Judge On Roger Stone Case Goes After Tucker Carlson, Trump Over Comments About Juror

 
Article by Chuck Ross in "The Daily Caller":


A federal judge on Tuesday criticized Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson for calling the lead juror in Roger Stone’s trial an “anti-Trump zealot,” though the juror in question has referred to President Donald Trump on social media as “#KlanPresident” and asserted in a Twitter post in August 2019 that Trump’s supporters are racist.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson leveled the criticism against Carlson and Trump for their recent remarks about the juror, Tomeka Hart, during a hearing on whether to grant Stone a retrial. Jackson sentenced Stone on Feb. 20 to 40 months in prison in a case stemming from the special counsel’s probe.

Stone, 67, has asserted in a secret court filing that Hart provided misleading answers in a written jury questionnaire, as well as during a voir dire interview on Nov. 5, 2019. 

Those documents, obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, show that Hart acknowledged having some knowledge of the Trump-Russia investigation and of Stone. She said in her questionnaire that she was not certain whether she had commented publicly on the topics. Her Twitter feed shows that she did post multiple times about the investigations, including negative stories about Trump.

She also retweeted a post several days after Stone was arrested that criticized some of Stone’s conservative defenders.

Stone contends that Hart would have been removed from the potential jury pool if she had disclosed her full opinion of the Russia investigation and Trump on her jury questionnaire.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson is at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel March 29, 2019 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Stone lawyer Robert Buschel said at Tuesday’s hearing that the legal team did not conduct research on Hart before the trial started.

Trump and Carlson, who co-founded the Daily Caller, have rallied around Stone, while criticizing both Jackson and Hart.

Trump said on Feb. 20 that Hart “tainted” the Stone jury pool. Carlson has used his show to criticize Jackson’s handling of Stone’s case and to assert that Hart was biased against Trump.

Jackson said Tuesday that Carlson and Trump were trying to intimidate Hart.

“Tucker Carlson accused the foreperson of the jury of being an anti-Trump zealot,” Jackson said, according to reporters at the hearing. “Any attempts to invade the privacy of the jurors or to harass or intimidate them is completely antithetical to our system of justice.”

“This is indisputably a highly publicized case in which the president himself shone a spotlight on the jury,” she continued, according to The Washington Post. “The risk of harassment and intimidation of any jurors who may testify in the hearing later today is is extremely high, and individually who may be angry about Mr. Stone’s conviction may chose to take it out on them personally.”

Hart came forward earlier in February to defend four prosecutors who withdrew from the Stone case in protest after Justice Department officials revised a recommendation for how much time Stone should spend in prison.

Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., initially recommended that Stone serve between 87 months and 108 months in prison.

After Trump criticized the recommendation, the Justice Department issued a statement signaling that it would revise the recommendation. In the new proposal, prosecutors said that Stone deserved “substantial” prison time, but “far less” than the 7-9 year recommendation.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/02/25/roger-stone-judge-tucker-carlson-juror/

Further facility closures at US bases in Europe possible as coronavirus spreads, Wolters says

 
Article by John Vandiver in "Stars and Stripes":

Some Army facilities in Italy could be shuttered beyond March 1 due to concerns related to the coronavirus, which the military expects will also have implications for troops in Germany, U.S. European Command’s top officer, Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, told lawmakers Tuesday.

In Vicenza, Italy, the Army has closed on-base schools, child care centers, gyms and churches after a spike in coronavirus cases in the broader region. Military personnel also have been told not to travel to areas where clusters of confirmed cases have emerged.

Wolters said that there was a “50-50” possibility that the closures in Vicenza would be extended, in response to questions by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who cited Stars and Stripes reporting at the base.

The military is also prepared to execute a coronavirus prevention plan in Germany, which is home to tens of thousands of U.S. service members and their families.

“We’re anticipating an increase in the number of cases in Germany,” Wolters told the Senate Armed Services Committee during testimony.

The military overseas has been grappling with the rapid spread of coronavirus, particularly in South Korea, where a surge of cases has forced base access and troop movement restrictions. As cases increase in Europe, EUCOM officials have said command medical teams are closely monitoring for potential threats.

Wolters was in Washington to testify on EUCOM’s piece of the Pentagon’s 2021 budget request and the command’s role in countering Russia and China.

Wolters said he would like more support in countering Russia at sea, where he said Moscow’s submarine activity increased by 50% in 2019. EUCOM is generally effective at tracking Russian submarines, but “not 100% of the time,” he said.

https://www.stripes.com/news/further-facility-closures-at-us-bases-in-europe-possible-as-coronavirus-spreads-wolters-says-1.620233 

9/11 firefighter who found own brother in rubble dies of related illness

A firefighter who helped find victims of the 11 September 2001 attack on New York City, including his own brother, has died of cancer, aged 46.

Daniel Foley's pancreatic cancer was related to the months he spent assisting with recovery efforts at Ground Zero.
He had "miraculously" been the one to find the body of his elder brother - also a firefighter - in the rubble.
So far, 221 firefighters have died from illnesses related to the attack.
Mr Foley passed away on 22 February. The Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA) mourned the loss, tweeting: "This is becoming a living nightmare for all of us."
Mr Foley joined the city's fire department in 1998. His brother Thomas was among the first responders to the 2001 terrorist attack that devastated the city.

When his brother went missing in the aftermath, Mr Foley joined the rescue efforts.
Lieutenant Mickey Conboy, who worked with Mr Foley, told CBS New York: "On the first night, Danny promised his mother and father he wouldn't come home until he bought his brother home with him."
Eleven days later, Lt Conboy said Mr Foley "miraculously" found his brother in the rubble of the World Trade Center. He could have stopped working with the rescue company that day, Lt Conboy added.

"But Danny came back each day and joined the company working at the trade centre to find all the Americans that were killed that day. And he didn't stop until we all were done, on that last day in May of 2002."
Mr Foley is survived by his wife and five children

Up to 80,000 people - including firemen, police officers, emergency workers, contractors and cleaning staff - are believed to have rushed to the aid of victims in the aftermath of the attacks. Many were exposed to toxic debris in the air, like asbestos, lead, and pulverized concrete.
They join an estimated 400,000 people believed to have been exposed to these contaminants, or suffered injury that day, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2018, the president of the UFA told the BBC that roughly one in eight firefighters who were at Ground Zero had since come down with cancer.
Last year, Congress voted to extend a medical compensation fund for the first responders, volunteers and survivors that was due to expire in 2020.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51634771

CDC Warns of Coronavirus Spread in USA: ‘Disruption to Everyday Life Might Be Severe’

Article written by Joshua Caplan in "Breitbart":

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned that the spread of China’s deadly coronavirus in the United States is all but certain and said Americans’ everyday life could be dramatically affected.

“As more and more countries experience community spread, successful containment at our borders becomes harder and harder,” Messonnier told reporters on Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s not a question of if this will happen but when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illnesses,” the top public health official added. “Disruption to everyday life might be severe.” 

Messonnier said the continued spread of the virus has led to a shift to a more dire tone.

“The data over the last week and spread in other countries has certainly raised our level of concern, and raised our level of expectation that we are going to have community spread here, so that has changed our tone,” she said.

The illness that originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan has now infected more than 80,000 people globally. 77,000 cases have been confirmed in China with others in parts of Europe and the Middle East.

To date, 57 cases have been confirmed in the U.S., including 40 cases of people who the government transported from the Diamond Princess cruise ship from Japan.

The virus’ spread caused the U.S. stock market to plunge.

An expected rebound after Monday’s 1,000-point nosedive on Wall Street had yet to materialize by midday Tuesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down nearly 500 points by 1 p.m. EST. The S&P 500 was down about 50 points and the Nasdaq 122 points.

The 10-year Treasury yield hit a record low of 1.32 percent Tuesday while the 30-year bond also fell.

Some experts anticipated at least somewhat of a rebound Tuesday, which has usually been seen following precipitous drops on a Monday, particularly after futures indicated a boost.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/25/cdc-warns-coronavirus-spread-usa-disruption-to-everyday-life-might-be-severe/ 

'We know there are people actively working against' Trump in government

Mike Brest reporting for Washington Examiner

 House spokesman faced questions about whether the Trump administration is working on removing "deep state" actors from the federal government.

White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley was asked Monday morning on Fox News's America's Newsroom about a report on how President Trump and his allies have compiled lists of disloyal government officials they want fired.

"The president has been pretty clear about the fact that he wants people in this administration who want to forward his agenda. Donald Trump was the only one elected. He was the only one the American people voted for. They didn’t vote for somebody at any of these other agencies," the spokesman said.

Gidley said there are people in government who are "pushing their own selfish political agenda, and not the agenda of the duly elected president. Every president, this one included, has the right to have people in positions that forward and execute his agenda."

The president's distrust of White House staffers and federal government employees is said to have risen after impeachment and acquittal. Trump, whose administration has been riddled with leaks, believes his government is filled with “snakes” that he wants fired and replaced, according to Axios.

Sandra Smith, one of the show's anchors, asked, "So there is truth to the fact there are lists being assembled?"

"Look, if there are any lists, I’ve not seen them," Gidley said. "But the fact is we know there are people actively working against this president ... It shouldn’t happen to any sitting president, as Donald Trump always says. So we will continue to move forward to make sure people are in positions that support this president’s agenda."

Smith asked if there were active plans to "fire any of those people on that list?"

Gidley replied: "It’s not a secret we want people in positions that work with this president and not against them. Too often, we have people in this government — the federal government is massive with millions of people, and there are a lot of people out there working against the president. If we find them, we will take appropriate action."

The memos included former District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu, whose nomination for a top Treasury Department role was withdrawn earlier this month.

Is the Intelligence Community planning to meddle in 2020 election?

Byron York analysis for Washington Examiner

Recently, the Intelligence Community made clear it will be a player in the 2020 presidential election. No one should be surprised.

On Feb. 13, the House Intelligence Committee held a meeting at which intelligence officials briefed lawmakers on foreign efforts to influence U.S. elections. By several accounts, the officials told the committee that Russia is working to reelect President Trump. 

A number of Republican committee members were deeply skeptical. What the officials said was classified, so they cannot discuss it publicly, but, in conversations later, GOP lawmakers made it clear that the intelligence officials did not have the evidence to support the assertion.

"How should reporting take place?" one member said later. "You would say, 'We believe X is true based on A, B, C, and D.' When that doesn't happen, it's very suspect."

"If you're going to make an accusation like that, you darn well better be ready to answer questions and have evidence to support it," said another member. When pressed, the member added that officials gave "very vague and unsatisfying answers."

The Republicans' objection was not to the idea that Russia is trying to interfere in a U.S. election. That is an accepted fact. The problem was the assessment that Russia is specifically trying to help reelect Trump. That claim, so incendiary in the 2016 election, was unsupported by the evidence, they said.

As they left the meeting, Republicans agreed that the news would leak soon. It almost seemed to be why Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee chairman and impeachment leader, called the meeting in the first place.

No one was surprised when, a week later, the New York Timespublished a story, "Lawmakers Are Warned That Russia Is Meddling to Re-elect Trump." The news quickly became another one of those bombshell reports that consume hours of talk on cable TV.

Democrats, who were also barred by law from revealing classified information, were nevertheless happy to play along. For example, not long after the story broke, Democratic Rep. Jim Himes, an intelligence committee member, appeared on CNN.

"I can't talk about what happened in a classified setting," Himes said. "But ... you don't need an intelligence briefing to think about what Vladimir Putin might want. Would he want a return to sort of conventional, much more confrontational policy with respect to Russia? Or might he want a president who will criticize everybody on the planet except Vladimir Putin?"

Himes's point was clear: I can't talk about it, but of course Putin is working to reelect Trump. 

The problem was, intelligence officials did not have the evidence to make that assertion, and, almost as soon as the story broke, officials with knowledge of the meeting suggested that the headlines were wrong. On Sunday, CNN reported the officials had apparently "overstated" the Putin-wants-Trump story.

And then there were the circumstances of the briefing. The Intelligence Community works for the president. Yet, officials chose to brief Schiff's House Intelligence Committee on this extraordinarily consequential finding before telling the president. 

Whatever the motive, spilling the beans in a room with dozens of people present — intelligence officials brought a lot of staff with them — increased the chances of precisely the type of leak that occurred.

The whole thing hit the White House by surprise. "I have not seen that analysis," national security adviser Robert O'Brien told ABC on Sunday, referring to the Putin-wants-Trump assessment. "I've been with the leaders of the intelligence committee. They don't have it. So, if there's some lower-level people at [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] that came in and gave this analysis to the House — look, I'd like to see it. But I haven't seen it."

Later, just to make matters more difficult, there were leaks that Russia is also trying to help elect Bernie Sanders. The leak left many experts baffled, except to the extent that, with the Trump leak, it seemed to target the Intelligence Community's two least-favorite candidates.

There were lots of reports that Trump was angry after the news broke, and why shouldn't he be angry? Way back in January 2017, when Trump was president-elect and protesting that the Intelligence Community was out to get him, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer famously said, "You take on the Intelligence Community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you."

The years that followed proved that to be true. And it still is.

Omens of a Political Apocalypse

Robert Stacy McCain for The American Spectator

Omens of a Political Apocalypse

Eight days remain until the crucial “Super Tuesday” primaries, and the unmistakable momentum of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has the Democratic Party establishment quaking in fear. Longtime Clinton adviser James Carville went off on potential Sanders voters on MSNBC Saturday when it became clear Sanders had scored a crushing victory in the Nevada caucus. “If you want to vote for Bernie Sanders because you feel good about his program, you don’t like the banks on Wall Street or you don’t like pharmaceuticals, that’s legitimate, I understand that,” Carville said. “If you’re voting for him because you think he’ll win the election, politically, you’re a fool. And that’s just a fact. It’s no denying it, there’s so much political science, so much research on this that it is not even a debatable question.”

At a campaign rally Sunday in Houston, Sanders predicted that he would not only win next week’s Texas primary but that he would also defeat President Donald Trump in the Lone Star State in November. This was a bold boast, considering that no Democratic presidential candidate has won Texas since 1976, and that Trump beat Hillary Clinton by an 800,000-vote margin in the state four years ago.

While Bernie’s fans cheered his confident prediction of November victory, establishment Democrats and their media allies were struggling to accept the more sobering near-term reality that “moderate” candidates are unlikely to stop Sanders from winning the nomination. The candidate who spent nearly all of 2019 as the presumed front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden, struggled to a weak second-place finish Saturday in Nevada. Democrats were still not finished counting votes Sunday evening, but with 88 percent of precincts reporting, Sanders had 47 percent of the vote, more than doubling Biden’s 21 percent. Very few delegates have been won so far, of course, but Saturday’s win gave Sanders strong momentum going into next Tuesday, when 1,617 total delegates will be awarded in 14 state primaries.

After dismal finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, Biden has been counting on Saturday’s primary in South Carolina as the “firewall” to save his struggling campaign. But even if he wins there, his prospects on Super Tuesday are not encouraging. Billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has saturated the airwaves with advertising in the Super Tuesday states, eroding Biden’s share of the “Anybody But Bernie” vote. In California, for example, Sanders leads the RealClearPolitics average of state polls with 26.3 percent, about 12 points ahead of Biden and Bloomberg, who are in a virtual tie for second place. Polls are not predictions, however, and it’s possible Bloomberg’s support might fade after the shellacking he took in the Las Vegas debate last week, while Biden could get a boost if he wins Saturday in South Carolina. Yet there are still seven Democrats – Biden, Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, billionaire Tom Steyer, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – dividing the non-Sanders vote, while the Vermont socialist’s supporters are united and energized.

Trump supporters are watching the Democrats’ slow-motion train wreck with undisguised glee. During his first three years in the White House, the Republican incumbent has been endlessly investigated and finally impeached, yet Trump’s poll numbers are the best they’ve ever been. Just yesterday, a CBS News poll reported that “65% of registered voters nationwide think President Trump will definitely or probably be reelected, including more than a third of Democrats who think so. Republicans are especially optimistic: more than 9 in 10 expect him to win.” We are still more than eight months away from Election Day, and a lot can change in that time, but there are reasons why the Democrat talking heads on cable news are increasingly giving voice to panic and despair. It’s not really a matter of Trump Derangement Syndrome; their sense of gloom is rational and objective.

Carville’s pronouncement that political science proves Sanders will lead Democrats to defeat reflects the consensus analysis of what happened to the Labour Party in Great Britain in recent years. Since the high tide of “New Labour” under centrist Tony Blair, the British Left has seen its fortunes dwindle precipitously. Five years ago, after Labour suffered unexpected parliamentary losses (mainly because of inroads by the Scottish National Party), the party held a new leadership election and cast its lot with avowed socialist Jeremy Corbyn and has since nearly imploded. In last December’s election, Labour suffered its worst defeat since the 1930s, winning only 31 percent of seats in the House of Commons. What Carville and other mainstream Democrats fear is that Bernie Sanders could bring about the “Corbynization” of their party, turning it into a radical fringe with no hope of gaining an electoral majority. Commentary’s Noah Rothman has pointed out that parallels between Sanders and Corbyn include alliances with anti-Semites, and let’s not even start on Sanders’ praise for the Castro regime in Cuba, which is certain to alienate the crucial Cuban-American vote in Florida.

Carville’s MSNBC outburst was inspired by the genuine risk that Sanders could lead Democrats to an apocalyptic defeat in November — not just seeing Trump reelected but also with Democrats losing otherwise winnable “down-ticket” races in congressional, senatorial, and gubernatorial elections. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews suggested Saturday that moderate Democrats might not even bother to vote in November if Sanders is the nominee. “I’m wondering whether the Democratic moderates want Bernie Sanders to be president.… They don’t like Trump at all. Do they want Bernie Sanders to take over the Democratic Party in perpetuity? I mean, he takes it over, he sets the direction of the future of the party — maybe they’d rather wait four years and put in a Democrat that they like.”

As much as Trump supporters enjoy watching liberals wallowing in hopelessness, it’s important to recognize the huge potential downside. As Glenn Reynolds said, “You can assume that Trump would crush Bernie, and you’re probably right. But any major-party nominee, however lame, has a nonzero chance of becoming President, and that’s bad when we’re talking about a commie.” The possibility that Sanders could actually win the White House may seem far-fetched, but we can’t forget that all the experts thought Trump could never win four years ago. America is a deeply divided country, and watching an avowed socialist score primary victories should inspire concern. Even if all Bernie does this year is lead Democrats to defeat, the omens for our nation’s future are disturbing.

Why Conservatism Is Destined to Win

 
Article by DAVENJI in "RedState":

Mainstream liberals are in distress in the West.  In Great Britain, the Labour Party suffered their worst defeat since 1935 with Boris Johnson’s victory.  The Socialist Party in France suffered their worst results ever while there were conservative victories in the Netherlands and Italy.  In Germany, the Social Democrats suffered their worst showing  since 1945 and the same for the Finnish Left since 1962.  In Sweden, the Social Democrats sunk to their lowest point since 1908.

Underlying this shift is a realignment of ideology away from economic conflicts of the 20th century to cultural conflicts of the 21st century.  There is little talk about redistributionist policies versus a free market these days than there are questions about domestic security, immigration, and national identity.  All of these factors work to the disadvantage of the Left.  The reason is simple: it is easier for a conservative to move to the left on some economic issues, but impossible for liberals to move to the right on cultural issues.

Leftwing politicians are constrained from appealing to the key part of the electorate where most voters reside- conservative on cultural issues and center/left on economic issues.  Conservatives can do this because they are less beholden to libertarian orthodoxy than the Left is beholden to progressive cultural values.  Put another way, except on cultural issues, conservatives have a built-in flexibility that liberals lack.

Identity politics and multiculturalism are the motivating factors on the Left.  It is epitomized in the highly-educated activists that came about from the progressivism of the 1960s.  But, their ideas on this front are considerably less popular than their economic ideas.  Hence, they are hemmed in by their own orthodoxy.  There is another ingredient that adds to their inflexibility- political correctness.

Political correctness is a construct that can push new ideas even when most people disagree with those ideas.  It is much more powerful among the Left than the Right.  A conservative may dislike an environmentalist within their ranks, but they will not shun and shame them out of existence.  However, if a left winger was to move slightly to the right on an issue like immigration, they would be branded a racist by the online activists.  Social sanctions have changed the dynamic on the Left starting in the 1960s when the phrase “racist” came into prominence followed in short order by “sexist.”  It is precisely this dynamic that prevents a Bernie Sanders from dare questioning an open borders immigration policy.  It is why everyone running for President dare not question slavery reparations, or defend the police, or offer up any sane policy.

The rise of identity politics coincides with the notice of the cultural anxieties of white voters who find themselves the targets of scorn and ridicule.  Meanwhile, identity politics finds a welcome home among the 8% of white Americans who call themselves “progressive activists.”  Slowly, their political correctness and identity politics is spreading over the other subgroups of white liberals.

Of course, these shifts show themselves in a realignment of major political parties.  Just as blue collar Midwesterners cast their votes for Trump in 2016, manual working class whites in Great Britain have shifted to the Tories.  As late as 1997, they were firmly in the Labour Party camp.  Spurring the realignment are views on immigration specifically.  Tough on immigration enclaves like blue collar areas have moved to the GOP while open border urbanites have tilted heavily toward the Democrats.  Even continental Europe with their proportional representation which would ordinarily create volatility have seen an increase in the vote share for parties tough on immigration.

In Holland, Mark Rutte asked immigrants to “act normal or go away” and was promptly reelected.  Theresa May and Boris Johnson, who initially leaned away from Brexit, saw their political fortunes change for the better after they embraced it.  Sebastian Kurz’s party in Austria won over the more populist Right-Wing parties in that country and he was elected after talking and acting tough on immigration.  There are, naturally, some exceptions.  The Left stayed in power in Portugal, but they have a negligible Muslim population.

And sometimes, when the Left moves to the right on immigration, they too can be the exception.  For example, Denmark is no less “socialist” today, but they remained in power only after the Left adopted policies to cut back on immigration.  Likewise, the same thing happened in New Zealand.

Liberal political parties face a serious dilemma which the Right does not have to endure.  They can tack right on immigration and alienate their activist base.  They can tack further left and lose elections.  The biggest exception is Canada.  Although a populist rightwing politician managed to win provincial elections in Quebec, nationally they returned uber-liberal and super-woke Justin Trudeau to office in 2019.

However, change is afoot north of the border.  With the growing distance between Britain and Canada in the 1960s, a power vacuum was created allowing the progressives to fill that area.  Today, Canada as a whole leans 60-40 to the left while the rest of the Western world is basically a 50/50 split.  However, Canada is undergoing political and cultural polarization.  Only about 6% of conservatives approve of Trudeau while 90% of liberals approve of him.  Five years ago, attitudes on immigration between the groups differed by 10-15 percentage points.  Today, they differ by 50 points.  The same thing happened in the United States between 2012 and 2016.

The ethnic change that is transforming Western societies makes cultural issues more relevant to the masses.  This is clearly more beneficial to the Right than the Left.  Voters trust conservatives more than liberals when it comes to immigration and other cultural issues.  The Left, on the other hand, are shackled to progressive norms that prevent them from adjusting to the new political reality.

https://www.redstate.com/diary/davenj1/2020/02/25/why-conservatism-is-destined-to-win/

LA Times: Trump Has ‘Flipped’ the 9th Circuit, ‘Shockwave’ of New Judges

Nick Arama reporting for RedState

The Ninth Circuit has been known as a bastion of liberal activism for years.

It was perhaps the best example of everything that President Donald Trump was elected to try to correct, with a return to what the Court is actually supposed to be doing, adhering to the Constitution and not to political activism.

One of the places where Trump has been most effective, with the aid of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has been in getting judges approved, including those in the Circuit Courts of Appeal, where Trump has made 51 appointments.

There have been few places where those appointments appear to have had more effect than in the change that has swept the Ninth Circuit, which covers California and eight other states.

Trump has taken the San Francisco-based Circuit that was dominated by Democratic appointees and substantially changed it.

He’s now appointed 10 judges to the Circuit, more than 1/3 of the active judges there.

According to Ninth Circuit Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., Trump has “effectively flipped the Circuit.”

Now “flipped” might be somewhat premature because there still isn’t a majority of Republican appointees on the Court. Democratic appointees still outnumber the Republican appointees, 16-13 as Hot Air notes. 

But it’s safe to say that Trump’s remade it with such a huge influence in new judges devoted to the Constitution and will have a continuing influence in transforming it.

That’s making some nervous, according to the LA Times, calling it a “shock wave.” If they’re upset with it, sounds good.

To assess the early impact of these appointments, The Times interviewed several judges on the 9th Circuit. Some either declined to discuss their colleagues or inner deliberations or refused to be quoted by name, saying they were not authorized to speak about what goes on behind the scenes.

To be sure, some of the new appointees to the 9th Circuit have quickly won the respect of their colleagues. But the rapid influx of so many judges — most without judicial experience — has put strains upon the court and stirred criticism among judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents.

Hot Air notes the criticisms are mostly silly, an attempt to paint the new judges as deficient when they’re not.

The complaints in the article over Trump’s ten appointments are, by contrast, overblown. They’re divisive! They don’t follow the rules! They didn’t have judicial experience! Closer to the end, however, other voices remind readers that both Obama and Clinton appointed non-judges to the Ninth Circuit and that everyone has a learning curve when taking an appellate post.

This “shock wave” is just a nonsense comment, an attempt to paint these appointments as some sort of unprecedented makeover just seven years after Reid and Obama did the same damned thing on the other coast. 

But it does serve again to show the importance of why Trump was elected. Can you imagine the difference between a Trump court and a Bernie Sanders influenced court?

Trump has kept his promises on the judiciary and will help do even more in a second term. Sanders, Bloomberg, and other Democratic candidates would only set back any positive movement that has been accomplished.

David Marcus for The Federalist

How The Romneyites Will Justify

Supporting Bernie Sanders

Never Trump is dead. Long live the Romneyites. Here is why they will wind up supporting socialist Bernie Sanders.

Never Trump is as dead as a doornail, this must be distinctly understood. It met its fate when all but one Republican senator voted to acquit Donald Trump in his impeachment trial. Never Trump was always short for “Never Trump Republican” or “Never Trump Conservative.” For all intents and purposes, those qualifiers no long define the group. Instead they are now defined by the one senator who abandoned the GOP: Mitt Romney.

The Romneyites, which they should now be known as, are still defined by their staggering aversion to Donald Trump, but the handful of principled Republican politicians they kept predicting would turn on Trump did not materialize. Their three-year project to wrangle back the GOP from the inside has failed, leaving them with only one option, to support a Democrat against Trump, and increasingly it appears that Democrat may well be socialist Bernie Sanders.

This is a very tough spot for the Romneyites to be in. One almost has to feel sorry for them. It is important to remember that they are not just smarter than their Trump-defending conservative ex-cohorts, they are also of course much smarter than the Democrats who they have been warning about the dangers of lunging too far to the left. But for all their wisdom and long hard hours in the think tanks, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans seem very keen on heeding their important advice.

This was not supposed to happen. The election was not supposed to even get close to coming down to a right wing populist bully from Queens and a left wing populist bully from Brooklyn. Even last week the Romneyites were writing weird wish craft, like a piece in the Bulwark called, “Romney-Bloomberg: The Unity Ticket America Deserves.” You couldn’t read the sentiments of the American voting public more poorly right now if you held the book upside down.

And speaking of the junior senator from Utah, now the titular head of what was once Never Trump, who will he be supporting come November? He did just recently vote to remove Donald Trump from office. Does that leave him in a reasonable position to support his re-election, even against socialist Sanders? Romney’s vote to remove is an important tool for Democrats inasmuch as it gives just the slightest bit of legitimacy to their failed impeachment efforts.

For Romney and his supporters, there is no way back into any semblance of power in the GOP as long as Trump is president. If Biden and Bloomberg cannot stop Sanders’ efforts to secure the nomination, the Romneyites only choice will be to support him. They will claim this grudging support is a needed backstop against Trump’s alleged undermining of American democracy, but they also know a Trump defeat is their only likely way to regain policy influence in the Republican Party.

Friends, these are strange times. Over on the left, from his perch at MSNBC Democrat Chris Matthews is comparing Sanders’ socialist victory in Nevada to France falling to the Nazis, and on the right, former anti-communist neocons are dismissing concerns about electing a Disdainer of Capitalism in Chief.

To no small degree is the Romneyite position similar to that of Joe Biden, a Democrat they would greatly prefer to support. Like them, Biden’s campaign is a call for a return to normalcy. The good old days of Bush and Obama, globalism and neoliberalism. It’s not too late to get all of that back, they say, if the people want it. The problem of course is that there is little sign that this is actually what most Americans want.

The Romneyites, using their preferred term, Principled Conservatives, will hold a conference in Washington DC this weekend, a kind of shadow CPAC if you will. All of your favorites will be there: Bill Kristol, Charlie Sykes, Tom Nichols, and Rick Wilson to name a few. But they really only have one principle, which is Donald Trump and his rube Fox News addicted voters are bad. And they really just aren’t conservatives anymore. The baby went out with the bathwater and all that is left to refill the tub is warmed over socialism.

So get ready to hear a lot from them about the wonders of Denmark, how Sanders really isn’t a socialist, how Trump’s conservative victories actually don’t amount to much, and about how four more years of Trump will end American democracy. Trump is to the Romneyites what climate change is to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an existential and immediate threat that must be not just the top, but the only priority.

The good news is that in reality, their support for a socialist presidential candidate cannot sway any considerable constituency of voters, because no such voters actually exist.

‘Who Has Done More to Help Vladimir Putin’ by Sowing Seeds of Discord Than Adam Schiff?

Nick Arama reporting for RedState

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) blasted House Intel Chair Adam Schiff over leaks allegedly out of his Committee in an appearance on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo. 

While Ratcliffe said he couldn’t talk about a classified briefing he said that the New York Times report that Russia was interfering to help Trump in 2020 was not accurate and he blasted Schiff about the leaks, saying he was helping the Russians by helping to sow chaos over the elections.

From Washington Examiner: 

“He’s at it again by putting out, through his committee, information that is false,” the Texas lawmaker told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “Look, I’m not trying to be hyperbolic here, but I don’t know anyone in the last three years who has done more to help Vladimir Putin and Russia with their efforts to sow the seeds of discord in American elections and American election security than Adam Schiff has.” […]

“We see when there’s a story about — that is allegedly anti-Trump or negative for the president, it shows up in newspapers because either Democratic members or Democratic staffers leak it,” the Texas Republican said Sunday. “The problem is, in this case, they have leaked information that’s not accurate.”

Not to mention, they’re not supposed to be leaking classified information to begin with. 

But the fact that it was false and has since been debunked by multiple sources that didn’t stop Schiff from weaponizing it and claiming that Trump had “betrayed America” in two separate tweets again jacking up people on the left with more false information. 

“We count on the intelligence community to inform Congress of any threat of foreign interference in our elections. If reports are true and the President is interfering with that, he is again jeopardizing our efforts to stop foreign meddling. Exactly as we warned he would do.”

He also tweeted at the president, “Your false claims fool no one. You welcomed Russian help in 2016, tried to coerce Ukraine’s help in 2019, and won’t protect our elections in 2020. Now you fired your intel chief for briefing Congress about it. You’ve betrayed America. Again.”

Ratcliffe said that Russian interference was made more successful and amplified by people like Schiff and other Democrats.

The issue is why Russia is being so successful in shaking American confidence in the integrity of our elections,” Ratcliffe argued. “And the reason is, it’s because Democrats keep perpetuating and accentuating and proliferating Russian propaganda for their political gain and for their political motivation against Donald Trump.” [….]

“All of these things have been done by Democrats for their political gain, but has promoted everything that Russia has tried to accomplish,” Ratcliffe claimed. “And the Democrats have been their biggest allies.”

Schiff falsely claimed that he knew of “pretty damning evidence” of Trump-Russia collusion which he never produced and as the Mueller investigation found didn’t exist. Even after that, Schiff continued to push the hoax, claiming there was “ample evidence of collusion in plain sight.”

This latest leak to the NY Times is just the latest out of Schiff’s Committee. Ratcliffe is not the only one who has pointed the finger at Schiff as the possible source of the leaks. Former House Intel Chair Trey Gowdy has also called out Schiff in the past for “leaking like a sieve.” The president has also called out Schiff over this last leak. 

The bottom line is it’s always the same, a leak that appears to help the Democrats/hurt Trump to the New York Times/CNN. There’s an obvious line there and either Schiff is the leaker or he is responsible because he’s not doing anything to stop it, take your choice. 

Schiff has also continued to perpetrate falsehoods without any consequence in the media for political gain, like the claim about Russia collusion, without concern about how it might divide Americans or injure domestic and foreign policy. It’s all about hurting Trump, no matter who or what else gets hurt in the process. 

The House needs to hold him to account and that may not happen until the House flips. Just one more reason to get out and vote the Democrats out.

Why is The New York Times Outing Lower Level FBI Spygate Operatives? Case Agent 1: Stephen M. Somma

A previously incurious New York Times is now exposing members of the FBI crew who participated in fraud upon the FISA Court.  Are the corrupt former top-tier FBI officials starting to position lower-level FBI participants as scapegoats?

Inside an insufferable article, engineered to defend the need for the DOJ and FBI to continue using FISA intelligence gathering information against U.S. persons, the New York times outlines Stephen M Somma as Case Agent 1, the handler for FBI confidential human source Stefan Halper.

(NYT) […] The Page report criticized an F.B.I. agent for ignoring that very procedure as part of half a dozen personal failings that included not passing on the information from the C.I.A., singling the agent out as “primarily responsible for some of the most significant errors and omissions.”

It identified this person only as Case Agent 1. But he is Stephen M. Somma, a counterintelligence investigator in the F.B.I.’s New York field office, people familiar with the Russia investigation said. The F.B.I. declined to comment. (link)

“Case Agent 1” is identified in the IG report as “primarily responsible for some of the most significant errors and omissions in the FISA applications.”  Stephen Somma had the responsibility to verify the accuracy of information underpinning in the FISA application.

Somma was also the FBI handler for Stefan Halper, the Cambridge professor who contacted, met and secretly recorded Carter Page, Sam Clovis and George Papadopoulos while using an undercover FBI agent code-named Azra Turk as his assistant.

The exculpatory information gathered as a result of those wired recordings was ignored, never shared with the FISA court, and buried during the investigation in order to continue a false framework for the FBI to continue targeting the Trump officials.

So why is the New York Times exposing Stephan Somma now as “Case Agent 1” according to “people familiar with the Russia investigation”?

Given the timing, risk exposure, and the corrupt nature of the FBI officials involved in the investigation, it looks like the top of the Crossfire Hurricane team are throwing FBI case agent Stephen Somma under the same bus as FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.

Your thoughts?

Jon Miltimore for Fee.org

5 Stats That Show American Workers Are 

More Prosperous Than Ever

A close inspection of the data shows our free market system is working and has allowed us to achieve unprecedented prosperity.

Monday, February 24, 2020

Politicians are known for telling voters how bad things are. It’s a refrain that never seems to change regardless of the actual economic condition of a nation or community, and it’s practiced by those on both the political left and right.

"The average American is working longer hours for lower wages," Senator Bernie Sanders is fond of saying in stump speeches.

His congressional colleague, Rep. Alexandria Occassio-Cortez, has gone so far as to (falsely) claim that unemployment is low only “because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their family."

It’s not just Democrats and Democratic Socialists, however. Sure, President Trump is touting the US economy now, but he was singing a very different tune in 2016, depicting the US as a “rusting shell of a once great economy,” as one Bloomberg writer vividly put it. The US, Trump claimed, had “a lousy” economy and “Third World” infrastructure.

Despite these bleak claims, there is ample evidence that suggests America is more prosperous than ever and US workers are experiencing the benefits. The latest evidence comes from a recent report from George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, which shows that Americans have achieved significant gains in recent decades, the result of trade liberalization and advances in technology—from the internet and smartphones to AI and robotics.

“A more open, free, and technologically advanced US economy has been a blessing to the large majority of workers and households in the United States,” writes Daniel Griswold, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center and co-director of its Trade and Immigration Project. “Expanding competition from trade has delivered lower prices and more product variety to consumers while shifting productive resources to those sectors that can compete more effectively in global export markets.”

Below are five key takeaways from the report.

1. Household incomes have increased nearly 20% in the last four decades

Despite a lot of talk from politicians about “stagnant wages,” household incomes in the US, adjusted for inflation, increased about 20 percent since the 1970s, up from $53,251 in 1973 to $63,179 in 2018. The stagnant wage myth stems from a tendency of economists and politicians to measure inflation using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U)—an index that overstates inflation and underestimates gains in purchasing power. (Griswold notes that the CPI-U’s problems were outlined nearly a quarter-century ago by the Boskin Commission.)

2. Hourly compensation has increased by more than 50%

A 20 percent increase is swell, but a 50 percent increase is even better—and that’s what US workers experienced between 1973 and 2018. Using the PCE deflator, which measures inflation based on personal consumption, Dartmouth economist Bruce Sacerdote found that real wages for US workers grew by 24 percent from 1975 to 2015. When benefits are included, that figure climbs to 51 percent, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

3. Workplace deaths and injuries have plummeted by 30% and 69%, respectively

We don’t hear a lot about workplace safety these days. There’s a reason for that: it’s less of a problem than ever. Between 1991 and 2017, workplace deaths fell by 30 percent, Griswold points out. Workplace injuries and illnesses fell by 69 percent during that same timeframe. This is good news. A healthier workforce is a more prosperous workforce, and the trend for US workers is a promising one.

4. 20 million new jobs in lucrative service sectors have been created

Media and politicians tend to focus on the disappearance of manufacturing jobs in the economy, which have declined precipitously (see chart below) in recent decades as a percentage of the US workforce. However, Griswold notes that for every job lost in manufacturing since 1990, nearly eight net new jobs were added in the private sector alone, including nearly 20 million jobs in lucrative service sectors—including technical and financial services (4.73 million net jobs), construction (2.02 million net jobs), and healthcare (4.66 million net jobs). The narrative that manufacturing positions are simply being replaced by fast-food and hospitality positionsis simply not true.

5. Americans are now spending less than one-third of their money on stuff

A basic fact of economic development is that as people become more prosperous, they spend less on material goods and more on services. That’s precisely what US workers are increasingly doing. Between 1960 and 2018, spending on services grew from 47 percent to 69 percent. Meanwhile, spending on goods dropped from 53 percent to 31 percent. With many Americans meeting their primary material needs, they have more to spend on services, whether it’s a manicure, oil change, or dinner. This is one reason Americans have slowly drifted from manufacturing work to service work, Griswold explains.

Conclusion 

Politicians and pundits, this election cycle and the next, will tell you the economy needs to be “fixed.” That US workers are falling behind. They’ll promise to help one group of people, and pretend it will not come at the expense of another (unless it’s a group of millionaires billionaires).

The truth is politicians, particularly those of a collectivist bent, often have all sorts of plans for spending wealth, but few have knowledge of or care for how wealth is created. The source of prosperity and progress, the famed economist Ludwig von Mises observed, is market capitalism.

“The characteristic mark of economic history under capitalism is unceasing economic progress, a steady increase in the quantity of capital goods available, and a continuous trend toward an improvement in the general standard of living,” wrote Mises.

Our free market system is working and has allowed us to achieve prosperity unprecedented in human history. For that, we should all be thankful.