked and discredited allegations that were planted and nurtured by the Clinton campaign in 2016 and kept alive by the #Resistance. It is directly related to the 2020 election and trying to prevent President Trump from being reelected. The hit against Bernie Sanders was calculated to knock him out of the race and clear the way for someone the non-partisan professionals in the intelligence community think is more pliable and amenable to letting them run a shadow government.

While we can rightfully criticize Adam Schiff and his cronies for being more than willing to reveal classified information that helps our enemies for temporary political advantage, that is not a shock. That is what Democrats do. It is what they have done when out of power since the last term of the Reagan administration. What is increasingly obvious is that the Intelligence Community, particularly since it was consolidated into one swirling ball of duplicity after 9/11, sees itself as an independent political player with its own “equities” and prerogatives to protect. It was sort of inevitable that once James Clapper and John  Brennan coaxed the Intelligence Community across the Rubicon into political activism in 2016–in fact, coaxed them damned close into a rather gay and half-assed form of Praetorianism with their participation in the soft coup attempt against President Trump over Ukraine–that they would start seeing themselves as kingmakers, as the elite charged with ensuring that the unwashed masses didn’t go apesh** and elect the wrong guy.

Our society and our form of government can’t survive this kind of meddling by people whose stock in trade is deception and double-dealing acting with impunity and unlimited budget. It is very obvious that the Intelligence Community now only serves the national interest to the extent that the national interest aligns with what the Intelligence Community judges to be the best course of action. Even our media have bought into this because they report with bated breath and righteous indignation whenever President Trump dares to challenge the collective wisdom of the IC. They are no longer merely disloyal servants, they are actively attempting to become our masters. It has to stop. The most important task ahead of the next Director of National Intelligence is a thorough purge of the Intelligence Community of anyone who is even tangentially connected to any of the Resistance activities and political intrigue that bureaucracy has been involved in. It is not sufficient that they be reassigned or even fired. People need to go to prison so that the people still employed will understand what their correct role is in a constitutional republic.

https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/02/22/787580/ 

Roger Stone Moves to Disqualify Judge from His Case Because of Her Remarks During Sentencing

 
 Article by Nick Arama in "RedState":

Roger Stone is looking for a new trial based on juror bias. The hearing on his motion is pending before Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who said she first wanted to sentence him and then decide on the motion, an unusual move since judges would usually decide on motions before sentencing. 

On Thursday, Jackson sentenced Stone to 40 months in the case. 

But as we reported, during the sentencing, she made some remarks that some believe may have compromised her objectivity on the case.

First, as David Schoen who has served as a lawyer for the Democratic Party noted, she injected President Donald Trump into the proceeding and said that Stone had been covering up for him. 

“She made this very much yesterday about President Trump,” Schoen continued. “She said that Roger Stone volunteered to testify before Congress because he was afraid the president wouldn’t want him taking the fifth. And that he testified to cover up for the president. It was a very political talk. I was very disappointed.”
“He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the President,” said Jackson during Thursday’s sentencing. “He was prosecuted for covering up for the President.”

While Stone was charged with lying about his contacts with Wikileaks, there is no evidence he was “covering up for the president and the Mueller investigation debunked that there was any collusion between Russia and the Trump team. 

The judge also made remarks about the jurors prior to rendering her decision on the motion for a new trial for juror bias. She said that the jurors showed great integrity and came back with thoughtful questions, according to Schoen. 

Now Stone’s attorneys are moving to disqualify the judge because of her comments about the jury. Stone’s lawyers said the judge said “the jurors who served with integrity under difficult circumstances cared.”

From Daily Caller:

“Stone’s argument for a new trial rests on newly discovered information indicating that there was juror misconduct during Mr. Stone’s trial, thereby depriving him of his constitutional right to be tried by an impartial jury,” Stone’s lawyers wrote.
They said that the request for a retrial is “directly related to the integrity of a juror.”
“It is alleged that a juror misled the Court regarding her ability to be unbiased and fair and the juror attempted to cover up evidence that would directly contradict her false claims of impartiality,” they wrote. “Whether the subject juror (and perhaps others) served with ‘integrity’ is one of the paramount questions presented in the pending Motion.”

It already appeared funny when she decided to take the sentencing before hearing the motion on juror bias, although she deferred the sentence going into effect until her decision on the motion. Why sentence if you’re going to possibly decide to grant a new trial? But it lends credence to the argument that she may already have made up her mind. 

https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/02/22/roger-stone-moves-to-disqualify-judge-from-his-case-because-of-her-remarks-during-sentencing/

Fake News Constructs Russia Narrative 2.0 via Democrat Intel Briefing Spin

The New York Times and a host of allied political narrative engineers attempted to spin up another Russia narrative yesterday.  The claim surrounds a briefing by DNI Joseph Maguire (pictured below) to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).  Adam Schiff and house Democrats in the briefing claim DNI Maguire stated Russians favored President Trump and would work to assist his re-election.

The Democrat spin was to claim President Trump replaced Maguire as an outcome of this briefing; and Trump wants to ignore Russia interference assistance. etc. etc.  The media ran with the framework of the Democrat narrative; and the political operatives piled-on.

However, in a surprise move Jake Tapper actually undercuts the narrative engineering through his own sources with information on the reality of the briefing:

(1) DNI Joseph Maguire never said Russia was, would, or is working to interfere in the election to help President Trump.  Rather the briefing nuance was that Russia has an understanding of Trump and would likely view him as a deal-maker they could work with and Sanders, Buttigieg et al were unknowns.

(2) President Trump wasn’t angered at the Maguire briefing; however, he was angered that he had to find out about the briefing from GOP members of the HPSCI instead of Maguire briefing the President on the material prior tobriefing congress.  The executive office was blindsided by committee members asking questions of the White House, when Maguire never informed the President of his briefing material in advance.

Those two points were spun wildly by the left-wing media.  Kudos to Jake Tapper for setting the record straight.

However, it is not a surprise for President Trump to end the tenure of Maguire as DNI given this end-run around the President and the possibility Maguire’s motives might just be another example of the intelligence community undercutting the office of the President. [I would say that’s highly likely]

The fact DNI Joseph Maguire would brief congress without informing the White House of the briefing material highlights a possible intent by Maguire to undermine the President. 

Whether that intent is accurate is a moot point.  The action by Maguire leaves open the possibility, and his lack of judgement created a mess for the White House.

Therefore Maguire’s action showed poor judgement and a compromise within his position.  Given the sensitive nature of the position he holds, both issues are fatal flaws.

Hence, President Trump selected a more dependable Richard “Ric” Grenell to replace Maguire as interim Acting DNI.

Washington Post (CIA) Starts: “Bernie is a Russian Asset” Narrative

The CIA leaks narrative spin to the Washington Post. The FBI leaks their narrative spin to the New York Times; and the State Dept. primarily uses CNN for the same purposes. This media distribution model is the one constant in an ever changing universe.

Today’s Club narrative was too predictable.  Everyone who does not support the DC intel apparatchik immediately becomes a Russian asset. Now, “according to people familiar with the matter”, the Russians are trying to help Bernie Sanders:

WaPo – U.S. officials have told Sen. Bernie Sanders that Russia is attempting to help his presidential campaign as part of an effort to interfere with the Democratic contest, according to people familiar with the matter.

President Trump and lawmakers on Capitol Hill have also been informed about the Russian assistance to the Vermont senator, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. (more)

It really has become silly at this point.

Hillary Clinton accuses Tulsi Gabbard of being a Russian spy. The Club is desperate to stop Bernie Sanders and cloud his campaign…. Bernie is winning despite their efforts; and now Bernie is sideways labeled a Russian asset by the takeaway from the intel apparatus.

Everyone should have seen this coming… We certainly did:

Bernie Sanders: “Here is the message to Russia: Stay out of American elections. … That is what they did in 2016 and that is the ugliest thing they are doing, is they are trying to cause chaos, they are trying to cause hatred in America” https://t.co/QNDlQR05Si pic.twitter.com/YY4T1Ey0Et

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 21, 2020

Adam Schiff is Still Planting Lies in the Media...

Devin Nunes Shreds Washington Post Fake Russia News: 

“I Have to Sue To Get Their Lies to Stop”

House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) ranking member Devin Nunes attended the intelligence briefing that has been the topic of so much recent fake news.

He notes the leaking from Democrats to their media allies is entirely false. WATCH:

Remembering the 'Miracle on Ice'

The Daily Signal

Remembering the 

‘Miracle on Ice’ 40 Years Later

Jarrett Stepman /  February 21, 2020 /

Team USA celebrates their 4-3 victory over the Soviet Union in the semi-final Men's Ice Hockey event at the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York, Feb. 22, 1980. The game was dubbed the "Miracle on Ice." The USA went on to win the gold medal by defeating Finland 4-2 in the gold medal game. (Photo: Steve Powell /Getty Images)

Saturday marks the 40th anniversary of the famous “Miracle on Ice” hockey game, when the Americans beat the Russians at the Olympics—despite the fact that the Russians were considered a far superior team.

Millennials Are Looking for...

Hunter Estes for intellectualtakeout

Millennials Are Looking for Happiness 

in All the Wrong Places

The divide between my millennial generation and older ones is stark.

While millennials are better educated than prior generations, we are also the least happy. Millennials have higher rates of anxiety, are generally disengaged at their jobs, and are deeply fearful about the future.

Some would argue that these feelings are the natural consequence of a world filled with greater uncertainty. But are we truly living in a more uncertain time than the Cold War, the Great Depression, or other traumatic periods in American history?

With unprecedented wealth and prosperity levels and general global stability, the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. Something else must be causing the worrisome downward trend in millennial emotional health. I have an idea of what that cause might be.

In college, my classmates and I were constantly encouraged by fellow students, professors, and speakers to “pursue our own truth” and to “do what makes us happy.” Even at my alma mater Georgetown, a Catholic University, morality and truth were little more than relativistic tools to be used at our disposal and justify immediate gratification.  

Universities were once intended to be bastions of academic freedom in which young scholars grappled with big ideas, pursuing truth with a capital “t.” Today, we’re encouraged to dive into any field of study we care for, with little guidance or constructed hierarchy when it comes to valuable knowledge.

Our professors told us we could find purpose in temporal affairs, yet we somehow lost the sense that we were a part of something greater. We substituted a wholehearted pursuit of “the truth” for “our truth.”  

The dominant philosophy today is built on a self-focused worldview that everything we need to know can be found on our own. The idea of pursuing one’s own truth requires a great deal of pride. It gives a false sense of comfort to the individual that he or she can look within to determine all that is right or wrong and needs little beyond that. Those who do so, however, find themselves disappointed by the shallowness of the world, lacking answers to difficult questions, and grasping for deeper meaning to no avail.

Perhaps it is time for us to seek alternatives.

Declining rates of religiosity correspond with millennials’ growing disenchantment with the world. Studies consistently show religious participants to be happier and more engaged members of society, but millennials are largely missing out.

Religion provides an individual with a community of people who care about one another’s well-being. Those involved in organized religion show a greater likelihood to vote, engage in charitable giving, and volunteer for service organizations. Religion also provides a foundation and worldview through which to interpret the events of the world and process tragedy and grief.

Those who join a religious community have access to a rich history of thinking. Rather than each individual assuming the burden of defining their own moral code, crucial to most faiths is the willingness to humble one’s self at the doorstep of history and recognize the thoughts and ideas of those who have gone before.

Man’s search for meaning continues. The question at hand is whether young people will continue to cut themselves off from the institutions which offer the deepest opportunity to discover the greater truth which exists beyond our own selves, or instead continue to find themselves persistently unhappy.

We must reject the moral relativism perpetuated by our current culture and education system. Instead, we need to recognize that the greatest truth is only found beyond our own selves.

President Trump Considered Doug Collins for DNI – Collins Response: “Thanks but No Thanks”

sundance at cth

Last night it was reported that President Trump was considering Doug Collins amid a group of four names for the Director of National Intelligence.    However, Collins is currently running for a Georgia senate seat. The ODNI job would only last five years or a little longer. A senate seat is potentially a lifetime gig.

Appearing on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo this morning Rep. Collins outlines he is appreciative of the consideration but not interested in the position.

The dynamic for the Georgia senate seat is another example of Mitch McConnell and the Club -vs- grassroots MAGA voters.  Georgia doesn’t have a Senate primary vote, so the November senate election will be a jungle ballot.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp appointed mega-donor Kelly Loeffler to the Senate seat in December. Kemp’s political explanation was that he views a suburban womens’ vote as more necessary to retain the seat in November. Democrats are running Reverend Raphael Warnock for the seat and if Collins and Loeffler split the republican vote, the Democrat could come out on top.

It was strongly speculated that President Trump offering the DNI job to Collins was/is a way to avoid the contentious GOP fight in Georgia, and without a primary the seat is at risk.

Collins has more republican support in Georgia than Loeffler, but the GOP machine, including Mitch McConnell, is supporting Loeffler.  President Trump is being leveraged by the machine to support their nominee and turn his back on Collins.  However, President Trump knows Collins is an ally for his agenda…

Worth keeping an eye on this one.

Key Intelligence Aide Joins Acting DNI Richard Grenell – Mandate: “Clean House, Top to Bottom”

Kash Patel previously worked as Devin Nunes’ senior staffer on the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI).  It was Patel who was the lead author of the Nunes memo exposing corrupt conduct of the FBI and DOJ officials during Crossfire Hurricane.

Patel joined the National Security Council’s International Organizations and Alliances directorate last February and was promoted to the senior counterterrorism role at the NSC mid-summer 2019.  According to recent reporting Patel is now joining Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell as a Senior Advisor and Catherine Herridge is reporting the objective is to ‘clean house‘.

The Real Cost of the Culture War: Runaway Political Corruption

 
 Article by Clint Fargeau in "RedState":

When two parents get a divorce, their children often wind up changed by the ordeal.

Preoccupied with the conflict and confusion of a breakup, parents let slide child supervision. Sometimes, the parents bribe the child with gifts to one-up each other or assuage their guilt at sundering the family.

Pretty soon, they wake up to find they live with a spoiled, run-amok teenager who has learned to play the parents against one another, flout control, and cajole for goodies.

The American culture war since the 1960s resembles an escalating divorce between progressives and conservatives. The teenagers in this analogy are America’s politicians.

‘AS AMERICAN AS SOFT CORRUPTION’

While Americans have focused on savaging one another over cultural issues like abortion, gun control, and gay marriage, they have allowed the political class to get away with making the United States the soft-corruption capital of the First World.

Average Americans don’t apprehend much about soft corruption. There has been an unspoken agreement among the political class to focus on exciting cultural issues during campaigns and avoid discussing one another’s soft-corruption transgressions. This worked out well all around. The corruption is so rampant that few politicians can withstand counter-scrutiny. And for voters, discussing corruption is boring and uncomfortable.

That all changed when Donald Trump attacked the corruption of Hillary Clinton, and the chant “LOCK HER UP!” rang out.

Bill and Hil elevated soft corruption to an industrial art form, as painstakingly detailed in Peter Schweitzer’s book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. Without getting into the weeds, the mechanics of soft corruption are quite simple.

For example:

“Oh, you want me to help you in my job as secretary of state? Fascinating. On a totally unrelated note, did you know you can hire my intern-diddling husband to speak for an hour at your conference for the bargain price of  $500,000?”

There are many variations. But the essence of soft corruption usually boils down to: I will do something for you; and you hire my family member or pay my Global Initiative Foundation fat stacks of cold cash.

“In 2013 the [Clinton] foundation took in $140 million but spent only $9 million on direct aid. The rest went toward administrative expenses–salaries, bonuses, conferences, travel and development. Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog group, looked at the financials in 2015 and concluded that the foundation appeared to be run as a slush fund for the Clintons." ---F.H. Buckley, The Republic of Virtue: How We Tried to Ban Corruption, Failed, and What We Can Do About It

The best part of soft corruption is that–unless authorities can produce evidence that a quid pro quo was explicit–soft corruption isn’t illegal. After all, why shouldn’t Hunter Biden be allowed to “work” for Burisma? Who are we to say he’s not worth $37,000 a month as a board member and consultant? Can we bar politicians’ families–like New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife–from scratching out a living by the hot sweat of their brow? Of course not!

BREAKING THE CORRUPTION TABOO

Bringing up soft corruption with progressives often provokes white-hot denial and shrieks of “Whatabout…!” On the charge of hypocrisy, they have a point: plenty of Republicans have dipped into soft corruption to enrich the clan.

But denial, not hypocrisy, is our focus here. Progressives seem ready to overlook any amount of legal corruption–or even illegal corruption–so long as the offenders will fight their culture war for them: “Do whatever else you want, but defend abortion-on-demand, take Deplorables’ guns, and send the Bad Orange Man to super-prison.”

If the Bidens or the Clintons get rich in plain sight by dubious means, no big deal. The socialist utopia will unfurl soon anyway and redistribute everything.

When Candidate Trump broke the corruption taboo, he unlocked the floodgates.

Following upon Clinton’s callout came scrutiny of Hunter Biden. Schweitzer wrote another detailed account, Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite, that chronicled the corruption adventures of Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and of course Demented Joe and The Family Biden.  Schweitzer’s new book reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Soon after Trump’s inauguration, Democrats fought back with a hilarious “Whatabout!” maneuver using the so-called emoluments clause. This ploy accused the president of violating the Constitution’s prohibition against receiving foreign bribes:

“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”--------U.S. Constitution – Article I, Section 9

How were foreigners emolumenting President Trump? Why, by paying for rooms and event venues at Trump properties! Prima facie corruption by the hotel load! (Full disclosure: I one time bribed the Queen of England by purchasing a ticket to tour Buckingham Palace. She took my money, but Her Majesty still hasn’t renamed the country ‘Tealand’, as I asked.)

Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un also bestowed the title of “Dotard” on President Trump without Congress’s consent; but Democrats have seemed far less interested in pursuing this offense and removing said title of nobility from a foreign potentate.

Not only did the emoluments farce get thrown out of court, but the campaign backfired. The mainstream media’s eager coverage brought still more public attention to the issue of corruption among the political class. The attention bolstered the president’s populist case. No matter how hard they might deny it, the public could not unsee the scope of the problem.

TRUMP’S CORRUPTION BAIT-AND-SWITCH

Don’t get the wrong idea: American’s on both sides are still preoccupied with the culture war. The populace shows no signs of setting aside symbolic issues, donning their accountant spectacles, and demanding with one voice a stop to gray corruption among their leadership.

But that doesn’t matter, because President Trump seems to be making corruption a front of the culture war.

Without saying the abstract and uncomfortable word ‘corruption,’ President Trump is leading the attention of culture warriors–friend and foe–toward issues touching corruption, again and again. In the last three years, the low-information man on the street has become familiar with the phrases ‘pay for play,’ ‘quid pro quo,’ and ‘pallets of cash for Iran.’

But by far the most important corruption-adjacent issue the president has highlighted is SOCIALISM.

“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.”-----Winston Churchill

How does ‘socialism’ relate to corruption? (If you are laughing so hard you are crying at this question, you probably have studied socialist states. But for everyone else …)

Socialism occurs when the government manages just about everything in a society. But in the real world, governments cannot manage everything. Societies are too complex, and governments are too clumsy. So when socialist governments fail at managing everything–and private enterprises aren’t ALLOWED to–corruption unfolds to get things done in spite of the government.

YUGE corruption.

The United States already experiences some of this corruption born of ubiquitous government involvement:

“From TARP, to the Export-Import Bank, to the tariff protections offered to favored industries, there is a growing concern that the federal government has become a necessary business partner, and that the (imagined but not entirely imaginary) free-market capitalism of the past has been transformed into a wasteful crony capitalism that favors well-connected special interests. The fact that 81 percent of the government’s green-energy grants went to Obama’s 2008 campaign donors should be troubling regardless of one’s stance on climate change."-----Buckley

Many Americans–and younger Americans in particular–feel like the United States economy isn’t working. No matter the GDP, the money isn’t making its way to them. They have no idea that the root problem isn’t “billionaires,” “capitalism,” or “Republicans,” but corruption. Corruption takes a staggering toll on any economy, and the U.S. is no exception. Corruption is robbing a generation of prosperity, both in lost income and lost opportunities.

It’s no good trying to explain that socialism is manure on the flowerbeds of corruption. Many Americans have bought the canard that ‘socialism’ just means ‘sharing’; so they think socialism is the solution to economics woes, not a catalyst to make them much worse.

But by making socialism a cultural football rather than an economics lesson, President Trump is goading Americans to reject its growing influence and empty promises.

Rejection of socialism may prevent a corruption explosion, but it won’t erase corruption from the United States. As long as Americans are divided into factions struggling to agree on basic moral principles, unscrupulous politicians will exploit the division to fleece the public and funnel public money to their family, friends, and donors.

 https://www.redstate.com/diary/clint-fargeau/2020/02/22/real-cost-of-the-culture-war-political-corruption/

NEC Director Larry Kudlow Discusses, Coronavirus, China and U.S. Economy

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow appears on CNBC for an extensive interview on upstream economic issues.  With China’s economy at a standstill; and with the troubles of the coronavirus spreading outward; what does that mean for us?

There’s some good questions in this interview.  Domestically, as we noted yesterday, the U.S. economy is strong and growing. However, the Wall Street multinationals are very exposed to the China issues. On the bright side the overall China issues are helping to push more corporate decisions toward domestic investment and away from Beijing.

Given these lessons being learned, I sure wish we didn’t have China involved in making our medicines and medical products.  The administration needs to look at this more.

Director Kudlow also appeared on Fox Business with Lou Dobbs.

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration is planning a 5G summit at the White House in early April as part of its global effort to ensure that Chinese telecom giant Huawei does not become dominant in next generation communications technologies, officials told CNBC.

The event has not been officially announced yet. The president’s top economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, told reporters Friday that such a meeting would happen.

“We’re going to have a lot of them in the White House to have a discussion. I’m sure the president will join us in part. That would include Samsung, that would include all of our guys,” Kudlow said.

The development comes at a crucial moment for U.S.-Chinese relations. China, which is grappling with the coronavirus outbreak, last month signed a “phase one” trade deal with Trump as both sides look to complete additional phases.

Behind the scenes, a senior administration official said telecom and technology CEOs have been visiting with President Donald Trump at the White House to explain their views on how to make sure that American firms continue to dominate the communications industry. (more) sundance at cth

Brazil’s Carnival kicks off with political divisions front and center

RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil’s famed Carnival kicked off in earnest on Saturday, as millions of scantily-clad revelers poured into the streets, many of whom took the opportunity to parody or otherwise comment on the nation’s deeply polarized political climate.
Since right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, Brazilians have been sharply divided, with supporters crediting the former army captain for a rapid drop in violent crime and an improving economy, while his detractors have denounced what they consider racism, sexism and disrespect for the poor.
Along with a clutch of conservative allies, including Rio de Janeiro’s evangelical mayor Marcelo Crivella, Bolsonaro has shown little interest in Carnival and at times denounced what he sees at debauched behavior during the festivities.
To be sure, most partiers on Saturday were dressed in distinctly apolitical garb, ranging from mermaid to cowboy costumes, indicating Brazilians were focused on revelry first, and politics a distant second.
But In Brazil’s biggest cities, there was no love lost, as many costumes poked fun at the nation’s leaders.

Early on Saturday morning, the Tom Maior samba school, a type of performing troupe with a central role in Brazil’s Carnival, paid homage during their performance to Marielle Franco, a black, lesbian Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman whose 2018 assassination sparked protests throughout the country.
“I thought it was beautiful, it really moved me,” said Renato Santos Aguessy, a 37-year-old schoolteacher, who was in attendance. “She left a legacy for us of struggle, of confronting adversities in this country, which is being dominated by fascism.”
In the northeastern city of Recife, home to one of the country’s most famous Carnival celebrations, musician Antonio Nobrega dedicated an opening performance to Brazil’s artists and journalists. Both of those groups have repeatedly drawn ire from Brazil’s political leaders, with politicians often singling out individual journalists and newspapers for criticism.
The famed Mangueira samba school in Rio de Janeiro has already ruffled feathers with plans to march through the city’s legendary Sambodromo on Sunday night with a performance expected to take jabs at police violence in Brazil.
Under Bolsonaro, homicide rates have plummeted in Rio de Janeiro, but killings by police have sky-rocketed, sparking a major debate about policing tactics, particularly in poor and minority communities.
Still, the government has plenty of support in major cities, particular in Rio de Janeiro, where the Bolsonaro family maintains a firm base of support.

https://www.oann.com/brazils-carnival-kicks-off-with-political-divisions-front-and-center/