Is Joe Biden Really a 'Practicing Catholic?' CNN Doesn't Want You to Ask
CNN apparently regards the sincerity of Joe Biden’s professed
Catholicism as a matter of faith. When a Daily Caller reporter reached
out to ask about Biden’s aggressive support for abortion and the
incident when a priest denied Biden communion over the issue, CNN’s head
of strategic communications responded by attempting to shame the Daily
Caller for heresy.
Matt Dornic, the CNN communications head, tweeted a screenshot of the email with the statement, “This is really gross.”
The Daily Caller reporter had sent Dornic an email with the subject line “Press Inquiry.”
“Reaching out to see if CNN could comment on a CNN fact checker
calling Joe Biden a ‘practicing Catholic,’ though Biden is pro-abortion,
supports expansion of abortion access, and has been denied Holy
Communion by a Catholic priest,” the Daily Caller reporter wrote.
Dornic appears to consider it “really gross” to question the
sincerity of Biden’s professed Catholic faith, even though there are
good reasons to do so.
The presumptive Democratic nominee does not just support abortion —
he supports a wide array of extremely radical policies promoting the
killing of unborn babies in the womb. According to his campaign website,
Biden supports repealing the Hyde Amendment (which protects pro-life
taxpayers from funding a practice they consider to be murder),
rescinding the Mexico City Policy (which prevents abortion funding
overseas), striking down state limits on abortion, and restoring federal
funding for Planned Parenthood.
Biden has also bragged about his character assassination of Robert Bork,
the Supreme Court nominee whose last name became a verb thanks to the
vitriol he endured. The former vice president insisted that he
protected Roe v. Wade (1973) by defeating Bork.
Yet Biden also supports restoring the Obamacare contraception mandate
that forced Catholic organizations to pay for forms of contraception
that cause abortion in some cases. The Little Sisters of the Poor fought
this mandate all the way up to the Supreme Court — twice! The latest
Supreme Court decision ruled that the Trump administration could legally
withdraw the mandate, but it did not bar future administrations from
imposing the rule that so egregiously violated the religious freedom of a
group of Catholic nuns.
Hours after the Little Sisters won the temporary reprieve at the Supreme Court, Biden announced
that he would violate their religious freedom yet again. While Biden
reportedly fought for a broader exemption to the original Obamacare
contraception mandate in 2011, he seems to have left any such moderation
behind.
While reporters should take a candidate at his or her word when it
comes to matters of religious affiliation, Biden’s extreme positions on
abortion and his opposition to religious freedom for members of his own
faith raise serious questions about what kind of “practicing Catholic”
he may be. Biden’s flagrant opposition to his own church on the issue of
abortion and his shameful advocacy against the Little Sisters of the
Poor raise questions about the sincerity of his profession of
Catholicism.
To be fair, Joe Biden has been confirmed in the Roman Catholic
Church. He does attend services and he has not been excommunicated.
Regardless of his positions on abortion and religious freedom, he is a
“practicing Catholic.”
CNN could have responded with this answer. Instead, Dornic tried to shame the Daily Caller.
Ethan Barton, editor in chief at the Daily Caller, called Dornic out.
He responded to the CNN staffer’s tweet with this simple message: “This
is really unprofessional.”
My stomach twinges just asking the title question. Never have I
been this anxious before a presidential election. Even in tumultuous
1968 as an 8th grader following all the news about the Vietnam War,
assassinations, racial unrest, riots, the Cold War, and the Nixon vs.
Humphrey campaign — I believed that America would persevere. There was
never any doubt because I lived in the greatest, most powerful country
in the world. (A common mid-20th century post-war mindset widely taught
in public schools and politically represented by the “silent majority.”)
However,
52 years later, my foundational confidence has developed cracks. Yes, I
still believe the USA is #1, but decline seems inevitable in our powder
keg nation.
Three months before Election Day, America is at a
combustible crossroads where factors “known and unknown” have created a
“cone of uncertainty.” (Recently heard on the Weather Channel, the
“cone” technically describes a hurricane model but aptly applies to this
election forecast.)
Those who follow politics know that any
mention of “known and unknown” must include former Secretary of Defense,
Donald Rumsfeld’s iconic reference. During a 2002 press conference,
Rumsfeld famously answered an Iraq War question saying:
“As
we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We
also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are
some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the
ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
(Watch the video because Rumsfeld’s reply was spontaneous, sincere, and ultimately, became his calling card.)
Which brings us to:
The Knowns Within the Cone of Uncertainty
In the COVID-19 war, the list of disturbing “knowns” grows daily, with over 158,000 “killed in action.”
“Casualties”
also include record economic losses, double-digit unemployment, small
business devastation, and unimaginable stress on our education and
public/private health systems. Meanwhile, since the pandemic’s first
wave of attack has not abated, when the virus meets the flu season,
expect even more chaotic battles.
People are on edge because
during the initial pandemic days of March/April, there was general
psychological anticipation that by fall, “things would be back to
normal.” But those hopes were dashed with the realization that, for
now, our nation is losing the COVID-19 war. “Losing” means the worst
economic ripple effects involving housing and business closings are
still to come.
Layered upon the “knowns” are anxiety and fear about the integrity of the election. President Trump is repeatedly communicating that
the election will be “rigged” and a “disaster” due to a vast increase
in mail-voting and “fraud” associated with delayed tabulation. A most
unusual phenomenon for the Chief Executive to inject pre-election
uncertainty as a reelection strategy leaving voters asking, “Can we trust the results?” (Especially if the outcome conflicts with one’s vote.)
Earlier
this week, I reached out to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump
surrogate, asking what he feared most about the election.
Gingrich
answered, “My greatest fear is the unending Democratic Party effort to
steal the election as illustrated by the recent Nevada power grab where
they rammed through radical changes in the state election law on a
straight party-line vote to make it easy for them to corrupt the
election process.”
Then I asked Roger Stone — still celebrating
the president commuting his 40-month jail sentence — what he feared most
before November’s election. Stone somewhat echoed Gingrich saying:
“While
I have great confidence in the president’s skills as a candidate and
communicator, I am deeply concerned that those in his campaign are not
battle-tested and fully familiar with the importance of early voting and
absentee ballots and unprepared for the kind of widespread voter fraud
that I expect from the Democrats.”
After listening to and hearing
from numerous Republican voters, the most prevalent “known” is fear of a
leftist, Marxist, socialist take-over if Biden and the Democrats
prevail. That also includes rampant crime, open borders, high taxes,
unlimited abortion, restrictions on religious freedom, and the “end of
America” as we know it.
Conversely, what Democrats “know,” and
fear is four more years of an unhinged “racist,” narcissistic, lying
authoritarian who is destroying our nation and must be stopped.
Voters in the middle are despondent over the choices. But how they break will determine the winner.
The Unknowns
With
the knowns known, the unknowns are most disconcerting. Traditionally
known as the “October surprise,” it could arrive at any moment.
The
surprise might be discovering blatant foreign interference in the
election, or an international crisis involving an act of aggression
against an ally. Such hostile action, likely perpetrated by China,
Russia, Iran, or North Korea, would test our political and military
response while America languishes in the cone of uncertainty.
Moreover, here is a list of horrible unknowns:
A
domestic terrorist attack timed around the September 11 anniversary.
(As well as an international attack against American assets.)
A major natural disaster.
The “big one” hits the west coast.
A man-made disaster.
A Supreme Court justice dies.
The stock market crashes or an equivalent economic calamity.
Either Trump or Biden has a life-altering health crisis or the “unmentionable.”
Trump replaces Vice President Pence on the ticket.
The U.S. Post Office has a ballot delivery melt-down.
Finally, an event so earth-shattering we can’t even imagine. (The “unknown unknowns” in Rumsfeld-speak.)
When
I asked a leading GOP presidential strategist about his election fear,
he “hated to voice this thought out loud” and refused to be named,
saying:
“A cyber-attack on top of everything we’re already dealing
with would be devastating. You know our adversaries are looking to hit
us when we’re down. What better time?”
Three months out is still an election eternity
Therefore, if our
nation is to survive the next three months and prepare for what could
be, according to Trump, the “greatest election disaster” lasting weeks
or months, we must have a unified mindset to “expect the unexpected.”
Let’s mentally prepare for dramatic news that could change the
trajectory of this election in a distressed nation longing for normalcy.
Note
that three months out is still an election eternity within the cone of
uncertainty due to how quickly unexpected events can impact the nation.
For example, in December 2019 (pre-COVID “normal times”), I wrote a
RealClearPolitics piece headlined “The 2020 Election: Most Consequential? Most Contentious?” The two factors I mentioned were:
“How
does an impeached president run for reelection? How does the opposing
party run against him? Sounding like the plot of a fictional Netflix
series, the 2020 race is set to rest upon that bizarre foundation.”
Then
suddenly COVID and the economic shutdown pushed impeachment to footnote
status. Now it is virtually never mentioned as a factor in the 2020
election.
Then I wrote, “The second reason why 2020 will be the
most consequential and contentious presidential election ever waged is
the racial and gender composition of the tickets and the electorate.”
There
is still some truth to reason number two, along with if Biden picks a
“woman of color” for his running mate. However, since his choice is
“expected,” after the initial announcement, the news pales in comparison
to COVID raging, the economy sputtering, our national culture
shrinking, and headlines generated by Jim Clyburn,
the third-ranking member of the House of Representatives talking on
national television about the President of the United States:
“I
don’t think he plans to leave the White House. He doesn’t plan to have
fair and unfettered elections. I believe that he plans to install
himself in some kind of emergency way to continue to hold onto office.”
But have no fear, Clyburn’s remarks on the Rumsfeld scale qualify as a “known unknown.”
How our nation survives all the prospective “unknowns” should be our greatest fear.
LeBron James’ enthusiastic, headfirst dive into politics is at the root of my aversion to the NBA star.
Wednesday, James returned to the presidential campaign trail when a
reporter asked him about President Donald Trump’s statement that he
turns off his television when he sees NBA players supporting Black Lives
Matter and kneeling during the national anthem.
“I really don’t think the basketball community are sad about losing viewership, him viewing the game,” James told NBA bubble reporters. “And that’s all I got to say.”
Of course, James’ grammatical and political eloquence did not stop there. The More Than An Athlete activist stumped for voters.
“
Politics is the sworn enemy of truth. As a Christian and a
journalist, I believe the truth is the lone ally of the righteous. I’m
leery of all politicians and political people. I’m most leery of
politicians and political people who use race as their primary tool to
gain political power.
LeBron James is a one-trick political activist. His political magic
trick is the left-wing dog whistle affectionately referred to as the
race card. James doesn’t know it — he’s too young, too inexperienced and
too manipulated — but his political activism mimics Republican George
H. W. Bush’s 1988 political ploy.
President Bush used a black career criminal, Willie Horton, much the
same way James, Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Party are using
George Floyd, the career criminal who died tragically during an
encounter with Minneapolis police.
In 1986, Horton was serving a life sentence without the possibility
of parole for a 1974 murder in Massachussets. The state’s department of
corrections released him on a weekend furlough as part of a
controversial rehabilitation program that Democratic presidential
candidate Michael Dukakis supported while governor of Massachusetts.
Horton did not return to prison from his weekend furlough. He escaped to
Maryland, where he raped a woman and pistol-whipped her boyfriend.
Horton is now 68 and serving a life sentence at a maximum-security
prison.
Bush’s campaign made Willie Horton the star of the 1988 presidential
election. The media criticized Bush for playing racial politics and
using Horton as a dog whistle to white racist voters.
Bush vs. Dukakis was the first major election cycle that I was
eligible to vote. I passed. I found the campaign intentionally divisive
and devoid of substance and honesty.
Little has changed in the 32 years since. George Floyd is the star of this election cycle. James and NBA
players want to make Breonna Taylor, a black Louisville woman killed in a
failed police drug sting, Floyd’s vice presidential running mate. It’s all divisive racial politics devoid of truth.
James is pretending to be a warrior for social justice reform,
feigning concern for Floyd, Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and their families.
The concern is disingenuous because the real agenda is political power.
Floyd, Taylor and Arbery are political pawns who won’t be brought back
to life by the election of Joe Biden or any politician. American police do a very dangerous job in the most heavily-armed
country on the planet. It’s inevitable that deadly mistakes will
transpire in the execution of police work. The police make those
mistakes regardless of the race of the perpetrator. Every year the
police kill approximately twice as many white people as black people.
Yes, black people are just 13 percent of the American population. But
the violent crime rate in black communities causes police to engage with
black men more often than other groups.
None of the above is new information or insight. Racial politics stop us from discussing police brutality in an honest fashion.
Politics is the enemy of truth. James’ embrace of politics has put me at odds with him.
I was a LeBron James supporter throughout his initial stint in
Cleveland. When public sentiment turned against James and his business
associates in the aftermath of his first Cleveland exit, I wrote a long
profile story for FOX Sports that elevated the reputation of Maverick
Carter, the architect of The Decision. At the time (2011), I was
ridiculed for defending Carter. In 2014, when Kobe Bryant mocked James
and the Heat for donning hoodies in support of Trayvon Martin, I blasted
Bryant and supported James
in an ESPN column. Later that year, when critics argued that James’
pride should prevent him from reuniting with Cavaliers owner Dan
Gilbert, I argued the opposite.
My consistent criticism of James didn’t take flight until he entered
the political arena during the 2016 election cycle. He campaigned for
Hillary Clinton and began his public trolling of Donald Trump.
I’m not a Trump supporter. I do, however, oppose the point of view
that Trump is any more or less of a problem for black people than any of
the 44 previous presidents. The framing of Trump as an anti-black
lunatic is the kind of political ploy that keeps me out of the voting
booth. Trump is no more black people’s problem than Willie Horton was
white America’s problem.
Politics is the sworn enemy of truth.
James has far more in common with Jussie Smollett than Emmett Till’s mother.
James, Smollett and other black celebrities have replaced the black
church as the principal tool used to galvanize black voters. As America
has turned secular and young black people have abandoned religion, the
black church has lost its ability to control black voters.
Black Twitter is the new black church.
It’s a horrendous substitute. Like all man-made institutions, the
church is flawed. But the church does concern itself with and maintain
an allegiance to truth. Ministers associate with other ministers. A
corrupt and dishonest minister will occasionally be chastised by one of
his peers or a courageous true believer in his congregation.
Does anyone inside The Church of LeBron James question him on anything?
Does Twitter, the overseer of clickbait, have any regard for truth?
Only Twitter could turn George Floyd into Rosa Parks. A strong black
church would not allow it. Someone in the congregation would know the
pregnant woman who Floyd robbed at gunpoint. Someone in the congregation
would object to elevating Floyd to national hero status.
Floyd did not deserve to die under the knee of Derek Chauvin. Floyd
also does not deserve hero worship. He shouldn’t be used as a device to
control black voters and demonize white people who disagree with
Democrats.
I didn’t like it when Republicans exploited Willie Horton. The
exploitation of George Floyd is just as repulsive. That’s my problem
with LeBron James and his woke disciples. Floyd is their political power
tool.
People are looking for crisis leadership that comprehends the dangers, is prepared to deal with them, and most importantly realizes that America is worth defending.
Does anyone really doubt it? America is stumbling and the vultures are circling. What is the nature of these perils that afflict us?
America sits atop a global system created at the outset of the 20th century. That century saw the United States elevated to the status of global imperial power, having been victorious in two world wars and the beneficiary of an international monetary system that, post World War II, provided for a vast global, if not regional, peace. Sure, there was a Cold War with the Soviet Union and other limited wars, but no true great global war in which the entire geo-political order came into question.
Times have changed. Today the United States is faced with three enormous perils: an external threat, an internal threat, and a fulcrum on which the two interoperate to synchronize a multi-prong attack on America.
The first peril is that China has emerged as a geopolitical and economic challenger to the United States. The simmering geopolitical threat from China is multilateral in nature. In fact, a geopolitical reordering on an historic scale is taking place.
Supported by financial stakeholders, China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” seeks no less than the unification of the Eurasian landmass. This geopolitical and economic reordering has seen China peel off NATO ally Turkey, make common cause with Iran, align with Pakistan, and subsume Hong Kong. Even European Union nations, beneficiaries of 75 years of American security, are drifting into the arms of the Chinese Communists.
The second peril, a domestic counter-state, has emerged pressing a Marxist revolutionary insurrection in alignment with China’s objectives. With a century of Marxist subversion in the making, this counter-state manifested as a silent or soft coup attempt in 2017, and subsequently has evolved into a Marxist revolutionary insurrection rising to a boil inside the United States.
This insurrection has both overt and clandestine components, and while the underground remains largely anonymous, much of it is hidden in plain sight and is clearly visible to anyone familiar with unconventional warfare tactics.
One hallmark of this emergent insurrection is the state-within-the-state: institutional control over executive branch function even when their affiliated political party is out of power, control over media organs, state employees elevated above citizens in the application of laws, selective enforcement of laws based on political affiliation or policy desires (i.e. sanctuary cities), and the abuse of intelligence, law enforcement, judicial and regulatory structures to punish or control political enemies.
It is important to note that all of the outcomes sought by this insurrection support Communist China’s ambition to see the United States displaced from her perch as global leader.
The third peril is a biological-economic crisis brought about by the Chinese, and exacerbated by the domestic revolutionary insurrectionists and their allies in the media and public health sector.
This public health crisis and its derivative economic calamity was spread intentionally throughout the world by China and its allies. COVID-19 has upended the global economic system and decreased the domestic productivity of most nations, thereby increasing governance challenges and opening the door to greater state controls.
Inside the United States, the Marxist insurrection is capitalizing on the virus and the counter-state’s control of the public health system to enact draconian population control measures, extraconstitutional legal maneuvers, propaganda and psychological warfare operations, economic warfare targeting the middle-class business owner, and intermittent escalatory violence including the use of anarcho-communists operating under the rubric of critical race theory.
Never let a crisis go to waste!
Any one of the three perils is potentially lethal in its own right. In the aggregate, this is a crisis of epic proportions. Unfortunately, the underground revolutionary insurrectionists operating inside the government institutions interfere with executive branch function and make matters much more difficult to qualify, rectify, or even acknowledge. In so doing, these meddling government officials betray their oaths to defend the Constitution.
Many Americans see the vultures circling. The signs are everywhere; debt exploding, unemployment skyrocketing, currency uncertainty, the gold price rising, and record-high gun sales. The herd is nervous. Sides are being chosen. The tectonic plates are rumbling.
People are looking for crisis leadership that comprehends the three perils, is prepared to deal with them, and most importantly realizes that America is worth defending.
N.Y. AG James seeks to disband the NRA due to allegations of officials lining their own pockets
New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit Thursday
seeking to dissolve the powerful National Rifle Association, alleging
self-dealing among the organization’s top officials despite being
registered as a non-profit.
James accused senior leadership at the nation’s largest pro-gun
lobbying group, including chief executive Wayne LaPierre, of diverting
millions of dollars away from “the charitable mission” for trips to the
Bahamas, private jets, expensive meals and other luxury items.
The group also appeared to dole out lucrative no-show contracts to
former employees in order to “buy their silence and continued loyalty.”
“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went
unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their
own pockets,” James said in a statement. “The NRA is fraught with fraud
and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no
organization is above the law.”
James is asking the court to dissolve the NRA and require each of the
current and former executives named in the suit to pay full restitution.
The suit argues that the four executives, including LaPierre, should be
barred from serving on the board of any charity in New York.
The lawsuit claims that the organization had a $27.8 million surplus in
2015, which dwindled by $64 million just three years later as the group
reported being $36 million in the red.
LaPierre, who has led the lobbying group for decades, spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars on private trips for himself and his family, the
suit alleges. Those trips include eight visits to the Bahamas and
all-expense-paid safaris in Africa with his wife, Susan, according to
the lawsuit.
Over the past two years, LaPierre also spent $3.6 million on travel
consultants and several million dollars on private security for himself
and his family, according to the suit.
At a Manhattan press conference, James said the NRA operated as “a breeding ground for greed, abuse and brazen illegality.”
“Today we send a strong and loud message: No one is above the law, not
even the NRA, one of the most powerful organizations in this country,”
she said.
While the corporate media continues to purport the narrative that violence in Portland, Oregon has calmed since federal presence retreated, many rioters shifted their focus this week to patronizing and attacking local law enforcement and their buildings instead.
According to a statement released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), groups of rioters moved across the Willamette River in Portland where they “assaulted officers with hard projectiles, a tactic previously employed against federal personnel” as well as an “unknown alkaline substance.”
Local news reports also indicate that police declared an official riot on Wednesday when “demonstrators broke into the Portland Police Association building and started a fire.”
While the Portland Police Bureau publicly called for the cessation of rioting and destruction, many did not listen and continued “vandalizing the PPA building with graffiti and others attempted to pull the plywood off of the doors and windows.”
A fight involving at least 20 people also broke out and shots rang out multiple times in different locations, according to local reports. No one was injured from the gunfire.
After the riots began to dissipate, officers reported “several arrests” and told local news that “some crowd control munitions were used overnight, but…no tear gas was deployed.”
While violence against local and state agencies ran rampant earlier this week, DHS reports that “no significant activity was directed at federal facilities and personnel.”
“While violent criminal activity persists elsewhere in Portland, Monday night marked the second straight night during which rioters did not attack federal property or officers,” the statement read.
According to the statement, the DHS called this a “drastic and welcome change.”
“There were no reported DHS arrests, injuries to DHS officers, or damage to federal property,” the statement continued.
A VERY significant development has just happened today with regard to the upcoming oral argument in the en banc hearing on the Petition for Writ of Mandamus, set to take place next Tuesday, August 11, 2020.
When the Circuit Court issued the Order last week that the Court would rehear the matter en banc, the Order referenced only one issue that was to be addressed, whether “mandamus” relief was the only remedy available to Gen. Flynn and that there was no other remedy available by which he could obtain the relief he sought. That reference addressed the one significant weakness in the Flynn Petition for Mandamus, and the decision of the three-judge panel granting the petition and “mandating” to Judge Sullivan that he grant the D.O.J. motion to dismiss the case.
In the original petition filed by Gen. Flynn, his counsel had sought as one ground of relief if the case were sent back to the District Court for further proceedings, that the case be reassigned to another district court judge due to Judge Sullivan’s conduct, arguing that his conduct was such that his “impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 455.
In supporting Gen. Flynn’s petition, D.O.J. did not join in the request to have the case reassigned to another district court judge. At the oral argument before the three-judge panel, none of the attorneys who argued the case raised the issue, and the Panel decision did not address the question in a meaningful fashion other than to deny that relief — it was not necessary since the Panel decision ordered Judge Sullivan to grant the pending motion.
I had previously started to write a story about the standards for the disqualification of a federal judge, as there is a specific statute that covers the issue, Sec. 455 mentioned above. But when the parties seemed to drop the issue, I stopped working on the piece. I’ll go back to that now as a preview of what the legal arguments and standards are ahead of next week’s hearing.
But for today’s purposes, I think the significance of the Court’s new order is that it suggests the D.C. Circuit is looking for an avenue that sends the case back to the district court for further proceedings on the pending motion to dismiss under Rule 48(a), while at the same time not continuing or encouraging the “circus” process that Judge Sullivan has set in place and repeatedly expressed a desire to engage in.
As I have suggested on Twitter and here, in my view, two crucial “institutional” considerations are of concern to the Circuit Court. By that, I mean, there are two issues of significance which have nothing to do with whether the motion to dismiss should be granted or denied on its merits.
First, the granting of mandamus relief by the panel here under very unique circumstances — by which I mean the notoriety and profile of the case — creates a precedent for resorting to “mandamus” as an ordinary avenue of relief by criminal defendants unhappy with a district court judge’s decision. An old adage at the appellate level is the saying “bad facts make bad law.” In this instance it means that the unique circumstances of this case are driving a decision-making process on Rule 48(a) motions — and other motions as well — which the Court may very well come to regret in the future because it is likely to generate innumerable more such petitions in much more ordinary circumstances. Those future petitions might not have otherwise been filed without this precedent to rely upon. Responding to such petitions takes time and court resources. So there will undoubtedly be an “institutional” cost in the future due to a decision by the Court which tells defendants in criminal cases “If you don’t like a Judge’s ruling on a motion — for failure to rule on a motion — file for mandamus relief.”
The second institutional consideration, which I believe is of concern to the Circuit Court, is that the Panel decision can be interpreted as undermining the “fact-finding” process of district court judges, which is typically accomplished in hearings on motions. Judge Sullivan has corrupted that “regular order” process with his appointment of an amicus counsel to argue against an unopposed motion, and the suggestion that a far-reaching inquiry into the deliberative processes of the Executive Branch — may be including affidavits or testimony under oath by government officials — is warranted by the motion.
This would be another instance of “bad facts making bad law” if the Appeals Court were to overrule Judge Sullivan by mandamus because Judge Sullivan has turned the case into a circus. It would undermine the “regular order” fact-finding process that the Circuit Court is dependent on in 99.999% of all the cases that come before it. Appeals Courts do not, as a general matter, add to the evidence of the case that is generated in the trial court below. They review the proceedings in the trial court and make determinations on whether errors were made, and what remedies are necessary to correct those errors. That requires that the proceedings in the trial court be as clear and complete as possible. That means encouraging trial courts to develop clear and complete records before the case is sent up on appeal.
But Judge Sullivan has turned that “regular order” process into his own Captain Ahab-esque quest to find the “White Whale.” The Circuit Court needs to preserve the “regular order” process while at the same time disapproving of how Judge Sullivan has conducted himself in the case.
The Order today suggests that two possible paths to this outcome are under consideration. One would be to simply find that Judge Sullivan’s conduct has created a circumstance where his partiality can reasonably be called into question. That is a basis for mandatory reassignment under Sec. 455 that I referenced above.
The second option would be the more benign approach of finding that in pursuing the Petition for Rehearing En Banc, Judge Sullivan has now made himself a nominal “party.” As such, he can no longer preside over the case.
I’ll have more later on the legal standards that related to both these questions.
Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said Wednesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that former FBI Director James Comey went “rogue” when setting a perjury trap on former Trump White House national security adviser Michael Flynn in January 2017.
After Yates defended the legitimacy of the Flynn investigation by the FBI, which is now publicly known as nothing more than a brazen attempt to oust Flynn, committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Yates point-blank whether Comey ultimately went “rogue.”
“Did Comey go rogue?” Graham asked.
“You could use that term, yes,” Yates said.
Yates affirmed, however, that she believed the deep-state investigation into Flynn was necessary, fearing the Russians had compromised the president’s national security adviser.
“We do not want anybody in the U.S. government to be compromised by a foreign adversary,” Yates said from Atlanta in the video-conferenced hearing. “My great concern was the Russians knew that Gen. Flynn had not only engaged in these back-channel discussions, but that he was misleading and lying about it to the vice president and others.”
Yates made the same claims in 2017, that Flynn was a Russian asset subverting American interests. New material since-unearthed from the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, the FBI’s operation to launch a deep-state coup by tying the Trump campaign to the Kremlin, proves the primary motive behind the FBI’s questioning of Flynn was to get him to make false statements to federal agents for the sole purpose of prosecuting him.
By unilaterally directing agents over to the White House to question the administration’s principal security adviser, Comey also violated FBI policy and then bragged about doing it on a 2018 book tour.
“I sent them,” Comey told NBC’s Nicolle Wallace at a 92nd Street Y conference, claiming it was “something I probably wouldn’t have done or even gotten away with in a more organized investigation, a more organized administration.”
Comey explained that in previous administrations, such as in the Obama and Bush administrations, FBI protocol dictated that the director proceed through a series of channels before interrogating senior White House staff.
“In both of those administrations there was a process, so if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House counsel, and there would be discussions and approvals of who would be there, and I thought it’s early enough, let’s just send a couple guys over,” Comey said. “And so we placed a call to Flynn and said, ‘Hey, we’re sending a couple guys over, hope you’ll talk to them.’ He said, ‘sure.’ Nobody else was there, they interviewed him in a conference room at the White House situation room, and he lied to them.”
When asked whether they told Flynn what the questioning was going to be about, Comey said, “We didn’t tell him.”
Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday about the Russia investigation. During her hours-long testimony, Yates repeated her claim that she feared the Russians had compromised President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn.
“We do not want anybody in the U.S. government to be compromised by a foreign adversary,” Yates told the committee from her Atlanta home during her telephonic testimony, adding, “My great concern was the Russians knew that Gen. Flynn had not only engaged in these back-channel discussions, but that he was misleading and lying about it to the vice president and others.”
Yates had told the Judiciary Committee the same story in May 2017, when she testified, “We believed that Gen. Flynn was compromised with respect to the Russians.” “To state the obvious,” Yates expanded, “you don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians.”
In the interim, however, Americans have learned much more about the Flynn affair, and information declassified since then established that the FBI didn’t fear Flynn was compromised; they fear Flynn. Only a deeply indoctrinated partisan could continue to believe the “compromised” canard.
Thanks to the release of material previously withheld from Flynn’s criminal attorneys, we now know that the FBI agents sought to question Flynn about his phone calls with the Russian ambassador not because they believed he was compromised, but because they wanted him fired or prosecuted. They sought to shore up a nonsensical Logan Act charge or to ensnare Trump’s national security adviser in a perjury trap.
The gambit succeeded when then-FBI agent Peter Strzok and his in-the-shadows partner Joe Pientka questioned Flynn, concluded he wasn’t lying, yet successfully set in motion Flynn’s prosecution by the special counsel’s office. Following their questioning of Flynn, then-FBI Director James Comey did an about-face, now agreeing with Yates that the Trump White House should be briefed on the conversations Flynn had with the Russian ambassador in late December. That briefing led to Flynn’s ouster.
For Yates to continue to claim she believed Flynn was compromised speaks not of Flynn’s character but hers. She has taken the ostrich defense to a new low. Yates continues to ignore the suspicious circumstances under which she first learned of Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador: during a Jan. 5, 2017 meeting when Comey discussed Flynn’s calls with then-President Barack Obama. Yates had no prior knowledge of the calls, blindsiding her so she had a hard time processing the conversation at the time.
Yet we are to believe Yates thought Flynn’s conversations were a back-channel to Russia. But she did nothing to inform President-elect and then President Trump of the conversations until after Comey had sent his FBI agents to question Flynn. We are to believe this talking point even after Strzok’s declassified notes indicated that Comey informed Trump and Vice President Joe Biden that Flynn’s calls with the Russian ambassador “appear legitimate.”
While Yates takes refuge in her claimed concern that Flynn was compromised because he had “lied” to the vice president, FBI notes show agents had no such concern. After interviewing Flynn, the FBI agents also did not believe Flynn had lied about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Did they tell her otherwise? Did Comey and his crew play Yates?
Frankly, that is too easy of a cop-out. Yates might not be complicit, but she possessed the willful blindness only a true partisan could, to swallow the tale the Resistance peddled: that a retired lieutenant general with top-secret security clearance could be compromised by the Russians so easily.
Americans need to remember that for all her talk of bipartisan service to this country, Yates demonstrated her true blue colors when she refused to enforce Trump’s travel ban, the essence of her job as acting attorney general. Yet Yates also refused to resign, forcing Trump to fire her instead.
That might be a badge of honor for Yates, but her continued refusal to see the soft coup plotted under her leadership of the Department of Justice will be her legacy.
We
are continually misled by progressive propaganda on the issue of race.
Misinformation bleeds over to the conservative realm as well. The media,
Hollywood, and academia are consumed with race, tribalism, and hatred
for our Founding. The real agenda here is power, divide and conquer to
pursue some ill-conceived Utopia.
The
truth is that violence is part of the Left’s playbook. They are
opportunists and provocateurs ready for any excuse to attack our
freedom. Much of the violence we see is a planned political strategy
taking advantage of the crisis du jour.
Racism
is not our Achilles Heel. It is the ubiquitous manipulation and
exploitation of race and racism that threatens our way of life.
Political operatives masquerading as journalists feed the hate 24/7.
Sailing against prevailing winds, we continue to search for truth.
Slavery
Many got their vision of slavery from the book and miniseries Roots,
by Alex Haley. When confronted with his lack of historical accuracy the
author said, “I tried to give my people a myth to live by.” Think about
that.
Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institution, in his book Black Rednecks and White Liberals, provides a great deal of depth and clarity about race and slavery.
Slavery's salient points:
Slavery’s been part of every culture on every inhabited continent throughout history
Africans conquered other Africans, enslaved them, and sold them for profit
It existed in Western indigenous peoples for centuries before Columbus arrived
Considered a fact of life until 17th century Christians attacked its immorality
During the peak of the Atlantic slave trade, Africans retained more slaves for themselves than were sold to the West
Our
Founders were born into a world they did not make. Inherited
agricultural estates included slaves as property. Washington, Jefferson,
and Madison detested the institution. Records of their writings and
actions are clear on this. Washington freed his slaves upon the death of his wife. His will stipulated that those who were infirm or disabled were to be cared for by his estate.
Efforts
continued regarding abolition by the Founders. Their depth of
character, persistence, and resolve on this issue is unassailable.
Even
if they could abolish slavery, they faced the problem of what to do
with an uneducated population that was not likely to assimilate easily
into society. A race riot like the 1791 Santo Domingo rebellion was a real concern.
Thomas Jefferson’s pursuit to end slavery
was relentless. His first draft of the Declaration of Independence
included a mocking condemnation of King George III for enslaving
Africans and disallowing emancipation. How many Americans know this?
This language was removed due to pressure from Southern colonies. In
1778 Jefferson introduced a bill in the Virginia House to stop further
importation of slaves. It was approved.
Perhaps,
they thought, by stopping the slave trade, the institution would begin
to wither on the vine, and later generations would deal it a fatal blow.
Moving
forward, the United States and Great Britain went to great lengths to
eradicate the slave trade. For decades, England made slave ship
interdiction a priority. Great Britain entered Brazilian waters in 1849
to destroy Brazilian slave ships that ignored cease and desist orders.
Captaining a slave ship was made a capital offense in America. Then there came the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation.
So, the United States and Great Britain are the first countries in the history of the world to eradicate slavery while influencing others to follow suit.
History
must be reviewed allowing for constraints and context of the times.
Instrumental use of racism to forward an agenda has created the dystopia
we are currently witnessing.
Are We a Racist Country?
Runaway
slave and American icon Frederick Douglass was convinced by
abolitionists that our Founding was corrupted by slavery. His belief
changed after reading our Founding documents and conversing with
Lincoln. To the charges that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document
he stated, it’s “a slander upon the memory of the Framers… interpreted
as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty
document.” He continued, “…it will be found to contain principles and
purposes entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.”
Bob Woodson, civil rights activist in the 60s and head of the Woodson Center/ 1776 Project says the term “institutional racism or systemic racism
has no meaning. It’s a ruse! A distraction from the real issue; white
liberals and black leaders have betrayed the people they represent over
the past 60 years.”
Could
a racist country allow Indian Americans and East Asian Americans to
become the two most successful demographics in our country?
We are all children of God. An informed Judea/Christian worldview regards systemic racism as incomprehensible and absurd.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Booker T. Washington
was born a slave and freed through the Emancipation Proclamation.
Education, entrepreneurship, and personal responsibility were his
blueprints to bridge the cultural gap for blacks. Most notably, he said,
“No race that has anything to contribute to the market of the world is
long any degree ostracized.”
Blacks
made great strides toward this vision. Displaying high rates of
marriage, employment, and embracing family values, they were nearing
assimilation. Then, the “Great Society” derailed their progress.
Twenty-two trillion dollars on failed social justice programs have been
spent since 1964. Most went to bureaucratic and administrative costs.
Has this system improved anyone’s lives except for the so-called elites
who control these urban populations?
There
are leaders in the black community who understand this betrayal and
offer solutions embracing Washington’s vision. People like author and
former NFL player Burgess Owens, who is currently running for Congress
in Utah. Shelby Steele is a Hoover Institute author of books like White Guilt. Bob Woodson has produced tangible results in crime reduction, education, and career tracks for blacks.
Crossing
the cultural gap has to come from within the community. Just as it’s
been for every other minority that has bridged that gap in America.
America
is not immune to the frailties of mankind. We have made mistakes, some
tragic. Is it fair to judge men or a nation by their failings alone,
while ignoring their sacrifice, successes and aspirational ideals?
Of
course, none of this matters to progressives. A Marxist state is their
goal. The question is, will conservatives and their leadership stand up
for the truth or bow at the altar of Marx?
