Victoria Taft for "PJMedia"

'Insane!': Police Warn 'Portland Is Lost' if 'Failing' Mayor and DA Don't Stop Riots

The Portland Police Association (PPA) has issued another dire plea to Mayor Ted Wheeler and the new district attorney to change their “insane” riot policies and enforce the rule of law or else “Portland is lost.”

A “disgusted” PPA President Daryl Turner excoriated the mayor and newly installed District Attorney Mike Schmidt, demanding rioters be prosecuted and police be allowed to protect the rest of the citizenry saying, “Portland has had enough.”

He accused the two “failing” elected leaders of backing “insane” policies of letting rioters destroy, burn, hurt, and vandalize “almost to the point of no return.”

Twice in the last two days, these rioters have accomplished their mission: chaos and destruction. That is because the Police Bureau’s operational direction from the Police Commissioner and City Council is to let the violence escalate almost to the point of no return, and only then can the Police Bureau intervene. That is insane. Police should have the latitude to prevent crime, not watch it happen and only intervene after the fact.

It does not stop there. Although the Police Bureau has made 21 arrests in those two days, I have no doubt that those arrested will get away with their crimes without any consequence or accountability from the District Attorney’s Office.

As Police Commissioner and District Attorney, your primary jobs are public safety, not politics. You are failing.

For more than 70 nights, the city has been under a siege by antifa and Black Lives Matter anarchists and communists attempting to burn buildings, vandalize private and public property, and threaten the lives of Portlanders. See video below of rioters threatening to burn down an occupied apartment building and jumping a police officer.

Their stated aim is to get rid of the police, by any means necessary, and bring down America. This amorphous goal is a perpetual motion riot machine. The riots will continue until … they have no idea. Anyone who gets in their way is labeled a racist or fascist and harmed and canceled.

What Turner asks isn’t hard. He asks Wheeler and Schmidt to do the jobs they swore an oath to do.

I am disgusted that our City has come to this. If it is acceptable for rioters to commit acts of violence against community members and to try and burn down occupied buildings, and if this conduct is allowed to continue, then Portland is lost.

Our communities demand accountability. That includes you two being accountable to the public. Allow our Police Officers to do the job they swore an oath to do, to stop crime and the fear of crime. Use the criminal justice system to hold criminals accountable for their crimes with actual consequences.

Let the Police Chief, his command staff, and the rank-and-file officers do their jobs in protecting the City from the rioters who are bent on destroying our City, burning our police precincts, and assaulting officers or anyone else who gets in their way.

 

Portland Police Association

on Friday

In response to the riots in East Portland the past two nights, the PPA has sent a letter to Mayor Wheeler and District Attorney Schmidt.

In closing:

"I am disgusted that our City has come to this. If it is acceptable for rioters to commit acts of violence against community members and to try and burn down occupied buildings, and if this conduct is allowed to continue, then Portland is lost. Our communities demand accountability. That includes you two being accountable to the public. Allow our Police Officers to do the job they swore an oath to do, to stop crime and the fear of crime. Use the criminal justice system to hold criminals accountable for their crimes with actual consequences. Let the Police Chief, his command staff, and the rank-and-file officers do their jobs in protecting the City from the rioters who are bent on destroying our City, burning our police precincts, and assaulting officers or anyone else who gets in their way. Portland has had enough."

Daryl Turner, President
Portland Police Association

Turner’s fighting an uphill battle. The newly elected district attorney is an avowed social justice warrior who received the backing of Black Lives Matter co-founder Shaun “Talcom X” King’s political action committee, Real Justice PAC, fashioned after George Soros’s district attorney project. Its goals include the ending of cash bail, the opening of prisons, and the defunding of police.

Turner challenged Schmidt to “step up and do your job.”

To District Attorney Schmidt: You ran on a platform of police accountability, which was a thinly veiled threat to indict police officers. What about indicting rioters who loot, burn, destroy, and assault? What about your ethical and moral duties to uphold the law and keep all our citizens safe? The people committing arson and assault are not peaceful protestors; they are criminals. Step up and do your job; hold the rioters accountable. If there is no consequence for crimes from the District Attorney’s office, there is no reason for criminals to stop the chaos.

As PJ Media exclusively reported, Portland Police Bureau cops are on pace to retire at a record rate this year. There is a marked increase in the number of officers who are taking stress disability.

Turner says police officers have suffered indignity after indignity, dodging rocks, IEDs, racist slurs, and threats of rape from rioters. They’ve been barricaded in buildings by rioters trying to set the buildings on fire to incinerate them.

Neither of you seems to care much about the officers.

Turner ends his ICBM-missive with, “Portland has had enough.”

Has Portland had enough? Wheeler is up for re-election in November. He’s running against a woman who is an avowed antifa sympathizer. Some are considering writing-in Turner in the election.

 

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Trump Nukes Dems with Executive Orders, Leaves Biden ‘Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Basement’

Nick Arama reporting for RedState

As my friend and colleague, Mike Ford, reported earlier, after Democrats tried to hold up signing a Congressional relief package to play games and get some of their long term agenda items, President Donald Trump has decided to go around them with executive orders that do the following:

-Suspend Payroll Tax through remainder of 2020, for those making less than $100,000.00, retroactive to August 1st. If reelected, his intent is to make these payroll tax cuts permanent.

-Continue the moratorium on evictions, while providing financial assistance to renters.

-Extend unemployment benefits at a rate of $400.00/week, $200.00 less than previous plan. This gets rid of the “stay home” incentive by making work more attractive.

-Defer Student Loan Payments.

So these provide tremendous help to Americans, encourage the return to work, encourage employers to hire more workers.

Now these are incredibly popular moves. But Trump made them. And it means the Democrats don’t get to hold Americans hostage for their agenda. So therefore Democrats are going to fight against them despite the fact that they’re popular and help Americans. Not because Democrats truly have any principled objection to them, but simply because they can’t hold Americans as hostage any more to get what they want.

Trump has truly boxed the Democrats in with this move. If they don’t fight against this, they lose the hammer to get things like mail-in voting and not just that. Trump busted them on other things like wanting to eliminate voter ID and signature verification when voting even in states that have it already. Why would they want that and what does it have to do with virus stimulus, he said. He just lights them up. 

Brilliant. Americans can see clearly. They can also see the games Democrats have been trying to play. 

If they do fight against it, they’re fighting against help to the American people. Not a good look. They’re gnashing their teeth over their predicament. They have promised to file a legal challenge, citing Congress’ constitutional authority to determine federal spending.

But then, once again, they’re blocking relief to the American people. But now because of DACA, Barack Obama already set the precedent that is going to come back on them. 

All the $13/pint designer ice cream in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s freezer can’t make up for how badly they are going to get scalded in the election if they go this route.

 

 Chad Pergram and Megan Henney for Fox Business News

Pelosi slams Trump's executive order as an 'illusion' in 'Fox News Sunday' interview

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed the executive actions President Trump took this weekend to provide assistance for Americans struggling amid the coronavirus as weak and an “illusion” on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace, as she defended Democrats’ stance asking for trillions more in aid as negotiations with the White House and Senate Republicans have stalled.

“No, in fact, what the president did is — I agreed what the Republican senator said — is unconstitutional slop,” Pelosi, D-Calif, said, alluding to a statement Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., put out criticizing Trump’s executive actions.

She also emphasized the alleged “weakness” of Trump’s orders.

“While it has the illusion of saying we’re going to have a moratorium on evictions, it says I’m gonna ask the folks in charge to study if that’s feasible. While he says he’s going to do the payroll tax, what he’s doing is undermining Social Security and Medicare, so these are illusions,” Pelosi said.

She later added that Trump’s orders “don’t give the money in enhanced benefits, but puts a complicated formula there which will take a while, if at all, to accomplish to put money in the pockets of the American people.”

Pelosi is leading negotiations over the legislation with the White House and Republicans, along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. As talks have ground to a halt, Trump announced a series of executive actions on Saturday to bridge the gap until a bill reaches his desk. Among them were a renewal of boosted unemployment benefits that were scaled back to $400-per-week instead of $600-per-week, a 120-day eviction moratorium, a payroll tax holiday until the end of the year and an extension of student loan relief.

“Today’s meager announcements by the president show President Trump still does not comprehend the seriousness or the urgency of the health and economic crises facing working families,” Pelosi said in a joint statement with Schumer on Saturday. “We’re disappointed that instead of putting in the work to solve Americans’ problems, the President instead chose to stay on his luxury golf course to announce unworkable, weak and narrow policy announcements to slash the unemployment benefits that millions desperately need and endanger seniors’ Social Security and Medicare.”

Talks had been stuck for weeks, with Democrats demanding more than $3 trillion in the relief bill while Republicans struggled to eventually coalesce around a $1 trillion proposal. Pelosi on Thursday proposed the parties each give $1 trillion and pass a $2 trillion proposal, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday the idea was a “non-starter.”

Pelosi, on “Fox News Sunday,” slammed Republicans for their reluctance to meet at the $2 trillion number.

“What the president did doesn’t even accomplish what he sets out to do in the categories that he did. But we said to them, we’ll come down a trillion, you go up a trillion. Meet us halfway, and we’ll be able to have an agreement that meets the needs of the American people,” she said.

Pelosi said Republicans’ proposal in its current form doesn’t come close to doing enough to help Americans.

“How do you justify tens of billions of dollars to feed the hungry to $250,000,” she said, contrasting the bills. “You understand how far apart we are. just by that example.” She also noted the GOP proposal didn’t include help for the Post Office or states as they run elections this fall.

When asked what Democrats might be willing to give up to reduce the price tag of the bill, Pelosi said they might shorten the timeline that some benefits would be available, allowing Congress to address whether to renew them earlier next year rather than later.

Trump’s payroll tax holiday was opposed by so many Republicans that it was not included in the first proposal by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., which fell flat due to uniform opposition by Democrats and reluctant support even within his own caucus. Republicans’ concerns on the payroll tax holiday are related to concerns that it will drive up the national debt hundreds of billions of dollars — but Trump’s payroll tax holiday would require Americans to pay back the government once the holiday ends at the end of the year, essentially making it a no-interest loan.

The $400-per-week unemployment boost, which is down from the $600 benefits which expired at the end of July, meet a Republican priority to cut that assistance, which had many Americans making more by not working than they could by working. GOP legislators were concerned that would stunt the economy’s recovery, while Democrats stumped hard to preserve the boosted benefits at their $600 level. 

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Appeals Court Asks Whether Flynn Judge Should Recuse Himself, Order Indicates

Petr Svab for Epoch Times

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ordered former Trump adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as well as the judge presiding over his case to prepare arguments on whether the judge should recuse himself for partiality or for becoming a party to the case.

The order highlights the anomalous state of the case. Both Flynn and the prosecutors nearly three months ago agreed that the criminal “information” against him—allegedly lying to the FBI—should be dismissed. But District Judge Emmet Sullivan refuses to do so.

The appeals court’s three-judge panel ordered Sullivan to accept the case dismissal in June, but he appealed for a rehearing before the full court of 11 judges.

The appeals court vacated the three-judge order on July 30 and set a hearing for Aug. 11.

In its subsequent order on Aug. 5, the court told Flynn and Sullivan to “be prepared to address at oral argument the effect, if any, of 28 U.S.C. Sections 455(a) and 455(b)(5)(i) on” Sullivan’s petition for rehearing.

The parts of the statute listed by the court stated that a judge “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned” and also when he “is a party to the proceeding.”

The order underlines Sullivan’s catch-22 situation, both Flynn and the Department of Justice (DOJ) noted in their written responses to his petition.

Only people with a “personal stake” in the proceedings can seek appellate review, the DOJ wrote in its July 20 response.

“A judge does not have—and under the [Constitution’s] Due Process Clause, cannot have—such a stake,” the department stated.

Flynn’s lawyers noted in his response that if Sullivan indeed has a personal stake in the case, it would disqualify him as its judge.

Flynn was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration and former national security adviser to President Donald Trump. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. In January, he moved to withdraw the plea.

In May, the DOJ moved to dismiss the case after a review uncovered documents suggesting the FBI questioned Flynn solely to elicit false statements from him, rather than for a legitimate investigative purpose.

A motion to dismiss usually marks the end of a case, but instead of granting it, Sullivan suggested he would allow third parties to weigh in on the dismissal. Flynn’s lawyer moved to oppose third-party involvement, but Sullivan dismissed the motion.

Flynn responded by asking the appeals court for an extraordinary intervention (writ of mandamus).

Sullivan doubled down and appointed former federal Judge John Gleeson as an amicus curiae (friend of the court), tasking him to develop arguments against the case dismissal. He then ordered a hearing on the matter.

Just days before his appointment, Gleeson had co-authored an op-ed arguing for Sullivan’s launching a “full, adversarial inquiry” into the dismissal and possibly denying it and sentencing Flynn.

The appeals court’s three-judge panel, in a split 2–1 decision, granted Flynn’s mandamus, saying Sullivan’s planned hearing would have been damaging to the executive branch as it “would likely require the Executive to reveal the internal deliberative process behind its exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”

Because the Constitution leaves charging decisions to the executive, a hearing on dismissal motion is only appropriate in some rare cases, which Flynn’s “is plainly not” and “cannot be used as an occasion to superintend the prosecution’s charging decisions,” stated the opinion, authored by Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee.

In vacating the decision, the appeals court signaled that the majority of the judges weren’t convinced.

It ordered that “the parties should be prepared to address whether there are ‘no other adequate means to attain the relief’ desired.”

Seven of the 11 active judges were appointed by Democrat presidents. In addition, one Trump appointee, Judge Gregory Katsas, recused himself from the case. 

Judicial decisions don’t always break along party lines. The Flynn case, however, has drawn political controversy, particularly since the emergence of evidence indicating that both then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were personally involved in the case.

Documents show that Obama discussed the case with the director of the FBI and a top Justice Department official in January 2017, a day after investigators at the FBI intended to dismiss the case but were held off by the higher-ups.

Yates Contradicts Strzok, Says Comey Brought Up Use of Archaic Law on Flynn

Ivan Pentchoukov reporting for Epoch Times

Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates on Aug. 5 contradicted the content of notes written by an FBI special agent about the Jan. 5, 2017, White House meeting during which President Barack Obama personally discussed the investigation of President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

Yates told the Senate Judiciary Committee that it was FBI Director James Comey, not Vice President Joe Biden, who suggested that Flynn violated the Logan Act in his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. She said she couldn’t recall whether Comey brought up the 18th-century law during the White House meeting or at another time.

Yates’s testimony directly contradicted handwritten notes taken by then-FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok, who plainly wrote that Biden mentioned the Logan Act during the conversation about intercepted calls between Flynn and Kislyak.

Yates also contradicted Strzok’s notes about the rest of the conversation. The special agent wrote that Obama told Comey to “make sure you look at things” and “have the right people on it.” Yates testified that Obama had merely mentioned that he was aware of the calls, didn’t want to know or influence anything, and asked whether certain intelligence should be withheld from Flynn during the transition.

“At this point, I didn’t know why the president was asking this question, because this was the first I had heard of the calls between Flynn and Kislyak,” Yates said in her opening remarks. “I was really surprised both that General Flynn engaged in these discussions and that Director Comey knew about them but I didn’t.”

Yates had already provided similar testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller, although she left Biden off the list of attendees when she described the meeting to the investigators. The contradictions unearthed by Strzok’s notes raised the question of whether she would stand by what she told Mueller.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is conducting the latest in a series of congressional probes into Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign during and after the 2016 presidential election. 

As part of the investigation, the bureau used an unverified dossier funded by the election campaign of Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton, to secure a warrant to spy on a Trump campaign associate. The FBI failed to inform the secret court that approved the warrants that Clinton funded the document behind some of the allegations in the paperwork. Yates signed the initial spy warrant application and the first renewal request. At the Aug. 5 hearing, she said she wouldn’t have signed the two applications if she had known then what she knows now.

Contradictions in the accounts of the Jan. 5, 2017, White House meeting continue to pile up. Strzok’s notes suggest the outgoing president directly engaged in the investigation of an incoming administration, undermining a long-running tradition of a peaceful transition of power. Yates’s highly-contradictory recollection of the events only raised more questions about what really happened.

Notably, Strzok’s handwritten notes appear to have been written in real time while he was either listening in on or being briefed about the meeting. Strzok had reason to believe the notes would never see the light of day and had little reason to record something that wasn’t said.

It’s still unclear how Obama learned of the Flynn–Kislyak intercepts. Comey said then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper briefed the president. Clapper told Congress he never briefed Obama on the calls. Yates said she doesn’t know how Obama came to learn of the intercepts. Trump on Aug. 5 suggested that Yates was the one who leaked the calls.

“Sally Yates has zero credibility,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “She was a part of the greatest political crime of the Century, and ObamaBiden knew EVERYTHING! Sally Yates leaked the General Flynn conversation? Ask her under oath.”

In phone calls with Kislyak, Flynn asked the Russian ambassador to not escalate Russia’s response to the outgoing Obama administration’s expulsion of Russian diplomats. When Moscow didn’t escalate, Obama asked the intelligence community to find out what happened, according to Yates. The call intercepts were flagged as part of the resulting search, she said.

In late 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the ambassador. He has since moved to withdraw the plea, citing government misconduct and a conflict of interest by his former counsel, who he said advised him to plead guilty. The Department of Justice has since asked a federal judge to dismiss the case after an internal audit concluded that the FBI had no basis to interview Flynn in the first place.

Yates agreed on Aug. 5 that Comey went “rogue” when he sent Strzok and special agent Joe Pientka to the White House to interview Flynn. Yates had planned to inform the White House about Flynn the same day, but discovered that Comey had sent in the agents without consulting her. She nonetheless said the agents had sufficient reason to conduct the interview.

On the day before the Jan. 5, 2017, meeting at the White House, the FBI agent working Flynn’s case had submitted paperwork to close the investigation. The agent wrote that the probe didn’t turn up any derogatory information on Flynn. Strzok intervened the same day to keep the case open, telling the agent that bureau management had gotten involved.

Let’s Clear up a Misconception — There Is NO DOJ Policy Preventing Indictments Prior to an Election

posted by Shipwreckedcrew at RedState

This is one of those subjects where everyone is confident that a policy exists, and they know what the policy is, but no one can formulate in precise terms exactly what the policy says or means.

That’s because there is no policy at DOJ which prevents the taking of enforcement action — whether that is an overt investigative step or seeking the return of an indictment – which is linked to the number of days remaining before a scheduled election. 

None.  No policy.  Not written down anywhere.  Never cited.  Never quoted.  Never enforced.

There is a policy that prohibits the taking of any overt enforcement action for the purpose of affecting an election.  That is prohibited.  But that policy doesn’t prohibit taking the same enforcement action when there is no such nefarious intention. 

All of this was spelled out quite explicitly by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz, in the IG Report on the actions of Jim Comey and others with regard to “Mid-Year Exam” — the FBI investigation into the use by Hillary Clinton of a private email server located in her residence for official government business.

The issue addressed by the IG Report was the timing, motives, and content of the statements made by FBI Dir. Comey in July and Oct. 2016, concerning the specifics of that investigation.  The subject of DOJ policy with regard to disclosures or actions during an election cycle goes to the heart of the issue that the left-wing media is trying to force down the throat of the public and AG Barr — that US Attorney Durham should take no action in connection with his ongoing investigation if it involves returning indictments of people connected to the Obama Administration’s handling of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Pres. Trump and his 2016 Campaign.  Page 16-18 of the Report cover DOJ policy on public activities and announcements that might impact an upcoming election.

In 2008, 2012, and 2016, the then Attorney General issued a memorandum “to remind [all Department employees] of the Department’s existing policies with respect to political activities.” These memoranda are substantially similar. Each memorandum contains two sections, one addressing the investigation and prosecution of election crimes and the other describing restrictions imposed on Department employees by the Hatch Act.  In its election crimes section, the 2016 memorandum requires consultation with PIN [Public Integrity Section] at “various stages of all criminal matters that focus on violations of federal and state campaign-finance laws, federal patronage laws and corruption of the election process.

The policies apply to election-related crimes such as campaign finance violations, and the general restrictions on DOJ employee activities in campaigns under what’s known as the Hatch Act.  The policy does not address the day-to-day operations of the Department in non-election crimes cases.  The IG Report continues:

[T]he 2016 memorandum recommends that all Department employees consult with PIN whenever an employee is “faced with a question regarding the timing of charges or overt investigative steps near the time of a primary or general election,” without regard to the type or category of crime at issue.  Ray Hulser, the former Section Chief of PIN who currently is a DAAG in the Criminal Division, told us that this policy does not impose a “mandatory consult” with PIN, but rather encourages prosecutors to call if they have questions about investigative steps or criminal charges before an election.

This relates directly to the matters now under investigation by Durham.  But the policy only “recommends” Durham consult with Public Integrity, it does not require him to do so, nor does it prohibit him from acting based on some arbitrary date and the calendar and the prospect that one side or the other might be politically embarrassed by DOJ action such as the return of an indictment against loyalists of one particular party.

The Report goes on:

After the FBI released its October 28, 2016 letter to Congress informing them that the FBI had learned of the existence of additional emails and planned to take investigative steps to review them, …. former Department officials discussing a longstanding Department practice of delaying overt investigative steps or disclosures that could impact an election … cited the so-called “60-Day Rule,” under which prosecutors avoid public disclosure of investigative steps related to electoral matters or the return of indictments against a candidate for office within 60 days of a primary or general election.

This is a reference to Dir. Comey sending a letter to Congress regarding the preliminary review of Anthony Wiener’s laptop, which had disclosed the presence of a significant number of Hillary Clinton’s emails to/from her private email address.  Comey was loudly criticized in the press for having made a public announcement so close to the date of the election, with those critics citing the “60-Day Rule” as noted by the IG Report.  But as the IG concluded, no such rule actually exists.

The 60-Day Rule is not written or described in any Department policy or regulation.

The IG could not put it any more clear or succinct than that.  There is no written policy or regulation.  I think I read that somewhere above.  Look back and see if you can find it.

But, there is something of a “general practice” which is acknowledged and sought to be adhered to, as the IG explained:

Nevertheless, high-ranking Department and FBI officials acknowledged the existence of a general practice that informs Department decisions. Former Director Comey characterized the practice during his OIG testimony as “a very important norm which is…we avoid taking any action in the run up to an election, if we can avoid it.” Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, told us that the Department’s most explicit policy is about crimes that affect the integrity of an election, such as voter fraud, but that there is generalized, unwritten guidance that prosecutors do not indict political candidates or use overt investigative methods in the weeks before an election.

Again, from Comey and Preet Bharara — Obama’s US Attorney for the Southern District of New York — the only “explicit policy” is about crimes involving the election process.  And even the “unwritten guidance” only concerns not indicting political candidates.

Attorney General Barr has said on multiple occasions that the Durham investigation is not examining possible criminal charges for anyone running for office.  That satisfies the “unwritten guidance”.  The investigation does not involve election process crimes.  That satisfies the DOJ’s explicit policy restrictions.  So what else might there be?

There isn’t anything.  And just to show you how illiterate some senior DOJ officials are on this question, consider the following passage from the IG Report:

Several Department officials described a general principle of avoiding interference in elections rather than a specific time period before an election during which overt investigative steps are prohibited. Former AG Lynch told the OIG, “[I]n general, the practice has been not to take actions that might have an impact on an election, even if it’s not an election case or something like that.”

Fail.

Former DAG Yates stated, “I look at it sort of differently than 60 days. To me if it were 90 days off, and you think it has a significant chance of impacting an election, unless there’s a reason you need to take that action now you don’t do it.”

Fail.

Former Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Matt Axelrodstated, “…DOJ has policies and procedures on…how you’re supposed to handle this. And remember…those policies and procedures apply to…every election at whatever level…. They apply, you know, months before…. [P]eople sometimes have a misimpression there’s a magic 60-day rule or 90-day rule. There isn’t. But…the closer you get to the election the more fraught it is.”  

Pass — barely.  There is no “policy or procedure”.  There is only an unwritten practice of limited application.  He gets partial credit for accurately stating there is no 60 or 90-day rule.

The IG concludes with the correct formulation of how DOJ treats this issue — which is exactly consistent with the approach taken by AG Barr and US Attorney Durham:

Hulser told the OIG that there was “a sense, there still is, that there is a rule out there, that there is some specific place where it says 60 days or 90 days back from a primary or general [election], that you can’t indict or do specific investigative steps.” He said that there is not any such specific rule, and there never has been, but that there is a general admonition that politics should play no role in investigative decisions, and that taking investigative steps to impact an election is inconsistent with the Department’s mission and violates the principles of federal prosecution.

Hulser said that while working on the Election Year Sensitivities memorandum, they considered codifying the substance of the 60-Day Rule, but that they rejected that approach as unworkable, and instead included the general admonition described above. Citing PIN guidance, Hulser told OIG that a prosecutor should look to the needs of the case and significant investigative steps should be taken “when the case is ready, not earlier or later.”

The prosecutor should take “significant investigative steps … when the case is ready, not earlier or later.”

So whenever you see a left-wing former Obama DOJ official claim that Durham and Barr would be violating DOJ policy by bringing any indictments between now and November, blow them up on Twitter — and link this story.

THERE. IS. NO. SUCH. POLICY.

 

 Mike Ford for "RedState"

Opinion: President Trump Springs His Trap

Yesterday, President Trump announced and then publicly signed a series of executive orders that would extend certain parts of the CARES Act. The CARES Act was legislation meant to provide temporary relief to those who have suffered job loss or other financial issues due to the Wuhan China Virus. A large portion of this legislative relief expired a few days ago.

During his press conference announcing the Executive orders, President Trump took the opportunity to take the Democrats, especially Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority leader Chuck Schumer, to task. Pelosi and crew obviously embrace Obama Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel’s philosophy of “never let a good crisis go to waste.” The latest proof positive of that is their efforts to lard up this “must pass” legislation with typical Democrat corruption, especially when it comes to elections.

Among the most egregious and having nothing to do with the Wuhan China Virus:

-An attempt to make mail in voting ubiquitous throughout the entire United States

-Nearly $1 trillion in relief for state and local governments that have mismanaged their finances for decades and now expect the rest of us to bail them out.

For once the Republican opposition appeared to grow a spine and hold the line during negotiations. Yesterday, President Trump took decisive action to break the deadlock. As I said in Friday’s OpEd, I am generally opposed to Executive orders designed to sidestep Congressional legislation. I am also reluctant to support an Executive Order (or Congressional Legislation for that matter) that is an unconstitutional usurpation of property rights as the moratorium on evictions clearly is.

Having said that, here is what President Trump signed and what I believe the political effects will be:

-Suspends Payroll Tax through remainder of 2020, for those making less than $100,000.00, retroactive to August 1st. If reelected, his intent is to make these payroll tax cuts permanent.?-Continues the moratorium on evictions, while providing financial assistance to renters.

-Extends unemployment benefits at a rate of $400.00/week, $200.00 less than previous plan. This gets rid of the “stay home” incentive by making work more attractive.

-Defers Student Loan Payments.

This has put the Democrats in a no-win position politically. President Trump has on National TV, taken decisive action clearly to the benefit of those who Democrats believe are their permanent constituency. He has targeted his help towards working people, while incentivizing those who are on the sidelines, to make a stronger effort to go back to work. He has also made it easier on employers to retain employees through this uncertain economic climate. His student loan deferment targets younger Americans.

As I indicated in an earlier piece , the Democrats don’t have a lot of options here. Any which way they turn, President Trump looks like the good guy, while they look like the strident, shrieking harridans they are—and yes, that includes Chuck Schumer. From Yahoo News

“There is no leadership from the president,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) said at a press conference on Thursday. “He says one thing one day, another thing another day, and another thing another day. He’s not focused on this, no leadership.”
Schumer added that Republicans “don’t seem to see the gravity of the situation” while the president “just dithers.”

Further down in the article

“They’d like to get away with passing the skinniest, most minimal bill possible and go home and wash their hands of it,” Schumer said. “We can’t do that because it will leave Americans hurting and not get us out of the crisis.”

By signing these Executive Orders, President Trump has taken some of the urgency for Republicans, off the table. The Democrats can no longer hold working Americans hostage to their wish list of corrupt practices. Now the Democrats face some tough decisions:

-Do nothing, while continuing negotiations: Advantage, Trump

-Sue POTUS directly or through intermediaries. Great optics. Democrats sue to take benefits away from their (allegedly) prime constituents, working people and students (or student loan recipients). President Trump however, can respond by announcing far and wide that the Democrats are attempting to use the court system to harm “the most vulnerable among us.” Advantage, Trump.

Majority Leader Mcconnell needs to make sure he keeps his caucus under control. He needs to take full advantage of the opportunity the President has given him and take it to the leftists at the negotiating table. The resulting “compromise” should be a lot closer to the 1T mark than it is to the 3 Trillion porkulous bill the Democrats want. It goes without saying that there should be absolutely no compromise on mail in voting or any other corrupt election proposals by the left. President Trump has given you an advantage. Senator McConnell, see that you take it.

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Trump Walks Out of Presser After Reporter Won’t Stop Talking

Bonchie reporting for RedState

Donald Trump did another presser from his golf club in New Jersey today. Like yesterday’s, it went fairly well for the President, with him announcing sweeping executive action to help American families. In essence, he dared the Democrats to sue and block the move after they’ve stonewalled any progress on a Congressional relief package. Regardless of what you think of the principles behind such actions, he obviously has the legal precedent to do it after Obama’s presidency and it’s a very smart political play that boxes in Nancy Pelosi.

The press conference ended up closing down early though, with Trump walking out after a reporter refused to let him call on someone else after she had already asked her question.

Watch: President Trump ends today’s press conference to loud cheers after fending off the press, telling them: “No, no, you’re finished!” pic.twitter.com/1MgLUWR1PX

— TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) August 8, 2020

Her question from the beginning was typical of what you’d expect from one of the most left-wing reporters in Washington. She started talking over Trump asking him if he’s “giving people false hope” and if the move is “theater.” Of course, she could simply go ask Democrats if they are stealing hope from the American people if they decide to sue (and they will). But everything is always seen through the lens of the orange man being bad, so him taking action is criticized instead of those who would seek to block those actions.

Regardless, Trump answered her question and then she asked another one, asserting that this is a “new precedent” and that he’s going around Congress. That’s ludicrous. There is no new precedent here. Obama set the precedent and went much further than Trump is going here. It’s a bit rich to see the media suddenly concerned about executive overreach, but it’s not surprising given their penchant for hypocrisy and bias.

Even still, Trump answered her follow-up only for her to introduce another, completely unrelated follow-up question. At that point, he was already moving on to the next reporter, or at least he was trying to. She wouldn’t let him though, yelling over him for at least ten seconds before he finally said enough is enough. At that point, the President said thank you and walked off the stage.

These reporters would never dream of treating Barack Obama or any Democrat this way. You get a question and you get a follow-up if the President wants to take it. You don’t get to continually yell allegations when the president is ready to call on someone else after answering both your questions. But as much as these people fret about decorum, they make no attempt to follow it themselves. All rules go out the window when dealing with Trump. It’s no wonder the media’s reputation is lower than mud at this point.

President Trump Signs Four Executive Orders Providing Middle Class Economic Relief Due to COVID-19

Today President Trump announced four executive orders targeted to help the majority of Americans as democrats in congress refuse to help.

Democrats in DC are holding middle-class economic relief hostage so they can force massive taxpayer bailouts on Blue states.  To avoid the loggerhead battle, President Trump is using his emergency authority via executive orders.

1) The first executive order signed is a payroll tax holiday for Americans making less than $100,000 [Details Here] President Trump stated: “If I’m victorious, November 3rd, I plan to forgive these taxes and make permanent cuts to the payroll tax and to make them more permanent.”

2) The second executive order is directed to “the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HHS and CDC, to make sure renters and homeowners can stay in their homes.“ [Details Here]

3) “The third executive action I’m taking today will also provide additional support for Americans who are unemployed, due to the China virus. Under the CARES act I proudly signed I expanded unemployment benefits into law.” Benefits will be $400/week. [Details Here]

4) The fourth XO is a “directive providing relief to student loan borrowers.” The policy will be extended through the end of the year. [Details Here]

President Trump also said he will also be looking at income and capital gains tax cuts. “So we’re going to be looking at income tax, we’re going to be looking at capital gains tax cuts on both and maybe substantial. And we’ll be reporting back fairly shortly on that, it’s big news big news but very important,” Trump said.

Exclusive Interview: Joe Biden Talks To The Babylon Bee

Babylon Bee🐝

This is a partial transcript of an interview of presidential candidate Joe Biden by The Babylon Bee Editor-in-Chief Kyle Mann and Creative Director Ethan Nicolle.

--

KYLE: “Today we have a very special guest: Joe Biden, who is running for president. Would you like to say hello, Joe?”

ETHAN: “Heh. ‘Hello, Joe!’”

BIDEN: “Who are you again? What radio station will this be on?”

ETHAN: “It’s a podcast.”

BIDEN: “What is that? Is that like the YouTube?”

KYLE: “Sure. Sorta. So you used to be vice president?”

BIDEN: “Yeah.”

KYLE: “To Obama, right?”

BIDEN: "Who? Oh, yeah, him. Yeah. Nice guy. Very clean."

KYLE: “And he was black, but you’re white right?”

ETHAN: “Is that allowed?”

KYLE: “I don’t think they have to match.”

ETHAN: “But then if he has to replace the president, everyone will notice.”

KYLE: “I guess that makes sense. So, Mr. Biden, as president, are you going to try to trick people into thinking you’re immortal?”

BIDEN: “What is this? This is a bunch of malarkey.”

KYLE: “Whoa. Hey. That is uncalled for, sir. I have never once been accused of malarkey, and I won’t stand for it.”

ETHAN: “I don’t know what malarkey is.”

BIDEN: “Listen, you couple of crumb bums, I’m not going to put up with your shenanigans. You’re trying to ambush me. And what’s that big bee doing on the wall? Is that a threat?”

KYLE: “This is just supposed to be a fun interview. Let’s all be friends here and especially don’t accuse anyone of malarkey.”

ETHAN: “Maybe I’ll just get to the questions. So, you were vice president for eight years. What does a vice president do? Because I don’t remember hearing about you doing anything.”

BIDEN: “I’ll show you what I do, you little [FLOWERBED]... Wait! What just happened? I didn’t say flowerbed. I said [FLOWERBED]. It happened again!”

KYLE: “That’s just our censor. We’re a Christian podcast. We don’t like any swearing. So we bleep it out with other words like 'flowerbed.'"

BIDEN: “You’re changing my words. You somehow got in my [FLOWERBED] head and are changing my words! You’re trying to make me think I’m crazy. You got the things going on me with the words.”

KYLE: “Sorry, what?”

BIDEN: “Stop staring at me with your eyes!”

ETHAN: “Our eyes?”

BIDEN: “That’s how you’re doing it, isn’t it? I bet if I jam out your eyes with my pen, it will break the [FLOWERBED] spell.”

KYLE: “Cheese it! He’s getting old man crazy!”

(The sounds of a scuffle ensue)

 

 Lawrence M. Ludlow for The American Thinker

Human Resources and Cancel Culture

Current human resource (HR) policies deliberately misuse terms such as diversity and equity to achieve political ends.  That isn’t news. But the process by which those terms were twisted into their current shapes is worth a look.  Likewise, it is important to see how their current usage is grounded in economic ignorance and unsound ethics.  Sadly, the resultant HR policies -- including microaggression training and gender-and-race training -- feed a growth industry of diversity hucksters.  These quick-buck artists subvert productive corporate meritocracies and replace them with systems that enshrine mediocrity, manufacture complaints, and generate resentment – not to mention whining and pearl clutching.  Even worse, the dismal results of these programs only seem to validate those who started them!  The dysfunctional corporate cultures they create give politically motivated HR staff an opportunity to “referee” disputes among their newly infantilized employees.  Meanwhile, adults who just want to do their jobs well, get paid, and go home are marginalized or driven off – as in the case of Google engineer James Damore; scores of editors, journalists, and columnists; and university professors in the U.S. and Canada.

From Cross-Cultural Training to “Woke” HR Policies

It wasn’t always this way. Cross-cultural business training is a valuable initiative that goes back at least 50 years.  In the 1990s, for example, innovative firms offered programs based on the work of Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede.  Hofstede’s “cultural dimensions theory” identified crucial differences in world cultures.  His theory was adapted and incorporated into programs that assist employees as they conduct business around the world.  In particular, these programs train people to respond appropriately to the following culture-based sensitivities, or “dimensions”:

• Hierarchy -- the ways (and degree to which) people rank themselves and interact at work and socially.
• Change tolerance – the importance of maintaining traditions, personal loyalties, and rules vs a willingness to innovate, take risks, and control your destiny.
• Group dependence – the relative importance of the individual vs the group – including the importance of independent action and decision-making vs acting as part of a team based on a shared consensus.
• Diversity receptivity – how roles, power, authority, and expectations are associated with gender, race, religion, and country of origin.
• Status attainment – the importance of goals and personal achievement for a sense of well-being vs one’s family position, social connections, sense of job satisfaction, and personal traits.
• Relationships – the importance of long-term relationships and a history of trust before engaging in business, pricing, and schedules.
• Communication – the importance of having deep, contextual, background information for each situation and a more complete sets of nonverbal cues in addition to language.
• Time – the degree to which time is seen as something that you control with plans and schedules as well as the willingness to engage in many activities simultaneously vs. only one.
• Space – the use of space to define oneself when speaking to others as well as privacy in the workplace and for living spaces.

These cultural dimensions express a rich legacy of human interrelationships, and they inform the way people respond to business offers and conduct.  Employees who receive competent cultural training are more able to engage businesspeople in different cultures.  As a result, there are no enemies,  no oppressors,  no victims.  Sadly, this is not the case with the “cancel culture” generated by enforced equality and faux diversity.

New Frontiers in Failure: HR Departments in Action

Bored with their “pedestrian” mission of helping employees do their jobs, HR departments have changed their focus.  They want what economist Thomas Sowell calls “cosmic justice,” going far beyond their area of competence – and anyone else’s.  It’s a leftist agenda of postmodernism, identity politics, and intersectionality – complete with its mythology of oppressors and victims.  And they’ve manufactured lots of victims and oppressors as finger-pointing reaches epic levels.  Professors Michael Rectenwald and Jordan Peterson have outlined the history of this movement in academia.  Consequently, I can focus on its most common manifestation in HR departments: the obsession with (1) equality and (2) superficial “diversity” characteristics such as skin color, gender identity, sexual preference, and one’s biological sex.

The Procrustean Ideal of Equality

Legend tells us that Procrustes was a robber with an iron bed.  He forced his victims to lie on it: If the victim was shorter than the bed, Procrustes stretched him on a rack until he fit.  If the victim was longer than the bed, he cut off the legs until perfection was achieved.  Either way, the victim died.  That’s the faith-based religion of today’s egalitarians.  Moreover, their understanding of economics is just as crude and its results just as cruel as Procrustes’.   Economist David Henderson has thoroughly debunked today’s equality fetish – devastating the notions that people are becoming poorer, are trapped at low income levels, or should be taxed more heavily if they’re wealthy.  He also points out that people too quickly assume that wealth is obtained in a nefarious manner.  Some people indeed do achieve wealth through political favors and other forms of dishonesty, but most earn their wealth by making our lives better and by increasing worker productivity by means of wise investments.

Likewise, notions of unfairness regarding sex and skin color are based in ignorance.  Thomas Sowell long ago debunked the notion that women unfairly earn only 75% of what men earn.  He wrote, “As far back as 1971, single women in their thirties who had worked continuously since high school earned slightly more than men of the same description.”  How?  Men accept different types of jobs (in risk and unpleasantness) than women, work for their employers much longer (seniority), and work more hours each year.  Once you factor in these choices, the so-called wage gap disappears.  Likewise, Sowell has documented the misguided nature of claims that minorities suffer earning disparities as a result of racism.  He showed that individual choices are the primary cause of measurable disparities – often influenced by, but not determined by, cultural attitudes.

A Focus on the Superficial

By focusing on characteristics that aren’t essential to the job – such as skin color, gender, sexual preferences, and a growing list of “identities” – HR departments expend scarce resources on policies that don’t contribute to the bottom line.  Seeking to achieve sexual parity in hiring, for example, they ignore the findings of psychologists, who have identified a set of Big Five personality traits.  What do they show?  Despite exceptions and significant overlap between the sexes, sex-specific personality traits result in men and women having different interests.  These differences are expressed in all cultures, including those that attempt to prevent gender-specific behavioral reinforcement during childhood (generating the gender equality paradox).  Ironically, the welfare state itself tends to reinforce the gender equality paradox.  And you can’t penalize sex-based differences without doing significant harm.

What Next?

What will be the outcome at organizations that substitute sex- and race-based quotas for genuine ability and merit?  How will these programs affect medical safety in an operating room or the design of a bridge?  You can’t have performance if you hire employees based on characteristics that reduce the pool of qualified applicants.  Pick one or the other, corporate America!  You can’t have both.  To paraphrase H.L. Mencken’s quip about democracy, “American organizations deserve to get exactly what they ask for – good and hard.”

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