Friday, March 6, 2020

Ousted Mo. Gov. Eric Greitens Says He Was Targeted in Trump-Like Probe by Partisan Soros-Funded Prosecutor

 missouri governor eric greitens speaks
 Article by Victoria Taft in "PJMedia":

It's obvious to see now after witnessing the specious and politically manufactured attacks on Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh, but at the same time that was going on–2018–then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens—a retired Navy SEAL badass whose first political office was governor—had admitted to an affair. It was easy to think that maybe he was out 'over his skis' and had gotten caught up in some tawdry affair.

But Greitens had already confessed his affair with his hairdresser to his wife and family. He'd already come clean, but the new chief prosecutor, one of leftist billionaire George Soros's hand-picked candidates in his District Attorney Project, alleged that Greitens had committed a felony with his affair. How? Kim Gardner alleged in her tissue-thin, one-paragraph indictment, void of any evidence, that Greiten committed a felony invasion of privacy for taking a boudoir photo of his mistress and threatening to release it if she talked about her affair.

Cue the #MeToo outrage.

Greitens, who was in office two years, was hounded out. The voters who thought they were getting a door-kicker who got things done, were instead getting an alleged felon. They were outraged and he resigned.

But fast-forward now, as John Solomon reports at his new website Just the News (see him talk about his experience below), there was never any evidence of that compromising photo. Never any evidence of threats made by the governor. Moreover, the private investigator hired to do the investigation–completely contrary to how the office worked–was indicted for lying and tampering with evidence. Gardner allegedly was in on what looks to be a phony investigation done for political effect, though she hasn't been indicted by the special prosecutor now looking into the case.


Undercover Huber @JohnWHuber
 ·
This is an incredible story. The St Louis prosecutor in this case is very likely going to end up indicted for suborning perjury and conspiracy to drive the Missouri gov out of office. Just read the indictment of the former FBI agent

John Solomon
A now-withdrawn prosecution that toppled a rising GOP star in Missouri is eerily similar to the troubling legal tactics used against President Trump in the Russia collusion probe. Has political weaponization of law enforcement reached America’s heartland?
 
Undercover Huber @JohnWHuber
Lol
(Tisaby is the former FBI agent; Gardner is the St Louis Prosecutor who brought the case against Missouri gov Eric Greitens and hired Tisaby. She was present while Tisaby said this!)


Solomon reported that this month Greitens was cleared of campaign finance charges, charges that were ladled on at "the height of the scandal" after an ethics investigation into the prosecutors:

Earlier this month, the Missouri Ethics Commission cleared Greitens of charges lodged against him during the height of the scandal that he had violated campaign finance laws. The commission “found no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of Eric Greitens” but fined his campaign for two reporting violations.


It also turns out that the hairdresser, Katrina Sneed, never independently came forward to lodge a complaint against Greitens. Indeed, she was asked by prosecutors to come forward to claim the allegation.

And it appears that investigators put words into Sneed's mouth. While they were alleging the evidence of a nasty photo, it turns out that Sneed wasn't sure there was ever a photo taken. She told them she could have dreamed it. Later she testified under oath that there was never a photo.

The prosecutor's office also said there was no video recording of the conversation between Sneed and the indicted investigator. But there was. Gardner denies any wrongdoing.

The voters of Missouri had their votes for Greitens voided, nullified and erased by allegedly unscrupulous prosecutors bringing phony charges to undo the results of an election. That's sure the way Greitens sees it. And he sees something more, a pattern:

"It's good to have been exonerated. I'm glad that the truth is coming out,” Greitens told Just the News, comparing his plight to that of Trump during the Russia collusion case. “All Americans need to know that the left and deep state insiders engaged in a criminal effort to overturn the 2016 election."

As our colleague, Glenn Reynolds, put it at Instapundit, vestiges of fair treatment at the prosecutor's office have been erased, the torpedos are circling and "We need to make examples of these political prosecutions. Jail time all around."

By all means, go to Just the News and see all the documents showing lying by the investigator.

The Greitens case isn’t the only controversy impacting Gardner: More than 70 prosecutors in her office have been fired or forced to quit and dozens of St. Louis police officers have been banned from testifying in court. She also was fined more than $60,000 for campaign finance violations. After signing a plea deal, Gardner issued a statement blaming clerical errors for the campaign violations and accusing a "Republican political operative" for filing the complaint against her.

No matter which side prevails in the coming months, the investigators who went after Greitens are clearly now the investigated, much like the FBI and DOJ officials who opened the Trump-Russia collusion probe during the 2016 election find themselves in hot water in Washington under Attorney General William Barr.

Earlier this month, the Missouri Ethics Commission cleared Greitens of charges lodged against him during the height of the scandal that he had violated campaign finance laws. The commission “found no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of Eric Greitens” but fined his campaign for two reporting violations.

"It's good to have been exonerated. I'm glad that the truth is coming out,” Greitens told Just the News, comparing his plight to that of Trump during the Russia collusion case. “All Americans need to know that the left and deep state insiders engaged in a criminal effort to overturn the 2016 election."

Soros, one of the largest liberal benefactors in history, donated $630,000 that year to a political action committee called Safety and Justice Committee. That super PAC in turn donated more than $204,000 as an in-kind donation to Gardner’s election. Soros’ support accounted for about two-thirds of her total campaign donations of nearly $300,000, according to a post-election filing with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Gardner’s platform of criminal justice reform to help minorities proved a nice fit for Team Soros.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/ousted-mo-gov-eric-greitens-says-he-was-targeted-in-trump-like-probe-by-partisan-soros-funded-prosecutor/ 
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Trump campaign sues CNN for libel, seeking millions of dollars

 President Donald Trump waves as he leaves the White House on Thursday.
Article by Ebony Bowden and Priscilla DeGregory in the "New York Post":

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s re-election campaign filed a libel lawsuit against CNN on Friday — the third such suit against a media organization in the last 10 days.

The suit, filed in US District Court, alleges that CNN intentionally published “false and defamatory” statements about the Trump campaign seeking help from Russia to win the 2020 election.

The complaint says it stems from an opinion piece posted on CNN.com on June 13, 2019, by Larry Noble and headlined, “Soliciting dirt on your opponents from a foreign government is a crime. Mueller should have charged Trump campaign officials with it.” It was labeled as an opinion piece and featured a disclaimer that Noble is a CNN contributor but the commentary is solely his own view.

 The piece states that Trump’s campaign “assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia’s help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table” as a fact, the lawsuit argues, and it remained on CNN’s website despite Trump’s legal team sending a request to retract and apologize last month.

“The complaint alleges CNN was aware of the falsity at the time it published them but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign while misleading its own readers in the process,” the Trump re-election campaign’s senior legal adviser, Jenna Ellis, told Fox News, who first reported the suit.

The latest suit, filed in the federal court for the Northern District of Georgia, where CNN is headquartered, comes after the campaign sued The Washington Post on Tuesday and The New York Times last Wednesday.

 Ellis said the three lawsuits would “hold the publishers accountable for their reckless false reporting and also to establish the truth.”

 “False statements are not protected under the U.S. Constitution; therefore, these suits will have no chilling effect on freedom of the press. If journalists are more accurate in their statements and reporting, that would be a positive development, but not why these suits were filed,” Ellis told Fox News.

“Noble has written numerous articles accusing the President of criminal activity, and of campaign finance and ethics violations, and has lodged a complaint against a Super-PAC which supports the President,” the complaint says. “CNN clearly had a malicious motive in publishing the Defamatory Article, and acted with reckless disregard for the truth.”

On Wednesday, the campaign hit The Washington Post with a libel lawsuit over two 2019 columns that suggested it sought re-election help from Russia and North Korea.

They also sued The New York Times last week, claiming the newspaper libeled the president when it said his 2016 campaign was working with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/06/trump-campaign-sues-cnn-for-libel-seeking-millions-of-dollars/
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That’s Odd


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Progressive Liberalism as Death Cult:


Progressive Liberalism as Death Cult: 

Open Borders, Open Markets, & Coronavirus

Our elites are more interested in proving to themselves and the world that they’re not xenophobes, not racist, and not against open markets to enrich the Third World than they are in their duty to our country and our citizens.

 


Coronavirus is here in America. If this disease really is as contagious and lethal as some say, and if the coming warmer months do not stop its spread, we will have before us yet another indictment against progressive liberalism and its globalist dogmas. There is still a great deal that we don’t know but now that it appears to be spreading outside of the totalitarian state of China, we will probably get a much clearer picture of what this disease is really all about.
Although we still don’t have a good handle on the mortality rate or the degree to which the disease is contagious, many things can change in the coming weeks and months. The health authorities might still manage to prevent a wide spread of the disease. Der Spiegel reports hopefully, “There is some cause for some optimism . . . the warmer seasons are slowly approaching, and it could very well be that the virus will loosen its grip, similarly to how most flu and cold pathogens behave. Furthermore, the number of new infections reported each day by China is dropping. The problem, though, is that nobody knows if those numbers can be trusted.”

Nevertheless, it is probably fair to say that—outside of China—things have recently deteriorated significantly.

Two weeks ago, it seemed that the virus was finally coming under control. Infections in China were dropping and the virus was cooped up in only a handful of countries outside  of China—and most of those were related to a cruise ship quarantined in Japan. But then, somehow, the virus managed to get into a member of a South Korean cult. 
Foreign Policy explains:

[All previous hopes] came to a crashing halt last week thanks to…Patient No. 31, [who was] discovered on Feb. 18, [Patient No. 31] was a member of a quasi-Christian cult called Shincheonji . . . Its founder Lee Man-hee claims to be the second coming of Jesus who is to establish the “new spiritual Israel” at the end of days. The cult is estimated to have approximately 240,000 followers, and claims to have outposts in 29 countries in addition to South Korea . . . Shincheonji teaches illness is a sin, encouraging its followers to suffer through diseases to attend services in which they sit closely together, breathing in spittle as they repeatedly amen in unison . . . The net effect is that Shincheonji followers infect each other easily, then go onto infect the community at large.

The number of cases in South Korea skyrocketed from 31 on February 18 to more than 3,100 by February 29.

I am sure that many of our elites will deride this cult—and rightly so. The cult’s arcane and inane beliefs have made a bad situation worse. But I wonder if the global elites will ever realize that they’re part of a cult that—should things get worse—will also be to blame for whatever economic and social pain is to follow. The religious cult that our elites belong to is progressive liberalism.

One of the ultimate dogmas of progressive liberalism is globalism: the free movement of  people, goods, and money. Progressive liberals and their allies have spent more than 70 years tearing down the impediments to their way of thinking about these things: borders, cultures, national governments, local legal systems, etc. And they are still pushing for more “openness” in pursuit of this utopian dream, which in truth is a nightmare.

Elizabeth Warren wants to repeal all penalties for illegal aliens who trespass on American soil (free movement of people). Joe Biden supported both NAFTA and the TPP (free movement of goods). And arch plutocrat Michael Bloomberg, as he tries to buy the presidency (if not for himself then for Joe Biden), made his fortune due to the free movement of capital.

Open borders and the free movement of people, has given us the ability to live in a world where hundreds of millions of people can travel to any spot on planet earth. Did our elites really think through the wisdom of creating a system where a traveler could be anywhere within 36 hours? Did they care about the consequences? There are over 170 countries that an American can travel to without a visa. There are nearly 40 countries whose nationals can travel to the United States without a visa as well. The coronavirus evidently has an incubation period of 14 days. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a borderless world and free movement of people is a world that creates the conditions for a disease to accelerate its spread through populations. That seems to be what is happening now.

Open markets, the free movement of goods and capital, have given us the ability for countries to trade goods and services throughout the planet. Due to comparative advantage, we now live in a world where vital goods and products are outsourced in the endless pursuit of lower production and sales cost—irrespective of the value of that good or service to the nation’s health and well-being. Ninety-seven percent of our antibiotics are made in China while “80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used to make drugs in the United States are said to come from China and other countries like India.”

Did our elites really think through the wisdom of creating a system where American consumers needing antibiotics could end up at the mercy of suppliers in China? Did they care about the consequences? Free movement of goods is bound to exacerbate our nation’s response to a potential pandemic.

How will companies that went all-in on globalization weather the storm? The Boeing 787 Dreamliner relies on suppliers in at least seven countries outside of the United States. Those countries include Japan, South Korea, and Italy—each currently experiencing a total standstill as they try to stop the spread of this disease. Boeing’s stock dropped 22 percent in a week.

What will happen to the hundreds of American companies that rely on Chinese suppliers now that their orders have dried up for months? And if they have debt obligations to service, how will they pay these debts with their cash flow gone as well? The free movement of goods and capital is bound to compound the damage to companies that chased fatter profits through ever more internationally complex supply chains.

Yet President Trump, who has fought vigorously to bring trade advantage back to the United States through tariffs has been called xenophobic and racist by progressive liberals. Any opposition to the free movement of goods and capital is unacceptable to a thoroughly materialist and secular culture that craves the cheapest products and services—consequences be damned. Progressive liberals would rather see Americans die from infection than support the “xenophobia” and “racism” that says America should be able to produce its own antibiotics and pharmaceuticals.

While the president was calling for travel restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus to the United States, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was excoriating him and his supporters as xenophobes and racists and trying to strip the president of the power to limit foreign nationals from coming to our country.

President Trump’s quarantine of Chinese nationals almost surely bought the nation more time to prepare for this virus; but you wouldn’t have believed it at the time as the globalist media called him a bigot for daring to defend the nation from this biological threat. Progressive liberals would rather see Americans die from opening our borders to the unfettered movement of foreign aliens than be called “racists” or “xenophobes” for protecting the American people.

John Martin Poyer, the governor of American Samoa in 1918, wasn’t a believer in progressive liberalism. He wasn’t concerned with the utopian dreams of free movement of people, goods and capital. And he wasn’t concerned with proving to other globalist zealots that he wasn’t a “xenophobe” or a “racist.”

When he found out about the Spanish Influenza epidemic, he immediately quarantined the island. No foreign ships were allowed access to Pago Pago Harbor. When the pandemic was over, not a single person on American Samoa had died. Poyer was awarded the Navy Cross (the only higher award a sailor can earn is the Medal of Honor). The citation on his award noted that while his efforts resulted in the preservation of Samoan lives, “in the neighboring islands of the Samoan group more than 10,000 deaths occurred, and . . . the percentage of deaths throughout the Polynesian Islands as a group, is reported to have ranged from 30 to 40 percent of the population.”

I wonder if American public officials on the West Coast where I live are as interested in saving the lives of American citizens who come in their manifold and diverse colors as Poyer was in saving (mostly brown) lives on Samoa. Or do they love globalism more?

Even if, as I pray, this disease does not turn into the pandemic some are warning it will, it is yet again a reminder of the existence of this globalist monster which our cosmopolitan elites have erected. While they build bunkers and shelters for themselves in case of a global disaster, we—the little people without fortunes and with only the nations that are supposed to be our patrimony—have to ask ourselves how much longer we can be ruled by people who assure outs for themselves while we are left to live with mess of their decisions?

Can the ruling adherents of this death cult, progressive liberalism, think anew and remove themselves from their dogmas long enough to help us get through this? Or is proving to themselves and the world that they’re not xenophobes, not racist, and not against open markets to enrich the Third World more important to them than their duty to our country and our citizens?

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Joe Biden Just Came Right Out and ...




Joe Biden Just Came Right Out and Told Donald Trump 

What He Thinks of Him – 

and the Rest of Us

For some folks on the left, the differences between them and the right boil down to one thing and Joe Biden just said it.

On the right, generally, the idea is to giddy-up, take care of yourself, pay your own bills, follow the rules, and be a good citizen. And on the left, they need to solve everyone's problems and salve everyone's wounds, and if we just throw enough of your money at it or send in enough protesters, any problem can be solved by the collective.

This isn't science. It's just my opinion after years of observation.

Generally, the left thinks your need to be an individual and be left alone is wrong and selfish – and punishable.

They care more. Just ask them.
  • They care about the environment more than you do
  • They care so much they protest more than you do
  • They care more about children than you do
  • They care more about workers than you do
  • They care more about everything than you do

Doggone it, they're just better people than you are.

That's what Joe Biden said on Super Tuesday:

Screenshot/Twitter

In responding to one of President Trump's Super Tuesday trolls about "Mini Mike" and "Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren" Biden just said it:
You lost tonight, @realDonaldTrump.  Democrats around the country are fired up. We are decent, brave, and resilient people. We are better than you. Come November, we are going to beat you. [emphasis added]
That's why they should be in charge and that's why we 
should obey them. They're simply better than we are.

Every once in awhile these leftist politicians slip up and reveal themselves, not realizing how much insight they give us. We already know who Donald Trump is. He's a survivor who, in the midst of the biggest, dirtiest onslaught by unscrupulous politicos to frame him as a Russian secret agent who somehow stole an election, stood up and won. He's a guy who's getting things done and embellishes with mockery, braggadocio, and political pugilism.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, but, what do I know? I'm just a
person "racist" "Nazi" working for a company I
built "didn't build," "bitterly clinging to her guns and religion" and hoping to measure up to my "betters."

Thanks for telling us, Joe!

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Weekend Open Thread






Well, it's another simple one this week. It's been a busy week in the shop, at home, and online. I'm about to leave for Friday errands with my brother and then after that we'll end the week with a trip to the local tap house and see if they have a new IPA to try. Can anyone guess the theme of the last three music videos on this OP?



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y'all know what's up
 memes, gifs, music, pics, random thoughts ...
 post 'em if you got 'em


and don't forget to recommend
 and invite someone new to join in
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If Bloomberg Couldn’t Buy 2020, How Could Russia Buy 2016?



Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway joined Fox News’ “Special Report” to discuss New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s historic level of campaign spending, and what it reveals about the power of media and establishment consensus.

Hemingway pointed out how Bloomberg’s failed campaign, despite unlimited resources, pokes holes in the popular narrative that Russia helped Donald Trump “steal” the 2016 election.

“We had years where people were saying a couple hundred thousand dollars in barely literate Facebook ads from Russians caused Donald Trump to win. Here you had a guy spend nearly $1 billion and he went nowhere. It’s a humiliating defeat for Michael Bloomberg,” she said.

Host Bret Baier drilled the point home: “So Russians influenced the election with $200,000, or $300,000 in Facebook ads? And Mike Bloomberg couldn’t get more than 50 delegates with $600 million dollars?”

“And this hurts Bernie Sanders’s message, too, because he likes to say the billionaires control everything,” Hemingway said. “Clearly Bloomberg having all this money didn’t do as much for him as Biden having the media and the establishment behind him. I would pick media and establishment over millions all day.”


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Front runners Emerge for New Vacancy..

Free Beacon.com


Frontrunners Emerge for New Vacancy on Influential Appeals Court
gavel
Getty Images
Conservatives are seizing the opportunity created by a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday, culling a shortlist of prospective nominees for a panel frequently called the second most powerful court in the nation.

The frontrunners for the vacancy created by Judge Thomas B. Griffith’s retirement are acting associate attorney general Claire Murray, deputy White House counsel Kate Todd, and U.S. District Judge Justin Walker, according to sources who have worked on judicial confirmations for the Trump administration. Other candidates are also under consideration, and the situation remains fluid.

President Donald Trump’s stunning gauntlet of judicial confirmation successes will feature prominently in his reelection pitch. The D.C. Circuit nomination could mobilize conservatives in much the same way that Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation drove Republican energy in 2018. The vacancy also aligns with the Trump campaign's messaging on deregulation and reducing agency power, given the D.C. Circuit’s heavy diet of agency-law cases.

Murray is widely seen as a strong contender for the federal bench and commands admiration across the administration. Todd, a former chief counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center, has coordinated the administration’s judicial nominations process since 2018.

Walker was a professor at the University of Louisville School of Law before his appointment to a Kentucky federal trial court in 2019. The judge is close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and his advocacy for Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation is especially appreciated among conservatives.

"Unless there is a Supreme Court vacancy, this will be the most contentious judicial confirmation fight before the November election," said Mike Davis of the Article III Project, an outside group that supports Trump’s judicial nominees.

The shortlist is not exhaustive, and several administration lawyers and private practitioners are also said to be in contention for Griffith's seat.

"President Trump has done a phenomenal job finding and credentialing a huge bench of potential D.C. Circuit nominees," Davis added.

The D.C. Circuit’s unique jurisdiction makes the court the primary venue for high stakes disputes over agency regulations and the separation of powers. The panel is also something of a farm team for the Supreme Court. Four of the nine justices served on the D.C. Circuit before their elevation to the High Court.

"The D.C. Circuit is so important, particularly in this era with important disputes over separation of powers, the role of government, and the growth of the administrative state," the Judicial Crisis Network’s Carrie Severino told the Washington Free Beacon.

The confirmation process will take approximately two months from the nomination to the final floor vote. Processing the nomination is sure to be a top priority for the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has consistently delivered appeals court nominees to the full Senate at a rapid clip.

As of this writing, there are only two vacancies on the federal appeals courts: the D.C. Circuit seat and a Mississippi seat on the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Approximately two dozen Republican-appointed appeals court judges are eligible for "senior status," a form of quasi-retirement that allows judges to leave active service while retaining the right to participate in cases. Davis urged those judges to follow Griffith’s lead and ensure their succession by a like-minded jurist.

President George W. Bush appointed Griffith to the bench, meaning a Trump-appointed successor would not change the ideological balance of the court. Democratic appointees currently have a seven to four majority on the D.C. Circuit.

Griffith made national news in February when he ruled that former White House counsel Don McGahn could defy a subpoena from House Democrats to testify before Congress. Griffith delivered the opinion for a divided three judge panel over a dissent from Judge Judith Rogers.

Griffith’s retirement is not without peril for the president. The last D.C. Circuit confirmation prompted an intramural fight among Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, when Senators Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) panned Judge Neomi Rao’s conservative bona fides.

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Chuck Schumer, Wise Guy



Chuck Schumer, Wise Guy

“I want to tell you. Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”— Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) addressing an abortion rights rally on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday

Many years ago, when I was a Special Attorney assigned to one of the U.S. Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Forces, my colleagues and I received a series of complaints from the FBI agents who were conducting “rolling surveillances” of the members of the local Mafia family. According to the agents, every time they ran the license tags of the cars driven by the wise guys, the registrations would come back to an automobile dealership.

This made it difficult to establish who was driving which car and effectively thwarted the purpose of the surveillances.

On further investigation, we learned that the dealership ran a side business doing short term car rentals. So, operating on the proven premise that the guys we were following never paid retail for anything, we decided to investigate the dealership’s possible mob ties.

The first step involved sending an IRS Revenue Agent to audit the dealership’s books. The owner of the dealership provided a secluded back office with a desk and chair where the young agent could do his work.

At first the owner was friendly and accommodating. But, by the third day, he had become distant and irritated. It was then that he made his fatal error.

The owner walked into the office and placed a small cardboard box on the agent’s desk. Then, without saying a word, he abruptly left.

The printing on the box indicated that it had once held a Smith & Wesson .38 Caliber revolver. The box was empty. The agent said nothing and continued working.

Fifteen minutes later, the owner returned and softly said, as if musing aloud, “A man is a funny creature. You never know what he might do if he’s backed into a corner.” He picked up the box and left.

The perplexed agent called his supervisor to calmly report that the owner was “acting weird.”

Weird, indeed. The next day we executed a search warrant at the dealership for the box and arrested the owner for threatening to assault a federal agent with intent to impede, intimidate, or interfere with an official investigation.

Now the statute under which the owner was charged also protects federal judges from such threats. So does the federal Obstruction of Justice statute, which defines “obstruction of justice” as an act that “by any threatening letter or communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice” (Emphasis added).

All of this came to mind Wednesday when I heard Sen. Schumer’s address to the pro-abortion rally on the steps of the Supreme Court in which he warned Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh that “you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” The “awful decisions” was an obvious reference to how the justices are expected to rule in the abortion rights case that had occasioned the rally.

Is there any way to interpret these astounding remarks other than as an endeavor to influence a judicial proceeding?

Schumer may have been threatening Gorsuch and Kavanaugh with impeachment. But for purposes of establishing criminal liability that is irrelevant. Under the statute, a threat of any kind made to influence their decisions in an ongoing case is prima facie proof of obstruction of justice. No threat of violence is required.

The senator’s actions warrant either an arrest or, at the very least, a formal investigation for endeavoring to obstruct justice. They could also warrant similar treatment for threatening to assault the justices, since on its face Schumer’s remark regarding “what hit you” could also be understood as a threat of violence or as an incitement to the crazies who infest our bitterly divided society to take action.

After all, as Schumer should be aware, it wasn’t that long ago that the Republican House of Representatives baseball team was gunned down by a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter.

In response to Schumer’s antics, Chief Justice John Roberts took the unprecedented step of issuing the following statement.


The Chief Justice is correct. Schumer’s “threatening statements” are “inappropriate” and “dangerous.” But the consequences to Schumer shouldn’t end with the Chief Justice’s scolding, since the senator’s threats also appear to be criminal.

Years ago, a wise guy car dealer paid a heavy price for making a far less explicit threat against a lowly IRS agent. The only question now is whether or not, under our two-tiered system of justice, the Democrat senator from New York will be immunized by his office from either investigation by the Justice Department or arrest for endeavoring to obstruct justice.

George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor. 
He is a regular contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer and blogs at knowledgeisgood.net. 
He may be reached by email at kignet1@gmail.com.

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McConnell Blasts Schumer Over ‘Reckless’ And ‘Irresponsible’ Comments About Kavanaugh, Gorsuch



Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway joined Fox News’ “Special Report” to discuss New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s historic level of campaign spending, and what it reveals about the power of media and establishment consensus.

Hemingway pointed out how Bloomberg’s failed campaign, despite unlimited resources, pokes holes in the popular narrative that Russia helped Donald Trump “steal” the 2016 election.

“We had years where people were saying a couple hundred thousand dollars in barely literate Facebook ads from Russians caused Donald Trump to win. Here you had a guy spend nearly $1 billion and he went nowhere. It’s a humiliating defeat for Michael Bloomberg,” she said.

Host Bret Baier drilled the point home: “So Russians influenced the election with $200,000, or $300,000 in Facebook ads? And Mike Bloomberg couldn’t get more than 50 delegates with $600 million dollars?”

“And this hurts Bernie Sanders’s message, too, because he likes to say the billionaires control everything,” Hemingway said. “Clearly Bloomberg having all this money didn’t do as much for him as Biden having the media and the establishment behind him. I would pick media and establishment over millions all day.”


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Trump Admin. Reverses Obama-Era Regulation Blocking Coronavirus Testing



Weaponized Coronavirus dominates airwaves

First, yes it’s hard to find sanitizer right now. Some jerks are charging $400 or more on Amazon.  You can make your own.

The House passed an $8.3B measure for emergency funding to combat coronavirus and now it will go to the Senate. Meanwhile, we have some more cruise ship trouble.

Two shiploads of passengers may have been exposed. State and federal officials are scurrying to contact 2,500-plus passengers who disembarked Feb. 21 from the San Francisco-Mexico cruise at the same time as the man who died, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.
California is also keeping Grand Princess passengers on the current San Francisco-Hawaii trip in the Pacific Ocean indefinitely until state and federal officials can assess how many passengers and crew have coronavirus or have been exposed.

Twenty-one people on the Grand Princess are showing signs of possible infection.
The Trump Administration has rolled back an Obama FDA rule that required “state-run laboratories to only run medical tests pre-approved by the F.D.A.”

“The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing, and we undid that decision a few days ago so that the testing can take place at a much more accurate and rapid fashion,” Trump stated. “That was a decision we disagreed with. I don’t think we would have made it, but for some reason it was made. But we’ve undone that decision.”

Keep calm, wash your hands and don’t panic. People are freaking out that they can’t get tested for the virus, but does it matter if you aren’t showing life threatening symptoms in this time of crisis? If you go to the ER, and you aren’t sick you will be when you leave because that is where the sick people are. If you do have the virus but aren’t dangerously sick, they are going to send you home to self-quarantine, you won’t be admitted because hospitals are saving space for really sick people like the elderly and immuno-compromised.

The Trump deranged are acting like the people working at the CDC are inbred, Jesus morons Trump put in the agency when he was elected. NO. The CDC are career employees, they are the same people who worked there under Obama, W and probably Clinton. THE SAME PEOPLE. Why did Obama get the white glove treatment on Ebola but now Trump is personally responsible for the jacked up agency response? Because Trump. There’s only so much a centralized government can do during a nationwide epidemic. Give the resources to the states, remove the roadblocks of federal regulations and let the states and localities handle it the best they can. Local is always better than the fedgov.

I just returned from a medical emergency, cross country trip where I spent 5 hours on an airplane each way. [Random story: On my return to the swamp, I sat in the row behind Donna Brazile who had hand sanitizer and wiped down her seat and was very polite.] I’ll have to make the same trip in a few weeks, I have hand sanitizer and travel sized Lysol. It’s just life, don’t freak out, stay away from sick people and wash your hands. Stop hoarding water, go buy a filtration system like a Brita or a Berkey (I have one) because the water supply will probably not be compromised. The panic is always worse than the actual crisis.

Related:


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Trump arrives in Nashville to survey tornado damage

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WMC) - President Donald Trump plans to visit Tennessee Friday to tour tornado damage. Two tornadoes hit middle Tennessee Tuesday morning, killing 24 people.
The tornadoes created more than a 50 mile stretch of destruction in the Nashville area.
Air Force One will touch down in the Music City around 10:00 a.m. The White House has not released information on where Trump will tour, but there’s a lot for him to see.
https://www.wmcactionnews5.com/2020/03/06/president-donald-trump-visits-tennessee-tour-tornado-damage/

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Romney could derail...


Romney could derail Republican subpoena targeting Bidens
The Utah Republican is concerned the push appears intended to undermine a Trump rival.
A Republican effort to subpoena records about Joe Biden and his son Hunter could be derailed amid concerns from at least one GOP senator that the push appears politically motivated.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee is set to vote next Wednesday on a subpoena for records from a Democratic public relations firm related to the panel’s investigation of conflict-of-interest allegations against the Bidens.
But Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), a member of the panel, has hinted that he could vote against issuing the subpoena, noting the committee’s investigation might look political in nature given Biden’s resurgence and the increasing likelihood that he’ll become the Democratic presidential nominee.
“There’s no question the appearance is not good,” Romney told reporters, adding that he is still “considering” his vote.
Republicans hold a slim 8-6 majority, and if just one GOP senator joins all Democrats, it would mean a 7-7 tie that would result in a failure to issue the subpoena.
Romney’s concerns appeared to be heightened on Thursday after President Donald Trump declared in a Fox News interview Wednesday night that he would seek to use the issue against Biden if he secures the Democratic nomination.
Romney suggested Thursday that the panel shouldn’t even be looking into the issue.
“I would prefer that investigations are done by an independent, nonpolitical body,” said Romney, who split with his party when he voted to convict Trump in the impeachment trial.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the committee’s chairman, declined to comment on Romney’s views but said he sees “no reason why anybody would object” to the subpoena, which seeks documents from Blue Star, a Democratic public affairs firm, about Hunter Biden’s role on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma. It would be the first subpoena as part of the committee’s probe.
Johnson’s Democratic counterpart, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, has opposed the committee’s investigation and the subpoena.
Peters has raised concerns about the veracity of the information the committee receives — in particular, whether it’s part of a Russia disinformation campaign. Several Republicans — including Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — have expressed similar worries both in private and in public.
“Quite frankly, the Homeland Security Committee should be focusing on issues related to homeland security,” Peters said. When asked about whether he thinks he can defeat the subpoena effort, he said: “I think it’s uncertain. I don’t know how it’s going to go right now.”
Peters said he hasn’t yet talked about the subpoena with Romney, but said he was likely to speak directly with him before Wednesday’s vote in an effort to sway him.
Another potential swing vote, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), said he, too, remains undecided and was unable to review the documents as of Thursday morning because he was chairing a hearing.
“I want to be supportive of Chairman Johnson and be sure that we’re getting the right information. It should be objective information, and let the American people decide,” said Portman, who voted to acquit Trump in the impeachment trial but was critical of his conduct.
Asked about Trump’s comments about the Burisma issue, Portman said: “That doesn’t surprise me.”
A source familiar with the matter, though, said Portman is leaning toward supporting the subpoena. Johnson has told colleagues that his effort is aimed simply at gathering information.
Marianne LeVine and Martin Matishak contributed to this report.


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