Bigots Vs. Totalitarians: Christopher Caldwell Lays Bare America’s Cultural Divide

 Article by Clint Fargeau in "RedState":

If you don’t know who Christopher Caldwell is, you really should.

As a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute, Caldwell has been doing mighty work explicating the culture divide in America. He recently gave a talk at Hillsdale College drawn from his new book: The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties.

The central thesis of Caldwell’s talk is that the United States has TWO constitutions now: the original Constitution of 1787, and the civil rights constitution that was born in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act. Caldwell says:

What I am talking about are the emergency mechanisms that, in the name of ending segregation, were established under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These gave Washington the authority to override what Americans had traditionally thought of as their ordinary democratic institutions. It was widely assumed that the emergency mechanisms would be temporary and narrowly focused. But they soon escaped democratic control altogether, and they have now become the most powerful part of our governing system.

If this seems vaguely familiar, it’s because I made a similar argument a while back in a column, though framed differently.

Caldwell argues that the logic established by the Civil Rights Act became the new conception of constitutional law and sparked a reformulation of American law for all sorts of groups:

Meanwhile other groups, many of them not even envisioned in the original legislation, got the hang of using civil rights law. Immigrant advocates, for instance: Americans never voted for bilingual education, but when the Supreme Court upheld the idea in 1974, rule writers in the offices of civil rights simply established it, and it exists to this day. Women, too: the EEOC battled Sears, Roebuck & Co. from 1973 to 1986 with every weapon at its disposal, trying to prove it guilty of sexism—ultimately failing to prove even a single instance of it.

The result, according to Caldwell, is a divide between those who support the logic of the original Constitution and those who support the second constitution, the one that gives entitlements to an ever-lengthening list of groups–so long as they don’t comprise heterosexual white men.

This led in turn to an ‘Us Versus Them’ mentality, the opposition of the ‘bigots’ and the ‘totalitarians’:

Let’s say you’re a progressive. In fact, let’s say you are a progressive gay man in a gay marriage, with two adopted children. The civil rights version of the country is everything to you. Your whole way of life depends on it. How can you back a party or a politician who even wavers on it? Quite likely, your whole moral idea of yourself depends on it, too. You may have marched in gay pride parades carrying signs reading “Stop the Hate,” and you believe that people who opposed the campaign that made possible your way of life, your marriage, and your children, can only have done so for terrible reasons. *You* are on the side of the glorious marchers of Birmingham, and *they* are on the side of Bull Connor. To you, the other party is a party of bigots.
But say you’re a conservative person who goes to church, and your seven-year-old son is being taught about “gender fluidity” in first grade. There is no avenue for you to complain about this. You’ll be called a bigot at the very least. In fact, although you’re not a lawyer, you have a vague sense that you might get fired from your job, or fined, or that something else bad will happen. You also feel that this business has something to do with gay rights. “Sorry,” you ask, “when did I vote for this?” You begin to suspect that taking your voice away from you and taking your vote away from you is the main goal of these rights movements. To you, the other party is a party of totalitarians.

Caldwell’s talk, printed in full at Hillsdale College’s Imprimis, is a long-ish read, but it’s worth the time. Few thinkers today see the America dilemma more clearly. Check it out!

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/roots-partisan-divide/ 

https://www.redstate.com/diary/clint-fargeau/2020/02/23/bigots-versus-totalitarians-christopher-caldwell/

Ex-Bill Clinton Adviser Details ‘Scheme’ He Thinks Is In the Works to Help Hillary Become the Democratic Nominee

 
 Article by Nick Arama in "RedState":

A former adviser to President Bill Clinton is suggesting that there may be a deal in the works to help Hillary Clinton get the Democratic nomination. 

Former Bill Clinton adviser Dick Morris laid out what he thought.

From Washington Examiner: 

“Here’s the deal that I think is going down. I think Hillary and Bloomberg have gotten together and cooked up a scheme,” Dick Morris told John Catsimatidis on The Cats Roundtable radio show on Sunday.
He said Bloomberg would stay in the race, even if he has no chance of winning, in an effort to get at least enough support to keep Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders from running away with the nomination.
“Nobody will be nominated on the first ballot, and it’ll go to a second ballot,” Morris said of a brokered convention. “The problem is that the party establishment doesn’t have a candidate. They can’t do Bloomberg because he got killed in the debate. … Can’t do [Joe] Biden because he’s already lost the front-runner status. … [Pete] Buttigieg looks like a high school kid at the Model UN. … [Elizabeth] Warren is third, but she’s pretty far to the Left, and they’re not going to want to trust her.”

Then with Sanders not getting enough on the first ballot to take the nomination outright, guess who then gets proposed on the second ballot as a “conciliatory candidate” at a brokered convention.

He said he thought that would be “the establishment scenario” and the only candidate they could come up with to “measure up to Trump.” 

The Drudge Report reported that Bloomberg was considering Clinton as a potential running mate, but Clinton denied the claim.

Clinton has said that she would love to be President but doesn’t want to run again. That scenario of course would then fit this, she wouldn’t have to go through all the running for the position, it would be ‘thrust upon her,’ because in her mind she’s such a deserving candidate and she thinks she could beat Trump.

But here’s the problem with that scenario, if anyone is really thinking about it or thinks it would work. 

Does anyone think that the already angry Bernie folks, who feel that they got gipped out of the nomination in 2016 by Clinton and are mad again because of recent remarks she made against Bernie, are going to stand for that happening? Much less the other candidates? 

You would have a fracturing of epic proportions that would make the protests at the last Democratic convention against Hillary and the DNC look like a garden party in comparison.

In such a situation, you might even get Bernie folks not only not voting but doing a protest vote for President Donald Trump, and Trump would still win.

https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/02/23/ex-bill-clinton-adviser-details-scheme-he-think-is-in-the-works-to-help-hillary-become-the-democratic-nominee/ 

President Trump departs for quick trip to India to see big crowds

U.S. President Donald Trump departed on Sunday on quick trip to India, where he is to see crowds so large that they will make the much ballyhooed turnout for his campaign rallies pale in comparison.

With a travel time of 17 hours, Trump and his wife, Melania, were headed first to Germany for a refueling stop at Ramstein military base before heading on to Ahmedabad, India, which is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hometown.
There, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to gather to greet Trump on Monday for a road show leading to a rally in a cricket stadium with a capacity of over 100,000.
Trump routinely gets the biggest crowds of any candidate in the U.S. presidential race, ranging up to 20,000 or so, and he has been grudgingly admiring of Modi’s ability to get a bigger crowd than him.

It will be a larger version of the “Howdy Modi” rally that they jointly appeared at in Houston to a jubilant crowd of 50,000 Indian Americans last year, where Trump likened Modi to Elvis Presley for his crowd-pulling power.
After addressing the stadium crowd, Trump and his entourage will travel to Agra for a picturesque to visit the Taj Mahal. Then it will be on to New Delhi, where he and Modi are to have a day of talks and attend an evening banquet on Tuesday. The Trumps get back to Washington on Wednesday.
Consumed with trying to win re-election on Nov. 3, Trump’s travel this week will likely be one of his few foreign trips.
After concluding trade deals with China and Canada and Mexico, Trump would like to reach a similar agreement with India to open more markets for American goods, but progress has been slow and Trump in recent days has said such a pact is more likely after the U.S. election.

https://www.oann.com/trump-departs-for-quick-trip-to-india-to-see-big-crowds/

NSA O’Brien: “White House Was Never Provided any Intelligence Briefing on Russia Election Effort”

sundance at cth

Former Acting DNI Joseph Maguire did not brief the white house prior to taking Shelby Pierson, the person in charge of evaluating intelligence regarding election security, to lead the presentation to the house intel committee (HPSCI).   That’s the key takeaway from a taped preview of National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien on Face The Nation.

With NSA O’Brien confirming what many suspected it begs the question why would Shelby Pierson and Joseph Maguire intentionally blindside the White House? The briefing was obviously spun by HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff and democrats on the committee; and there was no intelligence presented to support the claims made by Democrats and media.

Sending shockwaves through the intelligence community, now Acting DNI Grenell has asked the intelligence community, including Shelby Pierson to produce the underlying intelligence within her briefing. It is reported that Pierson and the alliance of intelligence around her are going bananas. Sounds like Ms. Pierson might not last long.

[WASHINGTON] – […] Mr. Grenell has also requested the intelligence behind the classified briefing last week before the House Intelligence Committee where officials told lawmakers that Russia was interfering in November’s presidential election and that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia favored President Trump’s re-election.

[…] Joseph Maguire, the former acting director of national intelligence, and his deputy, Andrew P. Hallman, resigned on Friday. Mr. Grenell told Mr. Hallman, popular in the office’s Liberty Crossing headquarters, that his service was no longer needed, according to two officials. Mr. Hallman, who has worked in the office or at the C.I.A. for three decades, expressed confidence in his colleagues in a statement but also referred to the “uncertainties that come with change.”

[…] As acting director of national intelligence, Mr. Grenell has access to any secrets he may want to review. And he has requested access to information from the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies, according to two people familiar with the matter. (more)

There’s also a common sense aspect here that many overlook.  The CIA, FBI, ODNI and Intelligence Community (IC) writ large participated in the effort to eliminate candidate Trump and President Trump.   As such all of the mid-level personnel within those agencies are at risk of exposure for their participation.

The top officials, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey have all left their respective agencies, but they didn’t work alone.  Underneath those offices were intelligence officials who facilitated the objectives. Many of those career officials are likely still in place.

Plastic Bags Help the Environment

Banning them provides no benefit other than to

let activists lord their preferences over others.

John Tierney opinion at Wall Street Journal

Why do politicians want to take away our plastic bags and straws? This moral panic is intensifying even as evidence mounts that banning plastic is both a waste of money and harmful to the environment. If you want to protect dolphins and sea turtles, you should take special care to place your plastic in the trash, not the recycling bin. And if you’re worried about climate change, you’ll cherish those gossamer grocery bags once you learn the facts about plastic. 

During the 1970s, environmentalists wanted to restrict the use of plastic because it was made from petroleum. When the “energy crisis” abated, they denounced plastic for not being biodegradable in landfills. They blamed it for littering the landscape, clogging sewer drains and global warming. Plastic from our “throwaway society” was killing vast numbers of sea creatures, according to a 2017 BBC documentary series. The series prompted Queen Elizabeth II to ban plastic straws and bottles from the royal estates, and it galvanized so many other leaders that greens celebrate what they call the “Blue Planet Effect,” named for the series.

More than 100 countries now restrict single-use plastic bags, and Pope Francis has called for global regulation of plastic. The European Parliament has voted to ban single-use plastic straws, plates and cutlery across the Continent next year. In the U.S., hundreds of municipalities and eight states—California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon and Vermont—have outlawed or restricted single-use plastic bags. Greens in California are pushing a referendum to require all plastic packaging and single-use foodware in the state to be recyclable, and the European Union has unveiled a similar plan. 

Popular misconceptions have sustained the plastic panic. Environmentalists frequently claim that 80% of plastic in the oceans comes from land-based sources, but a team of scientists from four continents reported in 2018 that more than half the plastic in the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” came from fishing boats—mostly discarded nets and other gear. Another study, published last year by Canadian and South African researchers, found that more than 80% of the plastic bottles that had washed up on the shore of Inaccessible Island, an uninhabited extinct volcano in the South Atlantic, originated in China. They must have been tossed off boats from Asia, the greatest source of what researchers call “mismanaged waste.” 

Of the plastic carried into oceans by rivers, a 2017 study in Nature Communications estimated, 86% comes from Asia and virtually all the rest from Africa and South America. Some plastic in America is littered on beaches and streets, and winds up in sewer drains. But researchers have found that laws restricting plastic bags and food containers don’t reduce litter. The resources wasted on these anti-plastic campaigns would be better spent on more programs to discourage all kinds of littering.

Another myth—that recycling plastic prevents it from polluting the oceans—stems from the enduring delusion that plastic waste can be profitably turned into other products. But sorting plastic is so labor-intensive, and the resulting materials of so little value, that most municipalities pay extra to get rid of their plastic waste, mostly by shipping it to Asian countries with low labor costs. The chief destination for many years was China, which two years ago banned most imports. It now goes to countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Some of the plastic from your recycling bin probably ends up in the ocean because it goes to a country with a high rate of “mismanaged waste.” 

Yet single-use plastic bags aren’t the worst environmental choice at the supermarket—they’re the best. High-density polyethylene bags are a marvel of economic, engineering and environmental efficiency. They’re cheap, convenient, waterproof, strong enough to hold groceries but thin and light enough to make and transport using scant energy, water or other resources. Though they’re called single-use, most people reuse them, typically as trash-can liners. When governments ban them, consumers buy thicker substitutes with a bigger carbon footprint.

Once discarded, they take up little room in landfills. That they aren’t biodegradable is a plus, because they don’t release greenhouse gases like decomposing paper and cotton bags. The plastic bags’ tiny quantity of carbon, extracted from natural gas, goes back underground, where it can be safely sequestered from the atmosphere and ocean in a modern landfill with a sturdy lining.

If the goal is to reduce carbon emissions and plastic pollution, we can take some obvious steps: Repeal misguided plastic-bag bans. Stop exporting plastic waste to countries that allow it to leak into the ocean. Help those countries establish modern systems for collecting and processing their own plastic waste. Send plastic waste straight to landfills and incinerators. Step up enforcement of laws and treaties that restrict nations from polluting the ocean and prohibit mariners from littering the seas.

Plastic bans are a modern version of medieval sumptuary laws, which forbade merchants and other commoners to wear clothes or use products that offended the sensibilities of aristocrats and clergymen. Green activists have the power to impose their preferences now that environmentalism is essentially the state religion in progressive strongholds. They can lord it over the modern merchant class and corporations desperately trying to curry social favor. The plastic panic gives politicians and greens the leverage to shake down companies afraid that they’ll be regulated out of business. 

Most important, the plastic panic gives today’s elites a renewed sense of moral superiority. No matter how much fuel politicians and environmentalists burn on their flights to international climate conferences, they can still feel virtuous as they issue their edicts to grocery shoppers.

Intelligence Sources: All Candidates Are Russian Agents But Pete Buttigieg

Today's Caitlin Johnstone essay has been replaced by this breaking report by the National News Conglomerate. NNC: Obey.

Following shocking reports from The New York Times and The Washington Post that Moscow is simultaneously working to both re-elect Donald Trump and ensure the nomination of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary race, NNC has obtained further information confirming that nearly all candidates currently running for president are in fact covert agents of the Russian government.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the lone candidate not literally conducting espionage on behalf of the Russian government is Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

"Intelligence has revealed that Mr. Buttigieg is at this time the only candidate who we can count on not to place our nation's interests square in the hands of Vladimir Putin," an anonymous source in the Central Intelligence Agency told NNC on Saturday.

"In fact Mr. Buttigieg is the only candidate running with the skill, the experience and the multilingual relatability needed to bridge our nation's deep divisions and bring Americans together in this time of uncontrolled hostility," the CIA source continued.

"Because in truth, the unity of our togetherness is in the freedom of our democracy," added the source. "The long and winding road to the American flag was built upon the steps of our founding fathers. You don't have to be a big shot Washington insider to see that the problems our nation faces are tearing us apart at our own peril with radical divisive rhetoric saying you need to burn down the establishment and voice a concrete foreign policy position. And that's why I for one believe we don't have to choose between revolution and the status quo: we can come together and find solutions that help the working class and billionaires."

Experts say these new revelations on Russian election interference should consume one hundred percent of all news coverage for the entirety of 2020, and that Democrats should definitely spend all their time from now until November focusing solely on President Trump's suspicious ties to the Russian government.

"I can't think of a single thing that could possibly go wrong if Democrats focused exclusively on the possibility that the president conspired with Vladimir Putin in the lead-up to the election in November," said Les Overton of the influential think tank Americans for an American America. "If Democrats want to prevent another four years of Trump they should hit him where they know it hurts: nonstop 24/7 Russia conspiracy theories. That's what Americans really care about."

Asked if it's possible that undue emphasis on Russian collusion could prove a fruitless endeavor given Trump's soaring approval rating after impeachment resulted in his acquittal and the Mueller report failed to indict a single American for conspiring with the Russian government, Overton disagreed and said this time will be "like, totally different."

"Democrats should definitely invest all of their mental and emotional energy in this Trump-Russia scandal, because this time it's a sure thing," Overton said. "Put all your eggs in this basket and get your hopes up very, very high. The big BOOM is coming any minute now, I promise."

Overton then departed with an envelope full of cash which he said was his life savings, reportedly to invest in lottery tickets.

https://steemit.com/politics/@caitlinjohnstone/intelligence-sources-all-candidates-are-russian-agents-but-pete-buttigieg

(in satire)

---

Police, military called in to enforce coronavirus quarantine across northern Italy

The Italian government has put in place drastic new measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, with travelling to or from several cities in the county’s north now effectively banned without a permit.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the “extraordinary measures” were needed to prevent the further spread of the virus.
Conte however said he would not take the step of suspending the Schengen agreement, saying such a move would be disproportionate.
The Schengen agreement removes border controls between participating European states.
The number of people in Italy infected with the coronavirus is now more than 130.
 Conte said the restrictions would apply to 12 towns in the northern regions of Veneto and Lombardy. Around 50,000 people are impacted by the ban

Conte said nobody would be permitted to enter or leave the areas without special permission and promised to use the police and potentially the armed forces to ensure the ban was upheld.
Although authorities are confident the measures will halt the spread, there have been cases of the virus across Italy including in the capital Rome.
Rising infections
On early Sunday afternoon, blockades were still not yet erected, and cars could be seen driving in and around the area of Codogno and Casalpusterlengo, although police cars patrolled the area.
It was not clear how authorities would impose the travel restrictions and whether residents would still be allowed to travel from town to town within the affected zones, without surpassing an outer limit.
"We're preparing to set up the checkpoints for the containment zone," a policewoman told AFP, saying that intially the perimeter would be narrow but could widen over time.
"We're about ten criminal police teams here, so nothing related to this kind of situation, but we've been called in from Bologna, Turin and Genoa to give a hand," she added.
For now, the quarantine appears to be largely dependent on individuals to respect the system but the government said those found in violation could face fines and even three months in jail.
The government has also said the army was prepared to step in if needed to enforce the perimeter.

The number of those infected with the virus had now grown to 132, including the two people who died, Borrelli said.
Three Italian Serie A football matches postponed over coronavirus fears
Venice Carnival shut down due to coronavirus fears.
https://www.thelocal.it/20200223/coronavirus-extraordinary-measures-adopted-in-northern-italy-as-more-than-100-cases-confirmed 

 

The GOP Cracked Up In 2016. Now It’s The Democrats’ Turn

John Daniel Davidson writing for The Federalist

Trump exposed the chasm between the GOP establishment and Republican voters. Bernie Sanders is about to do the same for Democrats.

After Wednesday night’s disastrous debate performance by former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg and a flurry of recent polls showing Sen. Bernie Sanders surging ahead of the pack, it’s safe to say there’s a very strong likelihood Sanders will be the Democratic nominee.

How did this happen? The simplest answer is that what happened to the Republicans in 2016 is now happening to the Democrats. I don’t just mean that Sanders is now poised to win plurality after plurality in a primary field that will likely remain crowded through March, fracturing the non-Sanders vote between three or possibly four other candidates. That’s more or less what Donald Trump pulled off four years ago amid a crowded GOP field, and that’s part of what’s happening now.

Also, of course, Democratic primary rules and delegate apportionment are more complicated than they are in the Republican Party, so there’s a scenario in which Sanders could be denied the nomination at a contested convention even if he wins a plurality of delegates in the primaries.

But from a broader perspective, the emergence of Sanders as the Democratic frontrunner mirrors the rise of Trump and the crackup of the Republican Party in 2016, and for many of the same reasons. In both cases, a significant swath of each party’s voter base rejected the party establishment after years of being pandered to or ignored altogether.

Populism cuts both ways, right and left, and the impending takeover of the Democratic Party by a left-wing populist should have been anticipated by party leaders four years ago—and maybe it would have been, if they hadn’t been busy gloating over the GOP’s apparent misfortune of being taken over by Trump.

Sanders Is Doing to Democrats What Trump Did to the GOP

But Trump’s triumph was a necessary corrective to a party that had lost its way. When Trump cinched the nomination in 2016, it was the end of the Republican Party as we knew it. Gone was the mild-mannered GOP of Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and John Boehner. Gone were the empty platitudes, repeated ad nauseum for decades, about comprehensive immigration reform and defunding Planned Parenthood. Gone was the slavish devotion to global free trade deals regardless of the toll it took on American workers. Gone, too, was the subtle deference toward the liberal media that belied the Republican establishment’s ambivalence about the issues rank-and-file Republicans really cared about.

Trump swept all of that away. Before he went to war with Democrats and the media, his candidacy was an all-out assault on the Republican establishment, which had drifted so far from its base that GOP leaders didn’t take him seriously until it was too late. They couldn’t see what he saw: Republican voters—and not a few independents and moderate Democrats—were tired of being ignored by their leaders, whom they had grown to despise. Trump was able to topple the edifice of the GOP because he saw it was rotten underneath.

Now, Sanders is poised to do the same to the Democratic Party. The media is aware of this, but only vaguely, tending to frame Sanders’s rise as a contest between a radically leftist base and a more moderate Democratic electorate at large. That’s one reason the press has so quickly glommed on to the candidacy of Bloomberg, treating him as a viable contender for the nomination and a real rival to Sanders.

But the truth is that rank-and-file Democrats are far more comfortable with Sanders than the Democratic establishment is. You don’t generally see headlines touting this, but Sanders enjoys support even among primary voters whose first choice is one of his rivals. A Quinnipiac poll earlier this month found that among supporters of Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Joe Biden, the vast majority—98, 97, and 92 percent, respectively—say they would vote for Sanders against Trump. The same poll found that Sanders’s net favorability was second only to Warren’s, and a Monmouth University poll recently found his net favorability among Democrats nationally was 71 percent, six points higher than Warren and 40 points higher than Bloomberg.

Democratic Party bigwigs can mutter amongst themselves about how ordinary Democrats won’t rally around Sanders, but so far the polls, at least, tell a different tale.

The Democratic Establishment Faces A Reckoning

There’s a certain logic to all of this. Megan McArdle laid it out in an extremely prescient Facebook post just days after the 2016 election, writing that in the wake of losing the election to Trump, Democrats would undertake the kind of “autopsy” the GOP did in the wake of 2012, which posited Republicans should moderate on immigration to bring in Hispanic voters. Democratic leaders, she argued, would conclude that what they need to do is “back off the identity politics and embrace a more old-fashioned national greatness campaign mixed with pocketbook issues.”

But that would prove intolerable to the activist Democratic base, which is deeply invested in identity politics. Writes McArdle: “They will be incandescent. And they will put exactly the same sort of pressure on their politicians that the Tea Party put on Republicans. They will want to see their politicians blocking Trump even if it hurts the party overall, even if it means sacrificing bits of their legislative agenda that they could get done. They will demand costly symbolic acts that function as a repudiation of Trump, and a show of fealty to party interest groups.”

As we all know now, that’s exactly what has happened. From the Russia collusion hoax, to the Mueller probe, to the impeachment fiasco and all the routine acts of performative outrage along the way, the Democratic base has demanded all-out resistance to Trump, no matter if it alienates persuadable voters, no matter how far left it steers the party.

Just as the Tea Party didn’t care how much they were called crazy racists and kooks by the media and the political establishment, left-wing Democrats don’t care about being called socialists or mocked for supporting the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, free college, and so on. Being the party out of power in a hyper-partisan political era means these Democratic voters are going to demand all the things they’ve long wanted.

They are unrestrained because they are out of power—for now. And although they desperately want to beat Trump in November, for now their target is the Democratic Party itself.

CIA, DOJ Refuse To Acknowledge Whether Eric Ciaramella Records Exist

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) each refused to either confirm or deny the existence of records related to Obama White House Ukrainian intelligence holdover Eric Ciaramella who is also charged with being the whistleblower at the heart of the Democrats’ recent impeachment proceedings kicked off last fall.

Judicial Watch received two letters from the top government agencies that were sent in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits filed in December. Judicial Watch reports that both the CIA and DOJ failed to provide communications between Ciaramella and former deep-state FBI operatives Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, or former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. The group also requested communications records between Ciaramella and the Special Counsel’s Office.

“The CIA can neither confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to the requests,” the CIA wrote in a letter to Judicial Watch.

The fact of the existence or nonexistence of such records is itself exempt from FO IA under exemption (b )(3) and Section 6 of the CIA Act of I 949, 50 U.S.C. § 3507, and, to the extent your request could relate to CIA intelligence sources and methods information, the fact of the existence or nonexistence of such records is exempt from FOIA under exemption (b)( I) and exemption (b)(3) in conjunction with Section 102A(i)(l) of the National Security Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C § 3024(i)( I).

The Justice Department also stonewalled the requests.

“I have decided to refuse to confirm or deny the existence of responsive records,” wrote DOJ attorney Timothy Ziese to the watchdog group.

In October, Real Clear Investigations identified Ciaramella as the whistleblower whose anonymous complaint charging Trump of tying foreign aid to politically motivated investigations sparked the Democratic impeachment inquiry launched in the House. The Federalist has not independently verified Real Clear Investigations’ reporting.

Since the outlet’s report, Democrats and media elites have worked to conceal the whistleblower’s identity while denying Ciaramella as the culprit.

In the final days of the Senate impeachment trial, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul twice attempted to ask a question to the House impeachment managers that would have offered insight into the alleged whistleblower that was suppressed each time by Chief Justice John Roberts presiding over the proceedings.

On the day before the final acquittal vote, Paul read the question out loud on the Senate floor anyway mentioning Ciaramella’s name.

This is a based Rand Paul speech that everyone needs to see
pic.twitter.com/4XGcfFQFTL

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 4, 2020

MSNBC Matthews to Establishment Democrats: Vote for Trump

 
Article by Matt Vespa in "Townhall":

Well, he did well here in 2016—and now he won it outright. In 2016, Hillary Clinton took the Nevada Caucus relatively early. In 2020, Sanders did the same, but it was a landslide win. The writing was on the wall. The Vermont democratic socialist just dominated the exit polls. He dominated with very liberal voters, took a good chunk of college-educated women—no one took an outright majority there—and ran the table with Hispanic voters. He appears to have received a healthy amount of support from union workers, specifically the key culinary workers union that has been in a nasty fight with the Sanders campaign over his Medicare for All proposal. 

Over at MSNBC, a network that has received the ire of the Sanders campaign due to their overt bias against Bernie, one host appears to be making the case for Donald Trump. Granted, this was more directed toward the Democratic Party establishment and the rest of the anti-Sanders wing. But Chris Matthews, who has railed against Bernie’s candidacy, even suggesting an electoral slaughter, all but told this group of voters to vote for Trump. He virtually said it on live television. To be blunt, Matthews said that the Democratic Party establishment would be better off with four more years of Trump than a Sanders administration and the revolutionary baggage that comes with it. 

Eoin Higgins ✔ @EoinHiggins_

Mask off: Chris Matthews suggests Democratic establishment better off with four more years of Trump than Sanders movement reshaping party.

Oh, and it gets worse. Matthews appears to be suffering something of a meltdown, as he compared Sanders winning Nevada to the Nazi conquest of France. 

Daily Caller ✔ @DailyCaller

Chris Matthews compares Bernie winning Nevada to France falling to the Nazis in 1940

Chris Hansen ✔ @tankcat

MSNBC is must watch TV right now. Chris Matthews just likened Bernie’s win in Nevada tonight to the Germans overrunning The Maginot Line in 1940

 https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2020/02/22/msnbcs-chris-matthews-democratic-party-better-off-with-four-more-years-of-trump-than-a-sanders-presidency-n2561741

Carville Reacts to Likely “Blowout” Nevada Win by Bernie Sanders

Nevada caucus results are starting to come in, albeit there are again delays with reporting from most precincts; however, it is clear Bernie Sanders is well positioned for a blowout victory likely to exceed 50% of the Nevada vote.

With Bernie Sanders now positioned as the clear front-runner, DNC party insider James Carville reacts.  WATCH:

A troubling early indicator for Democrats shows up in early vote responses showing a lack of turnout amid Latino and Black voters.  Something to keep watching

2016: 19% latino / 13% black

2020: 17% latino / 10% black

Sunny Sunday

Why They Hate Trump

 Article by Steve Feinstein in "The American Thinker":

Nearly 50% of the American political world hate President Trump. Truly hate him. This is no mild disregard like it was for President Bush 43 “Dubbya,” he of the cowboy foreign policy. This is not the “He’s a total lightweight but he’s pretty harmless so we can sandbag him,” disrespect they had for George HW Bush. This is even deeper than the outright derision and scorn in which they held for Ronald Reagan.

No, this goes farther. This is hatred on a deep, visceral level. A we’d-revert-to-violence-if-we-could-get-away-with-it hatred. They really, really hate him -- personally, politically, any way you can slice it.

Here’s why:

He’s not one of “them.” He’s not a lifelong politician and he doesn’t practice the usual conventions of referring to his fellow politicos with false niceties, nor does he observe the tradition regarding respectful treatment of a hostile media. On the contrary, if a rival politician or national figure behaves badly, he calls them out in no uncertain terms, in a most horrifyingly “unpresidential” manner. Likewise, he’s turned the tables on the liberal media (coining the term “fake news”) and forever ended the past Republican tradition of rolling over and cowering in the face of liberal media criticism. His example has flowed downstream to many rank-and-file Republicans. Now, they too stand up and fight back. Trump has showed them how. He’ll never be forgiven for it.

His tweets tend to be harshly worded and extremely direct. The liberal media hates that President Trump has found an effective way to circumvent the liberal media filter and go around them completely. In response, they have stepped up their attacks dramatically in a vain effort to pre-emptively undercut his credibility. But harshly-worded or not (so much so that even some Republicans cringe), his tweets are invariably grounded in truth and they resonate with exactly how his supporters feel. The liberal media and his Democratic opponents on the Hill hate him for this.

His enemies blather wildly inaccurate inanities like, “He’s shredding the Constitution,” or “He’s a Russian asset,” or “He’s a racist, a misogynist, anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic, a homophobe, an Islamophobe,” and so on, ad nauseum. All of it is demonstrably false. The entire Mueller Probe and the so-called “Impeachment” were colossal wastes of time and money, without the thinnest sliver of any allegation being anywhere near true. Yet his sworn enemies continue to sling accusations in the wild hope that something will stick.

The real reason they hate him so deeply is that he’s accomplished so much, kept so many promises, made so many Americans’ lives tangibly and obviously better. From lowering taxes and cutting job-stifling, burdensome regulations, to strengthening border security, to unleashing domestic energy production to the point that we’re now essentially energy-independent (proven by the non-rise in oil/gasoline prices following last year’s Iranian-backed attack on the Saudi oil refineries), to his appointment of two Supreme Court justices and close to 200 federal judges, to the incredible stock market gains (thus preserving and guaranteeing the viability of pension plans for millions of retired Democratic unionized workers), to the lowest unemployment in decades across all demographic categories (including women and minorities), to rebuilding the military, to great new international trade agreements that redound significantly to American workers’ benefit, President Trump has unequivocally made life in America far better for virtually everyone.

And he rubs the Democrats’ nose in it every single day, unashamedly and accurately pointing out that he’s accomplished in just three years what the Democrats couldn’t get done over many decades. He’s shown that his way is the right way. It produces results. The Democrats and the Fake News are too preoccupied with trying to derail his leadership, all because he sends out critical, no-holds-barred tweets that unapologetically pull back the curtain on D.C. corruption and the insidious insider nod-nod/wink-wink behavior that puts the needs of unethical bureaucrats over the needs of the American people. His success shows the Democrats that their way is wrong and his way is right.

President Trump is not looking to become rich after he leaves office (he’s already rich), he’s not looking to hobnob with the upper crust of the entertainment world (he already had a long-running hit TV show), he’s not looking to become a bestselling author (he already is). Unlike any former President, he is not beholden to party interests and major contributors and therefore he’s free to have the best interest of the country as his prime motivator.

But most of all, they hate him for this: They know he’s going to absolutely trounce any Democratic candidate they put up in November 2020. For the desperate Democrats -- longing to implement their world of government control over individuals’ lives, their desire to restrict personal wealth by severely limiting free-market capitalism and entrepreneurship, their irrational yearning to ban fossil fuels well before the development of a suitable replacement, and of course, their avowed aim to roll back centuries of societal norms of gender definition and the free expression of religious beliefs --  the prospect of another four years of President Trump is frightening indeed.

I’d hate him too.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/02/why_they_hate_trump.html#ixzz6Ema7wYxE

Our house divided

Article by Alison Tempestilli in "The American Thinker":

Abraham Lincoln, upon accepting his party's nomination for U.S. Senate, began his famed 1858 address with this line: "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  He was talking about slave and free states.  His prescient oration preceded the Emancipation Proclamation, which in turn preceded the abolishment of slavery.

Fast-forward to today's house divided, a dysfunctional dwelling where the occupants are waging war.  The ceaseless battle from within has mainly been fueled by generations of anti-American factions, rendering a sizeable populace blind to our country's greatness.  In our house divided, the left side has redefined greatness, assigning it to ill fated cultural and political outcomes, such as Roe v. Wade and the progressive regime of Barack Hussein Obama.  Modern greatness as decreed by their wing of the edifice includes the emergence of sanctuary cities, justice (meaning free rein and free stuff) for illegals and the homeless, and the movement to awaken much of the citizenry to the scourge of white privilege.

The right side of the dwelling find themselves engaged in a battle royale for the house divided.  Their foundation arose through the blood, sweat, and tears of righteous men and women and through the handiwork of God Almighty.  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is their construct, not creeping immorality, secularism, and equality of outcomes.  They long for a peaceful existence but are incessantly hassled, falsely accused, and relentlessly persecuted by the churlish, ungrateful occupants residing alongside them.

This house divided is now at a crossroads, and neither side is ready or willing to concede its ideas on living arrangements.  It will take unflappable fortitude and strength to stand against its destruction.  Not only is it imperative to get out in November to pull the lever for the side that stands for preserving the inherent values and freedoms fashioning the once sturdy structure, but essential to refurbish those corners and crevices that have fallen into disrepair.  President Trump is now engaged in the long awaited and crucial work of fumigation and pest control.

It is clear in our house divided that one side desires to uphold and maintain the home, while the other is poised and ready to burn it down.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/our_house_divided.html#ixzz6EmT3fcc6

Looks like Throuple Katie has bigger problems

Katie Hill suddenly goes on a PR tour. And it’s just coincidence that at the same time someone from her 2018 campaign is arrested by the FBI.

Patriot Retort

This week disgraced former Congresswoman Katie Hill – she of the Throuple fame – gave not one, but two interviews on ABC.

Thursday, Good Morning America aired an interview Throuple Katie did with Clinton hack George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America.  Then yesterday she turned up to talk with the bitter biddies on the View.

That’s a lot of publicity for a disgraced politician – especially one who doesn’t have a book to promote.

I found myself asking why?

Why this need to provide cover for Throuple Katie months after she left Congress in disgrace?

Like I said, it would be one thing if she was flogging a book.  But she isn’t. So what gives?

Then I saw a news report that seemed to explain Katie’s sudden need for a PR campaign

According to Ryan Grim from the Intercept, Arthur Dam who “is linked directly to the Hill campaign” was arrested by the FBI for hacking the 2018 Democrat Primary challengers of Throuple Katie.

Dam’s wife is Kelsey O’Hara, Hill’s fundraiser during the campaign and her district director after she won office. O’Hara was also the subject of a sexual remark made by Hill and caught on tape by Vice News in 2018. In Hill’s Federal Election Commission records, she lists a $500 in-kind contribution from Dam on March 25, 2018, for “graphic design and website security consultation.”

“Website security consultation” must be Throuple-speak for “Hack my opponents to improve my chances in the primary.”

Well, I got to wondering if perhaps Throuple Katie’s resignation from the House was prompted by more than her penchant for diddling the help.

Is it possible Katie knew there were far more damaging ethical problems with her and her campaign than simply banging staffers?

Why else would Nancy Pelosi herself instruct Hill to resign? I’m thinking they knew what was coming down the pike.

Could it be that Katie Hill is doing a PR tour in order to give herself cover in this criminal investigation?

When she was on the View yesterday, Katie claimed she resigned rather than put her staff through an “incredibly invasive” House ethics investigation.

A likely story.  Come on.  If she was concerned about her staff being subjected to anything “incredibly invasive,” she never would’ve slept with any of them to begin with.

Then she claimed “bi-phobia” is to blame for her tucking her tail between her legs and getting the hell out of Dodge before an ethics inquiry was conducted.

So either she’s accusing Nancy Pelosi of “bi-phobia,” or Throuple Katie is squirting ink into the water – getting out ahead of the news in order to frame the narrative her own way.

Hill must’ve been aware the FBI was on the case when she resigned.  The story broke in October 2018 that the FBI was investigating the hacking.  At the time, of course, the hacking was considered possible “foreign interference” from Russia or China or even Iran.

I’m sure Throuple Katie knew it was only a matter of time before the FBI got its head out of its ass and discovered that it wasn’t some Russian oligarch but one of her campaign people who was responsible.

And out of the blue, with no book to promote, Katie Hill is all over daytime TV making excuses — and it just so happens to be at the exact time someone in her campaign is arrested by the FBI for hacking her opponents?

Does anyone buy that coincidence?

I certainly don’t.

Lucky for Katie, she’s a Democrat. So none of these hacks in the news media who have been slobbering all over her for months will take a single moment to look into her possible connection to this crime.