Dead Cats: Choices, 06/26/17, (27)03: James Brody

Posted on June 26, 2017 by jamesbrody

Janet, Amnesty Bill – ENLIST!

HEALTH CARE: Kevin Williamson – Suisse solutions; Hannity Free Market option.

NKOREA: CHANG – High Noon; HAYWARD – They have demands.

LEADS: SHERMAN – Kennedy?; NY Post: Bernie needs a lawyer; McCARTHY – Obstruction?; DANIELS – Trump gets a second choice? BURNETT – Illinois junk credit.

PA: Benefield – No more taxes

RECOMMENDED: CHAITIN – Assange/Democrats doomed.

Amnesty Bill: ENLIST – Janet

“Our local Congressmen have signed on as co-sponsors of HR60, the ENLIST bill, which grants permanent legal residency and expedited citizenship to illegal aliens in return for their military service.

“ENLIST is gaining traction and Congress may add it to the ‘must pass’ National Defense Authorization Act later this year.

Please contact your Congressman and ask that he withdraw his sponsorship of backdoor amnesty.

Suggested wording for phone calls, or cut/paste for email

I ask that you withdraw your co-sponsorship of HR60, the ENLIST act, because the bill

Rewards and incentivizes lawlessness
Gives illegal immigrants the full battery of military benefits
Increases national security risks from limited vetting and questionable loyalty to our military missions
Enables chain migration of family members

The military is not a social experiment lab to solve immigration problems.

Suggested tweet:

The #ENLISTAct is backdoor Amnesty NOT to get more military recruits.
@REPNAME remove your co-sponsorship.

Contact information:

Patrick Meehan

Email https://meehan.house.gov/contact/email-me

Phone DC (202) 225-2011

Springfield (610) 690-7323

Twitter @RepMeehan

Ryan Costello

Email https://costello.house.gov/contact/email

Phone DC (202) 225-4315

West Chester (610) 696-2982

Twitter @RepRyanCostello

Lloyd Smucker

Email https://smucker.house.gov/contact

Phone DC (202)-225-2411
Lancaster (717) 393-0667

Twitter @RepSmucker

For more information:

http://heritageaction.com/2017/06/enlist-act-activist-toolkit/

http://heritageaction.com/2014/04/using-the-military-for-amnesty/

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/60?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22hr60%22%5D%7D&r=1

HEALTH CARE

NRO: “The Senate’s Flawed Health-Care Bill”

“The Senate Republican health-care bill would not repeal and replace Obamacare. The federal government would remain the chief regulator of health insurance. No state would be allowed to experiment with different models for protecting people with pre-existing conditions. Federal policy would continue to push people away from inexpensive catastrophic coverage.

“The bill also seems unlikely to stabilize insurance markets, even though their current instability is one of the main Republican talking points for passing it. The legislation gets rid of the “individual mandate” — Obamacare’s fines for not buying insurance — but keeps the regulations that made the mandate necessary. The result is likely to be that healthy people leave the market and sick people face much higher premiums.

“From a conservative perspective, the chief selling point of the bill is Medicaid reform. The legislation caps per-person payments to the states, giving the states a new incentive to run the program efficiently. But the reform is delayed until after the 2024 presidential election. Democrats will likely be in a position to vaporize it well before then.
“The legislation cuts taxes, cuts spending, and allows states to engage in some modest deregulation of health-care markets. It appears to reduce the extent of federal subsidies for insurance plans that cover abortion. And the main liberal criticism of the bill — that it would leave too many people uninsured — is misguided: We suspect that the Congressional Budget Office will find that most of the reduction in insurance rolls results from people’s choosing not to buy insurance when they’re not being threatened with fines.

“The bill could be improved in any number of ways. The phase-in of Medicaid reform could be accelerated. The bill could be amended to allow for a modified version of the deregulatory waivers included in the House. The bill’s subsidies for people outside of Medicare, Medicaid, and the employer-based insurance system could simply be given to the states to distribute to that population without having to comply with Obamacare’s regulations.
“If the bill is not amended in such fashion, it is likely to die, and it will be difficult to mourn the loss.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448902/senate-health-bill-flawed

REPLAY: Kevin Williamson, NRO: “So, You Want a Swiss Health-Care System?”

“Begin by doing away with employer-based plans.

“If you’re wondering what in Hell is actually going on with U.S. health-care policy, the short version is this: Policymakers in both parties are trying to replicate Swiss policies in a country that isn’t Swiss.

“The Affordable Care Act was, as thinkers as different as Paul Krugman and Avik Roy both observed, an attempt to Swiss up the U.S. health-insurance and health-care markets. (Obligatory reiteration: Those are not the same thing.) The Swiss system, Santésuisse, achieves one big progressive goal — universal health-insurance coverage — while offering much to please conservatives: a private market for health insurance and health care, consumer choice, and relatively low government spending on health care.
“Santésuisse is, in its broadest strokes, a lot like the model established by the so-called Affordable Care Act — a model that is kept in large part by the Republicans’ “repeal-and-replace” proposal, which neither repeals nor replaces the Affordable Care Act, though it does make some substantial changes to it. Like Obamacare, Santésuisse mandates that all citizens purchase insurance from private insurance companies; establishes by law a minimum package of acceptable benefits to satisfy that mandate; subsidizes health-insurance premiums for lower-income people, with a goal of keeping their insurance premiums to less than 10 percent of their incomes; mandates coverage of preexisting conditions and imposes “community rating,” which means that low-risk insurance buyers pay higher premiums to allow for high-risk buyers to pay lower premiums, though the Swiss do make some adjustments for age and sex (!); it imposes controls on procedure costs and reimbursement for providers. The Swiss model also does a few things that ACA does not: It requires that insurance companies offer their minimal policies on a nonprofit basis; it is structured around relatively high out-of-pocket expenses (high copays and deductibles) in order to encourage consumers to spend soberly; and, perhaps most important, it does this in the context of a health-insurance market that is entirely individual: There are no employer-based health-insurance plans in Switzerland. Everybody buys his own health insurance, the same way people buy everything from tacos to mobile-phone service. Swiss regulations also mandate that prices be made public, which helps consumer markets to function. . .”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448890/end-employer-based-health-plans

Health Care – Hannity: Josh Umber Sites

The map below contains a listing of public addresses and website links to 607 DPC practice locations in 47 states + DC (we still have not located any DPC practices in North Dakota, South Dakota, or Iowa,). Website readers should note that these practices met our three part definition of DPC, although they may not always self-describe as DPC. Both “Pure” DPC practices and DPC hybrids are included in the mapper, and they are now color coded! I’m happy to report that over 70% of the practices in the mapper are known to be pure.

Pure = Green Icon
Unknown = Yellow Icon
Hybrid = Red Icon

http://www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper/

NKOREA

Gordon Chang, Daily Beast: “High Noon in North Korea: Is Trump Ready for War?”

“Pushed by the horrific death of Otto Warmbier, Trump has begun America’s final campaign to disarm North Korea. Will it involve going after Chinese banks—or war with Kim?

“The horrific death of Otto Warmbier looks like it forced the hand of President Trump.

A day after the 22-year-old student passed away, the American leader, in what may end up as the world’s most consequential tweet, signaled that the United States will soon act on its own to disarm North Korea.

“While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out,” Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “At least I know China tried!”

“The announcement, considered in the context of Trump’s other comments on the subject, appears ominous. Trump on April 11 said America would defang North Korea by itself if China did not do so. ‘North Korea is looking for trouble,’ he tweeted then. ‘If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A.’

“On Tuesday, Trump in effect declared it was time for the U.S. to act on its own. . .”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/high-noon-in-north-korea-is-trump-ready-for-war

John Hayward, Breitbart: “North Korea ‘Willing to Talk’ Moratorium on Weapons Testing ‘If Our Demands Are Met’”

“South Korea’s Yonhap news service reported on Wednesday that North Korea made a very tentative and conditional offer to discuss a ban on nuclear and ballistic missile testing.

“The offer came rather circuitously through North Korea’s ambassador to India, and there were strings attached, but given how stridently the outlaw regime normally insists on its right to develop weapons, it may foreshadow a more significant policy shift.

Yonhap renders Ambassador Kye Chun-yong’s offer as, ‘If our demands is met, we can negotiate in terms of the moratorium of such as weapons testing,’ and notes the conditions unsurprisingly include a halt to American military drills with South Korea, a demand North Korea makes incessantly.. .”

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/06/21/north-korea-offers-discuss-moratorium-weapons-testing-demands-met/

LEADS

Mark Sherman, AP: “Kennedy?”

“WASHINGTON (AP) — Before taking their long summer break, the Supreme Court justices are poised to act on the Trump administration’s travel ban and a separation of church and state dispute involving a Missouri church playground.

“But something could overshadow rulings in those high-profile cases: If Justice Anthony Kennedy were to use the court’s last public session on Monday to announce his retirement.

“Kennedy has given no public sign that he would step down this year and give President Donald Trump his second high court pick in the first months of his administration. Kennedy’s departure would allow conservatives to take firm control of the court.

“But Kennedy turns 81 next month and has been on the court for nearly 30 years. Several of his former law clerks have said they think he is contemplating stepping down in the next year or so. Kennedy did not address the retirement rumors when he and his clerks gathered over the weekend for a reunion, according to three clerks who were there. The decision to push up the reunion by a year helped spark talk he might be leaving the court. . .”

http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2017-06-26-US–Supreme%20Court/id-b0e00a9d057d4a65ad13a5040b8300fe

NY Post: “Why Bernie Sanders needs a lawyer”

“Don’t make too much of the news that Sen. Bernie Sanders and his wife Jill have lawyered up: It’s just what you have to do when you’re facing an FBI investigation.

“That is, retaining private counsel is obligatory even if you truly have done absolutely nothing wrong. On the other hand, real questions do surround Jill Sanders’ actions as president of now-closed Burlington College.

“Back in 2010, Sanders arranged a $10 million loan for the school to buy 32 acres of lakefront property. At issue is whether she falsely inflated the number of donors who’d promised to help cover the loan payments.

“The FBI is also said to be looking at whether Sen. Sanders put political pressure on the bank to OK the loan. Politico reports the evidence for that so far is “thin at best,” but Sanders (like anyone in that situation) is wise to have a lawyer handling the probe for him.. .”

http://nypost.com/2017/06/25/why-bernie-sanders-needs-a-lawyer/

McCarthy, NRO: “The Antithesis of Obstruction”

“. . . Over a period of weeks, Trump came to understand what was being done to him. His exasperation was evident in his every bull-in-a-china-shop turn. An ardently pro-law-enforcement candidate, he came to office believing the FBI was in the fraud-exposure business. He thus could not comprehend why then–FBI director James Comey would not assure the public of what Comey was privately assuring both the president and the public’s representatives in Congress, namely: The notion that the president was a suspect was false. Implicitly, the narrative that Trump had colluded with Putin to steal the election was false.
“To be clear, the Russia investigation is not a fraud. The Trump collusion narrative is. Russia did try to interfere in our election, as it always does. And there were associates of Trump’s who had business with Russian interests. Nothing unusual about that either. No one had shadier business with Kremlin cronies than Bill and Hillary Clinton. The difference is that the Clintons did collude in the Russian regime’s acquisition of American uranium assets. There is no evidence that Trump colluded in Russia’s election meddling. To stoke suspicions to the contrary was fraudulent.
“The president justifiably believed this cloud of suspicion was grievously harming his fledgling administration. Despite both the dearth of collusion evidence and Comey’s acknowledgment — in non-public Capitol Hill briefings — that Trump was not a suspect, congressional Democrats continued to peddle the collusion narrative. The narrative became the rationale for “The Resistance.”
“After the flame-out of the “Electoral College has destroyed democracy” storyline, the Left moved on to “collusion” as the Original Sin that rendered Trump illegitimate. Thus, Democrats rationalized, it was imperative to deny cooperation with Trump on any matter of governance — the approval of executive officials needed to run the government, the confirmation of judges, the Obamacare collapse, tax reform, Syria, debt ceiling, Afghanistan, jihadist attacks in the U.S. and Europe. Anything. The point of the collusion narrative was to delegitimize Trump in the public mind; cooperating with him, treating him as the legitimate president of the United States, was out of the question. . .”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448940/trump-obstruction-narrative-comey-knew-it-was-fake

Kit Daniels, InfoWars: “REPORT: TRUMP TO GET SECOND SUPREME COURT PICK”

“Napolitano possibly in running

“As Infowars reported months ago, Justice Anthony Kennedy may retire before the Supreme Court’s long summer hiatus, giving President Trump his second high court pick of his young presidency.

“Another pick by Trump will tip the balance of power further away from unbridled, globalist interests.

“Kennedy, 81, has served the Supreme Court for nearly 30 years, and the White House has spent months preparing for his departure, as Infowars exclusively reported on May 1.

“‘I’ve heard the same rumors that a lot of people have heard,’ the president said at the time. ‘And I have a lot of respect for that gentleman, a lot.’

“U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman, who was on Trump’s short list when he selected Neil Gorsuch for the vacancy left by the late Antonin Scalia, is likely one of the front-runner for the opening seat, although the president could easily pick a dark horse candidate, such as Judge Andrew Napolitano, a long-time favorite of Trump’s. . .”

https://www.infowars.com/report-trump-to-get-second-supreme-court-pick/

Sara Burnett, AP: “Illinois could be 1st state with ‘junk’ credit due to budget”

“CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois is on track to become the first U.S. state to have its credit rating downgraded to “junk” status, which would deepen its multibillion-dollar deficit and cost taxpayers more for years to come.

“S&P Global Ratings has warned the agency will likely lower Illinois’ creditworthiness to below investment grade if feuding lawmakers fail to agree on a state budget for a third straight year, increasing the amount the state will have to pay to borrow money for things such as building roads or refinancing existing debt.

“The outlook for a deal wasn’t good Saturday, as lawmakers meeting in Springfield for a special legislative session remained deadlocked with the July 1 start of the new fiscal year approaching.

“That should alarm everyone, not just those at the Capitol, said Brian Battle, director at Performance Trust Capital Partners, a Chicago-based investment firm.

“‘It isn’t a political show,’ he said. ‘Everyone in Illinois has a stake in what’s happening here. One day everybody will wake up and say ‘What happened? Why are my taxes going up so much?’

“Here’s a look at what’s happening and what a junk rating could mean. . .”

http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2017-06-24-US–Illinois%20Budget-Credit%20Rating/id-c1c94128bed245b08f82761fb8efc116

PA

Nathan Benefield, CommonwealthFoundation: Stop Calling for Higher Taxes”

“. . . For those who need reminding, the legislature approved and Gov. Wolf signed a $650 million tax increase last year. Or at least the tax increases were projected to generate $650 million.

As I point out in a recent policy memo—we need to learn from the mistakes of the past. After last year’s tax hike, the state economy slowed to a crawl, nearly one hundred vape shops closed, and another budget deficit emerged.

The reality is simple: Raising taxes isn’t going to solve the budget deficit. Government spending continues to outpace the growth of the state economy (and holds back job and income growth). Unless we slow the growth of state spending or tackle policies to grow the economy, we will be back in the same situation next year.

Lawmakers should double down on Gov. Wolf’s call to “reinvent government.” As we’ve highlighted in recent analyses, that includes reforms like privatizing liquor sales, reducing subsidies for corporations, and reforming welfare programs. . .”

https://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog/detail/stop-calling-for-higher-taxes

“Assange’s group, WikiLeaks, is responsible for the publication of stolen documents from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 campaign, which has been attributed to hurting Clinton’s chances. Furthermore, though WikiLeaks denies it, the U.S. intelligence community reported in January with ‘high confidence’ that both WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, among others, were being used by Russian intelligence ‘to release US victim data obtained in cyberoperations publicly’ in order to help undermine the 2016 presidential election in favor of President Trump.

“Despite this, Assange said that the ‘Trump-Russian collusion narrative’ being investigated by a number of probes and consistently reported on by the media is unfounded, and ‘we are left with the Democratic establishment blaming the public for not liking the truth about what Hillary Clinton said to Goldman Sachs and blaming their own base for not liking what they said in their own emails about fixing the DNC primaries.’ . . .”

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-explains-why-the-democratic-party-is-doomed/article/2627004

Posted in Conservative, Pennsylvania, TEA Party | Tagged Assange, Health Care, NKorea, Sanders | Leave a comment

Dead Cats: “AhChoo!”, 06/23/17, (27)02: James Brody

Posted on June 23, 2017 by jamesbrody

Janet, Amnesty Bill – ENLIST!

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON – DJT & his generals.

PA: Knepper – Budget

HEALTH CARE: MORAN – Rand Paul +3; FRAM & ZALDIVAR – Finding votes; HOROWITZ – Jump ship; MORAN – Bill shared; WILLIAMSON – Copy the Swiss; HANNITY – Josh Umber.

NKOREA: CHANG – High Noon; HAYWARD –NKor wants to talk.

LEADS: LYMAN – Central EU anti-immigrant; YORK – The GA Vote; NY POST – Obama’s Russian rumor; LEVIN – 06-22-17.

“I hope that Nancy stays for at least a decade . . . she is so helpful… ‘

Newt Gingrich 9:30am, 6-23-17, Fox.

Also: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/donald-trump-it-would-be-a-sad-day-for-republicans-if-nancy-pelosi-steps-down.html

Amnesty Bill: ENLIST – Janet

“ENLIST is gaining traction and Congress may add it to the ‘must pass’ National Defense Authorization Act later this year.

Please contact your Congressman and ask that he withdraw his sponsorship of backdoor amnesty.

Suggested wording for phone calls, or cut/paste for email

I ask that you withdraw your co-sponsorship of HR60, the ENLIST act, because the bill

Rewards and incentivizes lawlessness
Gives illegal immigrants the full battery of military benefits
Increases national security risks from limited vetting and questionable loyalty to our military missions
Enables chain migration of family members

The military is not a social experiment lab to solve immigration problems.

Suggested tweet:

The #ENLISTAct is backdoor Amnesty NOT to get more military recruits.
@REPNAME remove your co-sponsorship.

Contact information:

Patrick Meehan

Email https://meehan.house.gov/contact/email-me

Phone DC (202) 225-2011

Springfield (610) 690-7323

Twitter @RepMeehan

Ryan Costello

Email https://costello.house.gov/contact/email

Phone DC (202) 225-4315

West Chester (610) 696-2982

Twitter @RepRyanCostello

Lloyd Smucker

Email https://smucker.house.gov/contact

Phone DC (202)-225-2411
Lancaster (717) 393-0667

Twitter @RepSmucker

For more information:

http://heritageaction.com/2017/06/enlist-act-activist-toolkit/

http://heritageaction.com/2014/04/using-the-military-for-amnesty/

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/60?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22hr60%22%5D%7D&r=1

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO: “Trump and his Generals”
“Trump’s reliance on his generals shows that he values merit over politics.

“Donald Trump earned respect from the Washington establishment for appointing three of the nation’s most accomplished generals to direct his national-security policy: James Mattis (secretary of defense), H. R. McMaster (national-security adviser), and John Kelly (secretary of homeland security).
“In the first five months of the Trump administration, the three generals — along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon Mobil CEO — have already recalibrated America’s defenses.
“At home, illegal immigration is down by some 70 percent. Abroad, a new policy of principled realism seeks to reestablish deterrence through credible threats of retaliation. The generals are repairing old friendships with allies and neutrals while warning traditional enemies not to press their luck.
Trump has turned over most of the details of military operations to his generals. According to his critics, Trump is improperly outsourcing to his generals both strategic decision-making and its tactical implementation.
“But is Trump really doing that?
“In his campaign, Trump vowed to avoid new ground wars while not losing those he inherited. He pledged to wipe out ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism without invading Middle Eastern countries to turn them into democracies.
“Those are wide but nonetheless unmistakable parameters.
“Within them, the U.S. military can drop a huge bomb on the Taliban, strike the chemical weapons depots of Syria’s Bashar Assad, or choose the sort of ships it will use to deter North Korean aggression — without Trump poring over a map, or hectoring Mattis or McMaster about what particular move is politically appropriate or might poll well.
“Other presidents have done the same. . .”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448827/donald-trump-generals-relationship-mattis-kelly-mcmaster

PA

Leo Knepper, CAP: “Not buying the hype”

“Much has been made of the “historic” pension reform just signed by Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf. Politicos and the media are making it out to be a great compromise between Democrats and Republicans.

“But our regular readers know better…

“Thanks to Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania (CAP) voters are aware of just how ridiculous a claim it is to say this pension reform legislation actually solves the problem.

While the bill is a marginal improvement for taxpayers, it does little to nothing to address the $74 billion shortfall the state has for current employees, allows current General Assembly members to keep their Cadillac pension benefits, and likely adds to our state’s overall debt burden in the years to come. “Historic” indeed.

“But results are what matter to Pennsylvanians, and they’re what matter to us at CAP. It’s not about who gets credit or who’s remembered a generation from now, it’s about strengthening our Commonwealth so citizens can exercise their God-given rights without government getting in the way. . .”

http://www.empowerpa.org/not-buying-hype/

HEALTH CARE

Sean Moran, BigGovt: “Exclusive–Sen. Rand Paul on Senate Healthcare Legislation: ‘I Think the Bill Looks Too Much Like Obamacare’”

“Senator Paul explained his opposition to the newly released Senate healthcare bill:

‘I think the bill looks too much like Obamacare. It really doesn’t look like a repeal bill. It looks like we’re keeping Obamacare, it keeps probably 100 percent of the Obamacare subsidies. In fact, we have estimated that it may have more subsidies than Obamacare. It creates a new stabilization fund of over $100 billion. This fund is something that is not consistent with conservative philosophy because it’s the government giving money to insurance companies. The bill keeps ten of twelve Obamacare regulations that causes the prices of premiums to spiral upward. So my fear is that Republicans in putting forward something and saying they’re repealing and replacing Obamacare and not making it better. It actually does not repeal and replacing Obamacare, it replaces it with more Obamacare or Obamacare-Lite, which doesn’t really fix the problem.

So the four of us said no with really the intention that we can use that leverage to try to make the bill better.’

“Paul told Breitbart News what changes the Senate has to make for him to vote yes on the bill. The Kentucky senator explained:

‘The bill has to look more like a repeal bill. So we repealed some of the spending, repeal more of the subsidies, and we have to not have a mismatch. See the bill does a pretty good job of repealing the taxes but it does not get rid of a lot of the spending. When you do that what you end up having is a problem with your debt, the bill will add a lot to the debt. It creates a new entitlement program that gives out over $100 billion to insurance companies, and that’s not why I joined the Republican party and not why I ran for office to vote for more entitlement programs.

“The Senate healthcare bill retains Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion until 2024, a provision that Sen. Paul says that the Senate needs to rectify. He explained,

‘The problem is that the bill repeals the taxes that paid for the Medicaid expansion, but then keep the Medicaid expansion, the fact is that it never really goes away. It eventually goes to a split where the states have a little more responsibility but it never really goes away. So, that’s one aspect of Obamacare that is not repealed. Medicaid expansion is not repealed and the Obamacare expansion is not repealed. So you begin to ask yourself what’s really being repealed and the conclusion we have is that it’s not a very significant repeal.’

“Paul cautioned that the Senate bill might contain provisions that might allow illegal immigrants, permanent residents, and other non-citizens to obtain Obamacare subsidies. He said, ‘I think there’s an attempt after a few years to restrict who can get these Obamacare subsidies, but I think in the first couple of years it looks like they’re going to keep in place the Obamacare rules that may allow people that are not citizens to get subsidies.’. . .”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/22/exclusive-sen-rand-paul-on-senate-healthcare-legislation-i-think-the-bill-looks-too-much-like-obamacare/

Alan Fram & Ricardo Zaldivar, AP: “GOP’s challenge: finding votes for Senate health care bill”

“. . . Democrats said the GOP measure would take coverage away from people and raise their out-of-pocket costs, all in the name of paring taxes on the wealthy.

“This bill may change, but Republicans will only be putting lipstick on a devastating blow to Americans’ health care,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

“Four conservative senators expressed opposition but openness to talks: Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. They said the measure missed delivering a GOP promise to Americans “to repeal Obamacare and lower their health care costs.”

“In an interview with Fox News Channel, Trump was asked about the four conservatives opposing the bill. ‘Well, they’re also four good guys, four friends of mine, and I think that they’ll probably get there,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to see.’

“Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada, facing a competitive 2018 re-election battle, Rob Portman of Ohio and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia expressed concerns about the bill’s cuts to Medicaid and drug addiction efforts.

“Sen. Susan Collins of Maine reiterated her opposition to language blocking federal money for Planned Parenthood, which many Republicans oppose because it provides abortions. The bill would also bar using tax credits to buy coverage that includes abortions.

“Obama held nothing back as he weighed in on Facebook. . .”

http://hosted2.ap.org/APDefault/*/Article_2017-06-23-US–Congress-Health%20Overhaul/id-3ff3d3da48c34dbe877426600e709dbe

Daniel Horowitz, Conservative Review: “Conservatives, time to jump ship from phony Obamacare repeal”

“. . .Right after Republicans won the election, we laid out a strategy for immediately repealing Obamacare with a transition period, so that the default position would always be the repeal of Obamacare and so that consumers would get a sense of what premiums would look like after the leviathan was slain. We also proposed a 20-point blueprint for free market health care reforms to be subsequently pursued once Obamacare was repealed.

Yet from day one, Republicans refused to repeal Obamacare, adopted the messaging and talking points of Obamacare under the guise of repealing it, and therefore made the law more popular than ever despite it failing before our very eyes. The bill that came out of the House was already a dismal failure and barely repealed the core elements of Obamacare – the regulations, subsidies, and Medicaid expansion – but some conservatives, in a view I didn’t share, felt that it was the only way to get the ball moving, in hopes that the legislation would improve in the Senate.

Throughout the process, the only leadership the president showed was his strong-arming of conservatives who actually wanted to fulfill the campaign promise and at least substantially repeal the law.

Now that the bill has come to the Senate, senators have taken an excrement sandwich and turned it into maggot-covered vomit. After all, Senate Republicans make House Republicans look like the Founders. While the text is still behind closed doors, the contours of the bill were set a long time ago. Legislators are taking each element of the bill – regulations, Medicaid expansion, subsidies, and mandates – and making them more liberal. Now, they might even keep some of the taxes (the only component they consistently opposed) in order to pay for the other elements. They have dropped any pretense of repealing Obamacare and are all about “fixing” it with even more subsidies and just converting the mandates to back-door requirements to purchase health insurance.

Until now, I was wondering where the president has been. Why was he not giving the Senate RINOs the same Twitter treatment for obstructing the House bill as he did the House Freedom Caucus? Now, according to an AP report of a private conversation the president had with some of those very RINOS, it’s clear that Trump agrees with the RINOs. At the same time he says Obamacare is a disaster and must be repealed, he believes that even the House version, which barely repeals the law, is “too mean.” Evidently, we need even more government control over health care … and that is exactly what we are getting with the Senate bill. Indeed, the AHCA is mean because it keeps Obamacare in place . . .”

https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/conservatives-time-to-jump-ship-from-phony-obamacare-repeal

Sean Moran, Big Govt: “Senate Releases Healthcare Bill”

“Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released the draft for the Senate’s health care reform bill Thursday.

“The Senate features more generous tax credits for low-income and older Americans, a slower rollback of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, and retains many of Obamacare’s taxes.

Senate leadership attempted to write a more generous version of health care reform compared to the House-passed American Health Care Act (AHCA). The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that the House-passed AHCA would cause 23 million Americans to lose health insurance over the next ten years while reducing the deficit by $119 billion.

“Senate leadership revealed their bill on Thursday amidst criticism from colleagues for not involving them in the legislative process.

“Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) vented her frustration with the Senate’s lack of transparency. She reportedly asked on Tuesday, “Do you know what the health-care bill looks like? Because I don’t. . . .”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/22/senate-releases-healthcare-bill/

Kevin Williamson, NRO: “So, You Want a Swiss Health-Care System?”

“Begin by doing away with employer-based plans.

Health Care – Hannity: Josh Umber Sites

Pure = Green Icon
Unknown = Yellow Icon
Hybrid = Red Icon

http://www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper/

NKOREA

Gordon Chang, Daily Beast: “High Noon in North Korea: Is Trump Ready for War?”

“Pushed by the horrific death of Otto Warmbier, Trump has begun America’s final campaign to disarm North Korea. Will it involve going after Chinese banks—or war with Kim?

“The horrific death of Otto Warmbier looks like it forced the hand of President Trump.

“While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out,” Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “At least I know China tried!”

“On Tuesday, Trump in effect declared it was time for the U.S. to act on its own. . .”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/high-noon-in-north-korea-is-trump-ready-for-war

John Hayward, Breitbart: “North Korea ‘Willing to Talk’ Moratorium on Weapons Testing ‘If Our Demands Are Met’”

“South Korea’s Yonhap news service reported on Wednesday that North Korea made a very tentative and conditional offer to discuss a ban on nuclear and ballistic missile testing.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/06/21/north-korea-offers-discuss-moratorium-weapons-testing-demands-met/

LEADS

Harvey Day, UK Daily Mail: “Hillary Clinton is under investigation AGAIN for her handling of government emails and the former Secretary of State and her aides could have their security clearances revoked”

HT InfoWars!
“- Clinton and her staffers still have security clearances which could be revoked depending on the outcome of the investigation

– The inquiry will be looking into whether Clinton and her aides violated government rules with her use of a private email server

– Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, confirmed the State Department’s formal inquiry

– Clinton’s spokesman, Nick Merrill, said: ‘Nothing’s been more thoroughly dissected. It’s over’

– Donald Trump has also continued to draw attention to Clinton email troubles as president.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4624540/Hillary-Clinton-investigation-emails.html#ixzz4kkNJUn5j

Dan Lyman, InfoWars: “CENTRAL EUROPEAN NATIONS FORMING NEW ANTI-MIGRANT DEFENSE COALITION”

“Civil-military alliance emerging in defiance of EU globalists

“Six countries are forming a new coalition in an effort to bolster the region’s security against the flood of “mass illegal immigration” from the Middle East and Africa.

“Defense ministers and officials from Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Austria, and Croatia met in Prague earlier this week to discuss the details of the Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC) that will act as “the framework of civil-military cooperation” between the nations who seek to handle the on-going crisis in a markedly different manner than Brussels and other EU member states, such as Germany, Sweden and Italy.

“The Hungarian Ministry of Defense has released a statement addressing the meeting and developments titled, “Central Europe stands united against mass illegal migration.”

“At the meeting, the participants issued a short declaration which welcomes the Joint Action Plan and calls on the interior ministers of the involved countries to finalize it in the shortest time possible,” it reads. “The declaration takes note of the unified situation assessment, which facilitates the quick and joint mobilization of civilian, police and military capabilities, and states that the most important task is the protection of the external borders of the EU and the elimination of the root causes of migration in the sending countries. . .”

https://www.infowars.com/central-european-nations-forming-new-anti-migrant-defense-coalition/

Byron York, Washington Examiner: “Byron York: Georgia vote says more about Trump now than House in ’18”

“The Georgia 6th District results don’t tell us what will happen in 2018. But they do tell us what is happening right now.

“In a conversation two weeks before the GA06 election, a Republican strategist involved in the fight mused on the possibility that all the money spent, all the doors knocked, all the phones called, all the accusations hurled — that it might mean nothing when it comes to the crucial question of who will win control of the House of Representatives in 2018.

“‘That’s the silliness of all this,’ he said. ‘Assuming we win Georgia, we will have won all of the special elections, and it means nothing — nothing — for next year.’

“He was right. . .”

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-georgia-vote-says-more-about-trump-now-than-house-in-18/article/2626719

NY Post: “Good riddance to the Russia myth — and blame Team Obama for promoting it”

“Ex-Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’s testimony Wednesday should mark the definitive end of “Russia hacked the election” hysteria. Too bad it took so long to get to this point.

“Johnson told the House Intelligence Committee outright that the Russians failed to alter “ballots, ballot counts or reporting of election results.”

“Yes, it’s clear Russia (with Vladimir Putin’s full approval) orchestrated cyberattacks designed to influence the 2016 contest, and also pushed fake news.

“But the hack, and release via WikiLeaks, etc., of Democratic emails produced nothing game-changing. The biggest impact was to confirm the obvious: The Democratic National Committee favored Hillary Clinton from the start.

“And fake news mainly feeds people’s existing prejudices — which serves Putin’s goal of undermining our democracy, but fails to flip votes from one party to the other. . .”

http://nypost.com/2017/06/21/good-riddance-to-the-russia-myth-and-blame-team-obama-for-promoting-it/

Mark Levin (06-22- 17)

“On Thursday’s Mark Levin show, The number one reason that Republicans took control of the Congress, Senate and the Presidency is because of the problems caused by Obamacare. Why would Republicans think that repealing Obamacare would not be popular? The bill that Senate Republicans are putting forward is 95% Obamacare and is a joke. The McConnell-care bill is so weak that even Jonathan Gruber, a chief architect of Obamacare agrees that it is not a repeal. We never move in the direction of free market capitalism, of choice, and liberty. We seem bound in the box the left has made for us.

“After that, Daniel Horowitz calls in to explain that the Republican healthcare plan is not even Obamacare 2.0 or Obamacare lite but keeps the core pillars of Obamacare. We get the crony capitalism of the private sector lobbyists and government interference all together. McConnell said he was going to rip Obamacare out root and branch, but what he really meant was that he was going to take it out of the Democrat field and replant it on the Republican side. The real difference is Democrats want Obamacare funded with tax increases and Republicans want it funded with deficit spending. This plan will be the biggest driver of deficit spending.

Later, the ideology of Statism appears in many ways like healthcare, education, immigration, and even our governing system. It is a bulldozer that plows over our institutions. You are not free to have the healthcare you want in this society as an individual, because the only way you can be free in the statist mentality is among the collective. The left believe you can only be free by way of the government. That means that the government has to make things equal and eliminate risks which of course it can’t. True freedom includes the unalienable rights of the individual.

Finally, the Russians tried to interfere with the 2016 election and the Obama Administration failed to stop them. Even President Trump is asking why didn’t they do anything to stop the Russians from hacking?

http://www.marklevinshow.com/2017/06/22/june-22-2017/

Posted in Conservative, Pennsylvania, TEA Party | Tagged Budget, Chang, GA Vote, Health Care, Josh Umber, Levin, NKor | Leave a comment

Dead Cats: “LaughingMyOssoff” 06/21/17, (27)01: James Brody

Posted on June 21, 2017 by jamesbrody

HANSON – Architecture of regime change; BARROW & FOODY – Handel reached out; SPIERING – Kelly’ oss; RCP: SC 5^TH; SCHLICHTER – Left loses; SCARBOROUGH – Noncitizen votes for Obama; AP – US bombers over NKor.

LEADS: CHANG – NKor murder; RUSHBO – GA PJ Boy; LOWRY – Hate speech is legal; LEVIN – 06-20-17.

RECOMMENDED: NRO – NKor’s brazen act; LAST – Paglia opens fire but not at GOP!

“In summary: to have any hope of retaking the White House, Democrats must get off their high horse, lose the rabid rhetoric, and reorient themselves toward practical reality and the free country they are damned lucky to live in.” Camille Paglia

http://www.weeklystandard.com/camille-paglia-on-trump-democrats-transgenderism-and-islamist-terror/article/2008464

“Has anyone out there actually met a Trump voter who said something like this?”

‘I supported Trump, but now I don’t because his refusal to passively sit back and let a Washington insider with an obvious conflict of interest and his Democrat staff drive him out of office on the basis of a Hillary-driven lie far outweighs Neil Gorsuch, pulling out of the climate scam, beating ISIS, and repealing Obamacare.’ Kurt Schlichter

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/06/19/if-the-left-wins-their-soft-coup-everyone-loses–but-mostly-them-n2342884

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO: “The Architecture of Regime Change”

“The ‘Resistance’ is using any and all means — lies, leaks, lawbreaking, and violence — to overturn the results of the 2016 election.

“The problem with the election of President Donald J. Trump was not just that he presented a roadblock to an ongoing progressive revolution. Instead, unlike recent Republican presidential nominees, he was indifferent to the cultural and political restraints on conservative pushback — ironic given how checkered Trump’s own prior conservative credentials are. Trump brawled in a way McCain or Romney did not. He certainly did not prefer losing nobly to winning ugly.

“Even more ominously, Trump found a seam in the supposedly invincible new progressive electoral paradigm of Barack Obama. He then blew it apart — by showing the nation that Obama’s identity-politics voting bloc was not transferrable to most other Democratic candidates, while the downside of his polarization of the now proverbial clingers most assuredly was. To her regret, Hillary Clinton learned that paradox when the deplorables and irredeemables of the formerly blue-wall states rose up to cost her the presidency.
“And now?

“We are witnessing a desperate putsch to remove Trump before he can do any more damage to the Obama project. Political, journalistic, and cultural elites of a progressive coastal culture aim at destroying the Trump presidency before it can finish its full four-year term.

“The branches of this insidious coup d’état are quite unlikely anything our generation has ever witnessed. . .”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448781/resistance-regime-change-any-means-necessary-lies-leaks-violence

GEORGIA/SOUTH CAROLINA

Rushbo: Georgia Pajama Boy

“Do you know that more money has been spent on this race than any congressional race in history? Something to the tune of $25 million for a district election. Now, the Jesse Helms race in the Senate, North Carolina, that got a lot of money, but that was a Senate seat. This is a district seat. This is Georgia 20, 25 mill, most of it Democrat money. It’s come in from the usual places, Hollywood and George Soros shell corporations all over the world.

“Early voting has set a record. What’s the number here? Over 140,000 people have already voted in this district race, 140,000 early voters. This includes 36,000 who did not vote in the first round. Now, nobody knows how these votes have been counted yet, so all they can do is guess what it means. And here you got the political consultants and the strategists on both sides, each saying the heavy turnout benefits their candidate, because each is saying the heavy turnout shows the enthusiasm. Anti-Trump enthusiasm is sweeping America, the Drive-Bys say.

“The sad fact is, for them, it isn’t. Anti-Trump enthusiasm is not sweeping America. It is where it is, and it’s where it’s always been since the election, but it isn’t growing. But the Drive-Bys want you to think something else. So 140,000 early voters, impossible to predict why and what that means. I just saw on Fox, Chris Stirewalt, who is one of their political directors or strategists, was saying that the Democrats have a lot to lose here.

“And I said to myself, “What? The Democrats have a lot to lose? That’s not what the narrative is.” The narrative has been Trump’s future is on the line. The Trump presidency is on the line. If anybody has anything to lose, it’s Trump. But now today all of a sudden it’s the Democrats who stand to lose big if Pajama Boy loses. . .’ emph added, jb

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/06/19/drive-bys-suddenly-doubt-the-pajama-boy-race/

Bill Barrow & Kathleen Foody, AP: “In Georgia, Handel reaches out to Democrats and thanks Trump”

“DUNWOODY, Ga. (AP) — Republican Karen Handel declared victory in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District with a promise that she’ll work to gain the confidence of voters who backed her Democratic opponent.

But Handel’s thank you to President Donald Trump in the same speech Tuesday night is unlikely to comfort backers of the Democrat who came to symbolize anti-Trump resistance.

Handel won about 52 percent of the vote to quell the upstart phenomenon of Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old Democrat who raised more than $23 million and became a symbol of opposition to Trump.

The thank you to Trump was Handel’s most public show of support of the man who wasn’t embraced by many voters in the well-educated suburban Atlanta district in November and who she handled delicately throughout a primary and runoff election to fill the congressional seat vacated by Tom Price to take a spot in Trump’s cabinet. . .”

http://hosted2.ap.org/APDefault/*/Article_2017-06-21-US–House%20Election-Georgia/id-51f583b53fa74b16a4478847dc5ba35b

Charlie Spiering, BigGovt: “‘Laughing My Ossoff’ — Kellyanne Conway Celebrates Humiliating Democrat Defeat”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/20/laughing-my-ossoff-kellyanne-conway-celebrates-humiliating-democrat-defeat/

RCP: “South Carolina 5th District – Live Results”

Norman, R, 44,889, 51.1 percent

Parnell, D, 42,053, 47.9 percent.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2017_south_carolina.html

NKOREA

NRO: “North Korea’s Brazen Act”

“In a previous era, the death of Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old American student, at the hands of the regime in North Korea likely would have been considered an act of war. On January 2, 2016, Warmbier was detained by regime officials, allegedly for attempting to steal a propaganda poster. Convicted of a “hostile act” against the state, he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. Upon his release into U.S. custody last week, regime officials said that he had been in a coma for nearly 15 months, and blamed a case of botulism. In reality, Warmbier was almost certainly tortured to death by the regime.
“What happened to Otto Warmbier is what has been happening to North Korean citizens for more than 70 years, since Kim Il-sung transformed the new country into what it is today: a hermetically sealed prison state operated by a hereditary dictatorship that some scholars estimate has murdered around 1.5 million people in its network of concentration camps. Those not executed by the regime have fared little better: The country is beset by malnourishment and starvation (a famine in the mid 1990s killed half a million people); its GDP per capita is somewhere south of $1,000, putting North Korea behind Rwanda, Haiti, and Sierra Leone globally; and its shoddy infrastructure causes fires that can be seen from space. . . .

“The fact that North Korea is now a nuclear-armed state is in no small part a consequence of nearly three decades of ill-conceived American and international policy. . .”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448809/north-korea-otto-warmbier-brutal-murder-us-response

Gordon Chang, Daily Beast: “State-Sanctioned Murder: North Korea Killed Otto Warmbier”

“The Art of the Deal”?

“The Kim regime likely released the American student so he wouldn’t die on North Korean soil. Now they need to pay for killing an American—and be convinced they can’t kill more.

“North Korea killed Otto Warmbier, and that must affect U.S. policy toward both the Kim regime and its enablers, most notably China.

“The 22-year-old American student, who arrived in Cincinnati on a medevac flight June 13 after being held captive in North Korea since January 2016, died Monday afternoon. He had been in a coma for 15 months.

“The North Koreans claimed they released Warmbier on “humanitarian grounds.” That, like most everything they have said on the matter, was deceptive. They let him go, in all probability, because they did not want him to die on North Korean soil.

“It’s unlikely their last-minute maneuver will make much difference, however. The student’s death, so soon after his release, is bound to affect American policy toward the Kim regime, just as the beheading of James Foley by ISIS in August 2014 affected the Obama administration’s Middle East policy.

“At the moment, President Trump’s attempts to disarm North Korea seem to be in abeyance, as the White House waits for Beijing to help. Whatever one thinks of that approach, Warmbier’s death will add pressure on the president to act now. . .”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/state-sanctioned-murder-north-korea-killed-otto-warmbier

AP: “US SENDS SUPERSONIC BOMBERS IN SHOW OF FORCE AGAINST N.KOREA”

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The United States flew two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Tuesday in a show of force against North Korea, South Korean officials said.

“The U.S. often sends powerful warplanes in times of heightened animosities with North Korea, and flew B-1B bombers several times this year as the North conducted a series of banned ballistic missile tests.

“Tuesday’s flights by B-1Bs came shortly after the death of a U.S. college student who was recently released by North Korea in a coma following more than 17 months of captivity.

“Seoul’s Defense Ministry said the bombers engaged in routine exercises with South Korean fighter jets aimed at showing deterrence against North Korea.

“The U.S. military said the bombers conducted two separate drills with the Japanese and South Korean air forces. It said the flights demonstrated solidarity among South Korea, Japan and the United States “to defend against provocative and destabilizing actions in the Pacific theater.”

“The United States stations tens of thousands of troops in South Korea and Japan. . .”

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_KOREAS_TENSIONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-06-20-09-46-25

LEADS

Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times:” Study supports Trump: 5.7 million noncitizens may have cast illegal votes”

HT InfoWars

“A research group in New Jersey has taken a fresh look at postelection polling data and concluded that the number of noncitizens voting illegally in U.S. elections is likely far greater than previous estimates.

“As many as 5.7 million noncitizens may have voted in the 2008 election, which put Barack Obama in the White House. . .”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/19/noncitizen-illegal-vote-number-higher-than-estimat/

Kurt Schlichter, TownHall: “If the Left Wins Their Soft Coup, Everyone Loses – But Mostly Them”

“You have to wonder how liberals think this works. So, a manifestly conflicted special counsel leading a pack of maxed-out Democrat donors decides Donald Trump has to be kicked out of office for “obstructing justice” regarding a cynical lie about him cavorting with the Kremlin and…then what? President Pence, until they do the same thing to him? Or do we just skip right to President Felonia von Pantsuit, shrug our shoulders, and give up on our foolish dream of having a say in our own governance?

“Straightforward from here is…chaos.

“Because normal Americans are woke to the scam. No, the affidavits of a zillion DC/NY establishment types attesting to Robert Mueller’s impeccable integrity – ever notice how the guy trying to hose us always has the establishment’s “impeccable integrity” merit badge – are not going to make us unsee the fact that he’s carrying water for an establishment that thinks we need to just shut up and obey.

“Now, pulling off the soft coup is going to be harder than they think. The establishment has not thought this out. They sort of assume that if they squelch Trump then everything somehow just goes back to them being in unchallenged control. Wrong.

Mueller can’t indict Trump – that stupid Constitution, always getting in the way! No, the goal is for Mueller and his crack team of committed liberal activist lawyers to generate some head-shaking, tsk-tsk, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, report claiming Trump “obstructed” the probe into Hillary’s Trump/Russia collusion lie that even the liberals reluctantly acknowledge never happened.

“But their problem is that impeachment is a purely political act – this isn’t going to get tried before some leftist DC judge and a 96% Democrat DC jury. No, they have to convince the Republican members of the House of Representatives to impeach and, well, have you taken a look at a political map of the US lately? It’s as red as a baseball field full of conservatives after a Bernie Bro shows up with a rifle.

“Now, in the circle of jerks that is DC, congressmen are bombarded with the Trump obstruction narrative. Many neutered professional conservatives, eager to return to the old status quo where they sort-of mattered, are helping our enemies. Some of these congressmen are themselves Fredocons, weak and stupid, and are listening. Some might be swayed – except in a couple weeks they have to go home and be around normal people, and they’re going to hear something completely different.

“Normal people aren’t falling for it. . .”

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/06/19/if-the-left-wins-their-soft-coup-everyone-loses–but-mostly-them-n2342884

Rich Lowry, NRO: “Yes, Hate Speech Is Free Speech”

“The Supreme Court protected free speech with their decision in Matal v. Tam.

“With the Left feverishly attempting to squash unwelcome speech on college campuses, with the president of the United States musing about tightening libel laws, with prominent liberals asserting that so-called hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment, free speech in America at least has one reliable friend — the Supreme Court of the United States.

“In a firm 8-0 decision, the court slapped down the Patent and Trademark Office for denying a band federal trademark registration for the name ‘The Slants,’ a derogatory term for Asian-Americans. The case involves a very small corner of federal law, but implicates the broader logic of political correctness, which is that speech should be silenced for the greater good if there is a chance that someone, somewhere might be offended by it.

As it happens, The Slants is an Asian-American band that seeks to “reclaim” and “take ownership” of anti-Asian stereotypes (it has released albums called The Yellow Album and Slanted Eyes, Slanted Hearts). This didn’t matter to the trademark office any more than it presumably would to the dean of students at the average liberal-arts college. The Slants appealed the initial rejection to the trademark office, got rebuffed again and then rightly made a federal case of it. The litigation hinged on a provision of federal trademark law referred to as the “disparagement clause.” This clause forbids registration for any trademark “which may disparage … persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt or disrepute.” Taken literally, this provision would forbid the disparagement of the KKK, an institution; or Benito Mussolini, a person who is dead; or Vladimir Putin, a person who is living. The trademark office interprets the clause with all the wisdom you’d expect of a federal bureaucracy.
“As it happens, The Slants is an Asian-American band that seeks to “reclaim” and “take ownership” of anti-Asian stereotypes (it has released albums called The Yellow Album and Slanted Eyes, Slanted Hearts). This didn’t matter to the trademark office any more than it presumably would to the dean of students at the average liberal-arts college. The Slants appealed the initial rejection to the trademark office, got rebuffed again and then rightly made a federal case of it. The litigation hinged on a provision of federal trademark law referred to as the ‘disparagement clause.’ This clause forbids registration for any trademark “which may disparage … persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt or disrepute.” Taken literally, this provision would forbid the disparagement of the KKK, an institution; or Benito Mussolini, a person who is dead; or Vladimir Putin, a person who is living.

“The trademark office interprets the clause with all the wisdom you’d expect of a federal bureaucracy. . . ”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448776/slants-supreme-court-matal-v-tam-decision-protects-free-speech

Mark Levin (06-20- 17)

“On Tuesday’s Mark Levin show, Bernie Sanders is a radical Marxist who believes in violence. Sanders fancies himself a revolutionary and touts an old form of centralized tyranny, but what he preaches is a form of societal perversion and requires a powerful centralized police state. Has Sanders spoke out against his own base for creating violence? No. He is the most irresponsible politician in America and is the most aggressive politician when it comes to overturning the society.

“In addition, capitalism is the best system of wealth creation which socialists and Marxists like Sanders continue to attack. In order to be economically “equal”, you have to destroy the human spirit, private property rights and other things. You would think Sanders would really talk about Venezuela, but he doesn’t’. In Venezuela you have very few rich and many poor. You have the complete destruction of the civil society and economy, because socialism and Sander’s propaganda doesn’t work. Also, Sanders claims that what the Republicans are doing to Obamacare will kill thousands of people. Claims like this push people to the edge. To add, when Republicans buy into socialism they give it aid and comfort. They were given control of Congress yet nothing they said they would do has been done.

“Later, Sen Ted Cruz calls in to talk about free speech on college campuses. Free speech used to be an accepted proposition at colleges and universities. Now faculty and administrators at so many colleges are afraid of disagreement and debate. Now they use their power to eliminate dissent.

http://www.marklevinshow.com/2017/06/20/june-20-2017/

RECOMMENDED: Camille!

Jonathan Last, Weekly Standard: “CAMILLE PAGLIA: On Trump, Democrats, Transgenderism, and Islamist Terror”

She was also interviewed by Hannity last nite – startling! I think I’m in love!

“. . . Like many others, I initially did not take Donald Trump’s candidacy seriously. I dismissed him as a ‘carnival barker’ in my Salon column and assumed his entire political operation was a publicity stunt that he would soon tire of. However, Trump steadily gained momentum because of the startling incompetence and mediocrity of his GOP opponents. What seems forgotten is that everyone, including the Hillary Clinton campaign, thought that Marco Rubio would be the Republican nominee. The moment was ideal for a Latino candidate with national appeal who could challenge the Democratic hold on Florida.

Thus Rubio’s primary-run flame-out was a spectacular embarrassment. Under TV’s unsparing camera eye, he looked like a shallow, dithery adolescent, utterly unprepared to be commander-in-chief in an era of terrorism. Trump’s frankly arrogant self-confidence spooked and crushed Rubio—it was a total fiasco. Ben Carson, meanwhile, with his professorial deep-think and spiritualistic eye-closing, often seemed to be beaming himself to another galaxy. With every debate, Ted Cruz, despite his avid national following, accumulated more and more detractors, repelled by his brittle self-dramatizations and lugubrious megalomania.

There were two genial, moderate Mid-Western governors who could have wrested the nomination from Trump and performed strongly versus Hillary in the general—Ohio’s John Kasich and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker. But they blew it because of their personal limitations: On television, Kasich came across as a clumsy, lumbering blowhard while Walker shrank into a nervous, timid mouse with a frozen Pee-wee Herman smile.

The point here is that Donald Trump won the nomination fair and square against a host of serious, experienced opponents who simply failed to connect with a majority of GOP primary voters. However, there were too many unknowns about Trump, who had never held elective office and whose randy history in the shadowy demimonde of casinos and beauty pageants laid him open to a cascade of feverish accusations and innuendos from the ever-churning gnomes of the cash-propelled Clinton propaganda machine. In actuality, the sexism allegations about Trump were relatively few and minor, compared to the long list of lurid claims about the predatory Bill Clinton.

My position continues to be that Hillary, with her supercilious, Marie Antoinette-style entitlement, was a disastrously wrong candidate for 2016 and that she secured the nomination only through overt chicanery by the Democratic National Committee, assisted by a corrupt national media who, for over a year, imposed a virtual blackout on potential primary rivals. Bernie Sanders had the populist passion, economic message, government record, and personal warmth to counter Trump. It was Sanders, for example, who addressed the crisis of crippling student debt, an issue that other candidates (including Hillary) then took up. Despite his history of embarrassing gaffes, the affable, plain-spoken Joe Biden, in my view, could also have defeated Trump, but he was blocked from running at literally the last moment by President Barack Obama, for reasons that the major media refused to explore.

After Trump’s victory (for which there were abundant signs in the preceding months), both the Democratic party and the big-city media urgently needed to do a scathingly honest self-analysis, because the election results plainly demonstrated that Trump was speaking to vital concerns (jobs, immigration, and terrorism among them) for which the Democrats had few concrete solutions. Indeed, throughout the campaign, too many leading Democratic politicians were preoccupied with domestic issues and acted strangely uninterested in international affairs. Among the electorate, the most fervid Hillary acolytes (especially young and middle-aged women and assorted show biz celebs) seemed obtusely indifferent to her tepid performance as Secretary of State, during which she doggedly piled up air miles while accomplishing virtually nothing except the destabilization of North Africa.

“Had Hillary won, everyone would have expected disappointed Trump voters to show a modicum of respect for the electoral results as well as for the historic ceremony of the inauguration, during which former combatants momentarily unite to pay homage to the peaceful transition of power in our democracy. But that was not the reaction of a vast cadre of Democrats shocked by Trump’s win. In an abject failure of leadership that may be one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of the modern Democratic party, Chuck Schumer, who had risen to become the Senate Democratic leader after the retirement of Harry Reid, asserted absolutely no moral authority as the party spun out of control in a nationwide orgy of rage and spite. Nor were there statesmanlike words of caution and restraint from two seasoned politicians whom I have admired for decades and believe should have run for president long ago—Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. How do Democrats imagine they can ever expand their electoral support if they go on and on in this self-destructive way, impugning half the nation as vile racists and homophobes? . . .”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/camille-paglia-on-trump-democrats-transgenderism-and-islamist-terror/article/2008464

Posted in Conservative, TEA Party | Tagged Chang, Handler, NKor, Ossoff, Warmbier | Leave a comment

Dead Cats: Loretta’sMatter, 06/19/17, (26)39: James Brody

Posted on June 19, 2017 by jamesbrody

Steve Scalise “serious” but not “critical;” HANSON – DJT’s way out; RUSHBO – Trump stars; RUSHBO – Boos at the game.

LEADS: GLICK – RIP; DARWISH – Muslim women; BOLTON & ELIS – Cancel August?; CARNEY – Lynch’s turn; MARK LEVIN 6-16-17.

RECOMMENDED: WILLIAMSON – A century of brutality; WALTER E. WILLIAMS – Erase the past; TYLER DURDEN – ZeroHedge.

Steve Scalise: Morning Joe 6/19/17

“Steve Scalise’s condition upgraded to serious. The condition of Rep. Steve Scalise is now listed as serious but not critical. He spent the weekend watching college sports.”

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/steve-scalise-s-condition-upgraded-to-serious-970939971555

Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness: Trump’s Way Out of the Progressive Labyrinth”

“In every single week of the Trump presidency, the investigators and attorneys of FBI Director James Comey or, subsequently, of special counsel Robert Mueller, have leaked information that President Donald Trump was under investigation for either colluding with the Russians or obstructing justice—allegations so far without any substantiating evidence.

“In the case of Comey, we now know that his office or sympathetic third-parties leaked to the press false stories that Trump was under FBI investigation at precisely the time that the careerist Comey was privately reassuring the president himself that he was in fact not being investigated.

“The appointment of Mueller was a concession to opposition demands that Trump appoint a Lawrence Walsh-type Special Prosecutor. The Comey-Mueller investigations and leaks occur simultaneously with House Intelligence member Adam Schiff’s passive-aggressive and often pompous announcements of evidence of Russian collusion—including raising the specter of a Grand Jury investigation—that are never followed by any evidence.

“Since January 2017, the Congress ceased being a legislative body. It is now a Star-chamber court determined to decapitate the presidency. . .”

“Never in the history of the republic have there been so many legislative and political simultaneous efforts to 1) sabotage the Electoral College, 2) sue to overturn the presidential vote in key swing states, 3) boycott the Inauguration, 4) systematically block presidential appointments, 5) surveille, unmask, and leak classified or privileged information about the elected president, 6) nullify federal law at the state and local level, 7) sue to remove the president by invoking the Emoluments Clause, 8) declare Trump unfit under the 25th Amendments, 9) demand recusals from his top aides, 10) cherry-pick sympathetic judges to block presidential executive orders, 11) have a prior administration’s residual appointees subvert their successor, and 12) promise impending impeachment.

“And that is only the political effort to remove the president. . .”

https://amgreatness.com/2017/06/19/trumps-way-progressive-labyrinth/

Rushbo: Trump Stars

“. . . People are reacting to the media. People are reacting to the independent counsel and all of the congressional investigations, the never-ending, oppressive, try-to-destroy-him coverage of Trump. Then we have the mainstream liberal Democrat shooting up the Republican congressional baseball team at practice earlier this week. And I understand the sentiment.

“People ask me every day, ‘Rush, how long can this go on? Rush, come on. When are the Republicans gonna fight back? Rush, come on. This just can’t keep happening like this. Never seen anything like this.’ I understand the sentiment, folks, but I have a different take.

“Here we are on June the 16th, 2017. This is an anniversary. Do you know what it is the anniversary of? I’m getting blank stares from the other side of the glass. I’ll give you a hint. It’s a two-year anniversary. That’s right. This is the two-year anniversary that Donald Trump and Melania took the escalator down at Trump Tower and Trump made his famous ‘I’m running for the presidency’ announcement, for which learned appellate courts are still using in their rulings on his executive orders.
“Now, let’s look at something, just put it in a little bit of perspective here. For two years, the past two years, not just since Trump was elected and not just since Trump got the nomination, for the past two years the entire media-Democrat complex, and for a period of this you have to include the Republicans in it — in fact, you might still say the Republicans are part of this complex that has spent millions of dollars and countless hours to investigate Donald Trump.

“They have turned over every rock. They have dug as deep as they can. They have used anonymous sources from the deep state. They have made things up. They have even gone so far as to destroy the credibility of their own industries by creating fake news in their effort to get rid of Donald Trump, to produce some information. Some damning evidence of a crime that would have enabled them, A, to deny him the nomination. And after that failed, then to deny him the election. And then after that failed, then to deny him being inaugurated. And then after that failed, now to try to force him out of office.

“To the media-political complex, which we would have to say includes Hollywood and publishing, and of course the media and much of entertainment pop culture, Donald Trump is a nightmare who has come to life. He is a Frankenstein. He is a monster. He is, in their minds, everything they say they detest about human beings.

“The left is not crazy about human beings to begin with. And I don’t say that to try to be funny, or I’m not even exaggerating. They think that many of the problems that exist on planet Earth would not exist if human beings were extinct. So their starting point is to be angry and enraged constantly and to blame human beings. And in the process they create all these negative characteristics about human beings that they blame and detest. Donald Trump has them all.

“In their mind, Donald Trump epitomizes, he encompasses every horrible, rotten, despicable characteristic of human beings. And he beat them. He won the most powerful office in the land. As such, not only did Donald Trump become the president, Donald Trump became the biggest star in the United States. He’s also a star, folks. Do not think that he’s just the president. He is a star. He’s the biggest star. Stars are not always universally loved.

“Trump loves being a star, by the way. It’s one of his earliest objectives, and he has accomplished reaching the pinnacle of stardom. The pinnacle of stardom would be name recognition and everybody in addition to knowing who you are, having an opinion of you. To be obsessed with you, to be consumed by you, Donald Trump has achieved all of this and more by defeating a large group of professionals who hate him, who despise him, who have used every weapon in their arsenal to destroy him. And they have failed.

“To date, they have failed. Trump has become bigger than they ever imagined. . .”

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/06/16/after-two-years-of-attacks-trumps-the-biggest-star-in-the-world/

Rushbo: “Civility? Democrat Congressional Staffers Boo Trump Video at Baseball Game”

“RUSH: So you know I got some snarky comments in the email. “You said there was no unity at the baseball game. There was. There was unity. I saw it, and you shouldn’t mislead people like that.” Washington Times: “Dozens of Congressional Staffers Erupted Into Boos, Jeers, and Even Vulgar Gesticulations.” You know what that means, in Rio Linda? Gesticulations — well, vulgar — yeah, okay. That all happened when President Trump appeared in a video at the congressional baseball game.

“(laughing) It was working. They were succeeding in putting together this phony kumbaya unity situation, and then they had to ruin it by putting a video of Trump on the scoreboard, and Democrat congressional staffers couldn’t stop themselves. They started booing, they started hissing, and they started making obscene gestures, obscene, vulgar gesticulations, blowing the cover of the attempted unity.

“And Trump was delivering a message of unity. Even some fans in the stands were not having it. One of the fans shouted an expletive at the video screen as Trump was telling the fans, “We are showing the world we will not be intimidated by threats.” He’s driving them all crazy.

“I don’t know about you, folks, I kind of love liberals going crazy every day. I love it. I know some of you get mad at it, and I do too at times. And you wish that somebody call ’em out on it, they wouldn’t get away with it or whatever. But I love it when they lose their minds.

I love it when they make fools of themselves. And make no mistake, that is happening. They do not represent the majority of voters in this country by a mile. They are in the minority, these people, and I think it’s something that they may not be consciously aware of, but they know it, and that bothers them too.”

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/06/16/civility-democrat-congressional-staffers-boo-trump-video-at-baseball-game/

LEADS

Caroline Glick, RCP: “Burying Obama’s Legacy”

“It may very well be that this week was the week that Israel and the US put to rest former president Barack Obama’s policies and positions on Israel and the Palestinians.

“If so, the move was made despite the best efforts of Obama’s team to convince the Trump administration to maintain them.

“. . . The article series is predicated on the assumption that Kerry and his team were on the precipice of a historic breakthrough between PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. But a close reading of the documents shows that the opposite was the case.

“There are two reasons that Kerry had no prospects for reaching a deal.

“First, he, Obama and their advisers were too hostile to Israel and its citizens to ever convince Netanyahu that Israel’s interests would be secured.

“A February 2014 draft framework agreement, which was based on conversations Kerry and his team held with Netanyahu and his advisers, makes this clear. The draft includes Netanyahu’s demand that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria not annexed to Israel would remain “in place” after the implementation of a peace deal, and presumably, become towns in the future Palestinian state.

“In other words, Netanyahu demanded that the Israelis in Judea and Samaria whose towns would be located in the territory of “Palestine” would enjoy the same rights and protections as Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy.

“Kerry and his team would have none of it. The February draft agreement notes, “[US] negotiators need to check with PM [Netanyahu] on whether he wants to [maintain this position]… They believe that if so, he will push strongly for ‘in place.’ ‘In place’ is inconsistent with US policy and therefore unacceptable to us as well as the Palestinians.”

“In other words, the position of the Obama administration was that all Israelis living in areas that would become part of the Palestinian state must be forcibly removed from their homes and communities. . .”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/06/16/burying_obamas_legacy_134214.html

“The Joys of Muslim Women”: Nonie Darwish

Another possibility: men and women choose mates with similar traits. That is, smart people tend to marry other smart people. The average IQ in Israel is more than 110; in Palestine – 65-80. She will be less of a scholar and have more problems with planning and impulse control. A Muslim woman may benefit from the protection, food, and supervision that she gets from males and consider herself of less value if she doesn’t get it. . .

“In the Muslim faith a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old

and have sexual intimacy with this child. Consummating the marriage by 9.
“The dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman (who becomes his slave)

and for the purchase of the private parts of the woman, to use her as a toy.
“Even though a woman is abused she cannot obtain a divorce.
“To prove rape, the woman must have four (4) male witnesses.
“Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family

must return the dowry. The family then has the right to execute her (an “honor” killing)

to restore the honor of the family. Husbands can beat their wives ‘at will’

and do not have to say why he has beaten her.
“The husband is permitted to have four wives plus a temporary wife

for an hour (prostitute) at his discretion.
“The Sharia Muslim law controls the private as well as the public life of the woman.
In the Western World (Canada, Australia, Britain and the United States) Muslim men are starting to demand Sharia Law so the wife cannot obtain a divorce and he can have full and complete control of her. It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American, Canadian and British Universities are now marrying Muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Sharia law. . . “

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/muslimwomen.asp

Alexander Bolton & Niv Elis, The Hill: “GOP considers cancelling August recess to salvage agenda”

“Alarmed by the stalemate on healthcare reform, lack of progress on tax reform and appropriations bills that are far behind schedule, Republican lawmakers across Congress are increasingly willing to consider cancelling the month-long August recess.

“Senate Republican negotiators reported that they are not close to a deal on healthcare reform and that scheduling a vote by July 4, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has pushed, is likely unrealistic.

“That impasse has held up work on a budget resolution, which is necessary to move tax reform and the annual appropriations bills.

“Once Republicans vote on a budget resolution for 2018, it will wipe out the special vehicle they plan to use to pass healthcare reform with a simple majority vote — a vehicle that was set up by the budget resolution for 2017.

“Lawmakers calculate there are only 45 legislative days until the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30. . .”

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/338220-gop-considers-cancelling-august-recess-to-salvage-agenda

Jordain Carney, The Hill: “Senate GOP shifts focus to Lynch”

“. . . Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are seizing on Comey’s testimony earlier this month that he was concerned over the former attorney general telling the FBI to refer to the Clinton investigation as a “matter,” which resembled the Clinton campaign line.

“The move could allow Republicans to attempt to pivot away from the investigation into Russia’s election meddling — which top GOP lawmakers have signaled belongs to the Intelligence Committee — and focus on Lynch, who has long been a target of Republicans.

“Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the No. 2 Senate Republican who is a member of both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, said it ‘would be very helpful’ for Lynch to testify before the Judiciary panel, which oversees the Justice Department.

“Frankly a lot of what Hillary Clinton was exposed to by Director Comey’s misconduct and the way he handled that was apparently in response to his lack of confidence in the attorney general, and I think there is a lot we could learn from that,” Cornyn said.

“Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) also wants to hear from Lynch and is pushing for the Judiciary Committee to ‘get more involved.’

“The accusations now that … the current and former attorney general were political – that has nothing to do with Russia as much as it has to do with how the Department of Justice is being run,” he said. ‘I want to find out all about that.’ . . .”

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/338237-senate-gop-turns-focus-on-lynch

Mark Levin (06-16- 17)

“On Friday’s Mark Levin show, Robert Mueller should step down as special prosecutor because of his conflicts of interest. The Deputy Attorney General has already demonstrated poor judgement in selecting Mueller, a friend of James Comey. Comey who was unethical in releasing a memo on a meeting with President Trump, said his goal was to have a Special Counsel appointed. Comey and Mueller have worked together in the Bush administration and are also close personal friends. Their families have had picnics, and had vacations together. Mueller cannot possibly be partial here and is anything but independent. In addition, Mueller has brought in attorneys to help investigate and some have donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and other Democrat campaigns.

“Also, thanks to Comey, the Russian investigation went from a counter intelligence investigation to a criminal investigation. Yet Comey, nicely and neatly closed the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information.

In addition how is Loretta Lynch’s meeting with Bill Clinton on the tarmac not obstruction of justice? How come Comey never kept any notes on Loretta Lynch, yet he kept notes on Trump?Lynch should be the one who should have a special prosecutor investigate her, not Trump.

“Later, if Trump doesn’t defend himself, what other Republican in Congress will? The left is not used to a Republican fighting back. The idea is that if you will only shut up after being attacked, somehow you won’t feed the Iron Triangle. The Iron triangle doesn’t need to be fed but is out for the throat of the President. From the Courts to Congress, to the media and now the Justice Department, Trump has no choice to defend himself.

“After that, Trump has dropped some parts of the agreement with Cuba that Barack Obama made with Raul Castro. Trump put a ban on commercial dealings with Cuba’s military, but Obama’s established diplomatic ties, American embassy in Cuban and other policies will remain in place. Why is our embassy in Cuba’s capital yet not in Israel’s Capital of Jerusalem?

“Finally, James Hodgkinson, the shooter who attempted the assassination of Steve Scalise and other Republicans had a list of Republican names found on his body. Some of the members were members of the Freedom Caucus, a conservative caucus which is despised and often attacked.”

http://www.marklevinshow.com/2017/06/16/june-16-2017/

“It is functioning today as its eugenics-obsessed founders intended. Infanticide did not go out of fashion with the advance from savagery to barbarism and civilization. Rather, it became, as in Greece and Rome, a recognized custom with advocates among leaders of thought and action. — Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race
“. . . The birth-control movement of the Progressive era is where crude racism met its genteel intellectual cousin: Birth Control Review, the in-house journal of Planned Parenthood’s predecessor organization, published a review, by the socialist intellectual Havelock Ellis, of Lothrop Stoddard’s The Rising Tide of Color against White World Supremacy. Ellis was an important figure in Sanger’s intellectual development and wrote the introduction to her Woman and the New Race; Stoddard was a popular birth-control advocate whose intellectual contributions included lending to the Nazi racial theorists the term ‘untermensch’ as well as developing a great deal of their theoretical framework: He fretted about ‘imperfectly Nordicized Alpines’ and such. Like the other eugenics-minded progressives of his time, he saw birth control and immigration as inescapably linked issues.
Stoddard’s views were so ordinary a part of the mainstream of American intellectual discourse at the time that F. Scott Fitzgerald could refer to his work in The Great Gatsby without fearing that general readers would be mystified by the reference. What did Stoddard want? “We want above all things,” he wrote,

‘to preserve America. But “America,” as we have already seen, is not a mere geographical expression; it is a nation, whose foundations were laid over three hundred years ago by Anglo-Saxon Nordics, and whose nationhood is due almost exclusively to people of North European stock — not only the old colonists and their descendants but also many millions of North Europeans who have entered the country since colonial times and who have for the most part been thoroughly assimilated. Despite the recent influx of alien elements, therefore, the American people is still predominantly a blend of closely related North European strains, and the fabric of American life is fundamentally their creation.’

“Yesterday’s scientific progressives are today’s romantic reactionaries. . .”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448746/planned-parenthoods-brutal-century

Replay: Walter E. Williams, Creators: “Rewriting American History”

HT: Red Eye

“George Orwell said, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” In the former USSR, censorship, rewriting of history and eliminating undesirable people became part of Soviets’ effort to ensure that the correct ideological and political spin was put on their history. Deviation from official propaganda was punished by confinement in labor camps and execution.

“Today there are efforts to rewrite history in the U.S., albeit the punishment is not so draconian as that in the Soviet Union. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu had a Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee monument removed last month. Former Memphis Mayor A C Wharton wanted the statue of Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, as well as the graves of Forrest and his wife, removed from the city park. In Richmond, Virginia, there have been calls for the removal of the Monument Avenue statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gens. Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. It’s not only Confederate statues that have come under attack. Just by having the name of a Confederate, such as J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church, Virginia, brings up calls for a name change. These history rewriters have enjoyed nearly total success in getting the Confederate flag removed from state capitol grounds and other public places.

“Slavery is an undeniable fact of our history. The costly war fought to end it is also a part of the nation’s history. Neither will go away through cultural cleansing. Removing statues of Confederates and renaming buildings are just a small part of the true agenda of America’s leftists. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and there’s a monument that bears his name — the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. George Washington also owned slaves, and there’s a monument to him, as well — the Washington Monument in Washington. Will the people who call for removal of statues in New Orleans and Richmond also call for the removal of the Washington, D.C., monuments honoring slaveholders Jefferson and Washington? Will the people demanding a change in the name of J.E.B. Stuart High School also demand that the name of the nation’s capital be changed?

“These leftists might demand that the name of my place of work — George Mason University — be changed. Even though Mason was the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which became a part of our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, he owned slaves. Not too far from my university is James Madison University. Will its name be changed? Even though Madison is hailed as the ‘Father of the Constitution,’ he did own slaves.

“Rewriting American history is going to be challenging. Just imagine the task of purifying the nation’s currency. Slave owner George Washington’s picture graces the $1 bill. Slave owner Thomas Jefferson’s picture is on the $2 bill. Slave-owning Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s picture is on our $50 bill. Benjamin Franklin’s picture is on the $100 bill.

“The challenges of rewriting American history are endless, going beyond relatively trivial challenges such as finding new pictures for our currency. At least half of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were slave owners. Also consider that roughly half of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia were slave owners. Do those facts invalidate the U.S. Constitution, and would the history rewriters want us to convene a new convention to purge and purify our Constitution?

“The job of tyrants and busybodies is never done. When they accomplish one goal, they move their agenda to something else. If we Americans give them an inch, they’ll take a yard. So I say, don’t give them an inch in the first place. The hate-America types use every tool at their disposal to achieve their agenda of discrediting and demeaning our history. Our history of slavery is simply a convenient tool to further their cause.”

https://www.creators.com/read/walter-williams

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge. Email available!

http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Posted in Conservative, Impeachment, TEA Party | Tagged Hanson, Islam, Lynch, Scalise, Williams | Leave a comment

Dead Cats: DadsDay, 06/16/17, (26)38: James Brody

Posted on June 16, 2017 by jamesbrody

CONTENTS:

ROGER SIMON – Mueller’s civil war; HANSON – Divided?; WILLIAMSON – Violent Left.

VIRGINIA SHOOTING: AP – Scalise condition; RODRIGUEZ & CLARK – Record crowd; DRUDGE LINKS 6-15-17.

LEADS: CHAVEZ – Putin offers Comey asylum; WSJ – ACA secret history; WASHINGTON TIMES – Shooting Republicans; STOLTZFOOS – Palin apology; BARRETT – DJT investigated; MARK LEVIN 6-15-17.

PA: SNYDER – PoliticsPA.

RECOMMENDED: WALTER E WILLIAMS – Rewriting history; JEFFREY LORD – Bill Maher’s free speech; Zero Hedge; Hannity on Health Care.

“What we are witnessing is a cross between “Animal Farm” and Ugo Betti’s “Corruption in the Palace of Justice” as produced by Jeff Bezos. It also resembles the techniques employed during Stalin’s show trials when “information” was leaked to the reliable press to assure the discrediting of defendants in advance of their testimony. Considering what we have seen in recent days, I have no doubt that some of these leakers would love to see both Trump and Kushner sent to the Gulag, if only we had one. . .” Roger Simon

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2017/06/15/does-robert-mueller-want-to-cause-a-civil-war/

Roger Simon, PJM: “Does Robert Mueller Want to Cause a Civil War?”

“How are we supposed to take the myriad leaks coming from Robert Mueller’s special investigation of what I guess we could call “The Russian Matter”?

“You would think that on the day Rep. Steve Scalise was shot the lava-like flow of illegal and frequently inaccurate leaked information being promulgated ad infinitum by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and CNN (among others) would stop for a moment’s respectful pause, but no — at least not at the Washington Post.

“That very day they were ‘reporting’ [scare quotes deliberate] that five, count ’em five, needless-to-say unnamed “officials” [scare quotes again deliberate] were saying Donald Trump is under investigation for obstruction of justice by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

“In Thursday’s WaPo ‘exclusive,’ it’s son-in-law Jared Kushner under the leak-o-scope. This article, like the one before, is accompanied by the paper’s typical boilerplate that they seem to have in macro. (Do they teach this in j-school now?):

The officials who described the financial focus of the investigation spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

I thought they weren’t ‘authorized’ to speak at all. I thought it was against the law to leak — naive me.

Obviously, the Post doesn’t care. A scoop’s a scoop to these denizens of digital Grub Street who seem to have to sprung virtually unchanged from the pages of Boswell’s ‘London Journal,’ or is it Evelyn Waugh?

“These leaks have appeared only days after this supposedly confidential investigation began. Where did they come from? Inside the FBI? If so, that organization (with five leakers!) is seriously corrupt and should be disbanded. Yes, you read that correctly. If serial leaks are coming from the FBI, our leading law enforcement agency is betraying the America people and is staffed with a number of criminals of the most despicable entitled sort. They think they know what’s best for us hoi polloi, so they are allowed to break the law with impunity when the rest of us poor schmucks have to tow the line on a parking ticket. Over such things are civil wars and revolutions fought (taxation without representation, etc.) — with justification.

“That is a big story, bigger even than Trump/Russia (well, that wouldn’t be hard). Whether or not Trump obstructed justice we have no way of knowing (though Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley are skeptical), but we do know that illegal leakers are all over our government from intelligence agencies to the FBI. This is quite simply totalitarianism on the march, the subversion of the rule of law in a democratic republic. . .”

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2017/06/15/does-robert-mueller-want-to-cause-a-civil-war/

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO: “Can a Divided America Survive?”

“History has not been very kind to countries that enter a state of multicultural chaos.

“The United States is currently the world’s oldest democracy.

“But America is no more immune from collapse than were some of history’s most stable and impressive consensual governments. Fifth-century Athens, Republican Rome, Renaissance Florence and Venice, and many of the elected governments of early 20th-century Western European states eventually destroyed themselves, went bankrupt, or were overrun by invaders.

“The United States is dividing as rarely before. Half the country, mostly liberal America, is concentrated in 146 of the nation’s more than 3,000 counties — in an area that collectively represents less than 10 percent of the U.S. land mass. The other half, the conservative Red states of the interior of America, is geographically, culturally, economically, politically, and socially at odds with Blue-state America, which resides mostly on the two coasts.
“The two Americas watch different news. They read very different books, listen to different music, and watch different television shows. Increasingly, they now live lives according to two widely different traditions.
Barack Obama was elected president after compiling the most left-wing voting record in the U.S. Senate. His antidote, Donald Trump, was elected largely on the premise that traditional Republicans were hardly conservative.

“Red America and Blue America are spiraling into divisions approaching those of 1860, or of the nihilistic hippie/straight divide of 1968.

“Currently, some 27 percent of all Californians were not born in the United States. More than 40 million foreign-born immigrants currently live in the U.S. — the highest number in the nation’s history.

“Yet widely unchecked immigration comes at a time when the country has lost confidence in its prior successful adherence to melting-pot assimilation and integration. The ultimate result is a fragmenting of society into tribal cliques that vie for power, careers, and influence on the basis of ethnic solidarity rather than shared Americanness.

“History is not very kind to multicultural chaos — as opposed to a multiracial society united by a single national culture. The fates of Rwanda, Iraq, and the former Yugoslavia should remind us of our present disastrous trajectory.

“Either the United States will return to a shared single language and allegiance to a common and singular culture, or it will eventually descend into clannish violence. . .”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448643/divided-america-people-must-connect-america-survive

Kevin Williamson, NRO: “The Left Embraces Political Violence”

“It did not take very long to get from “Punch a Nazi!” to “assassinate a congressman.”
“A great deal of spittle has been deployed in the debate over whether or to what extent the Left’s recent indulgence of its penchant for violent rhetoric can be linked to the shooting of Representative Steve Scalise and other members of a Republican congressional baseball team by an angry Democratic activist and Bernie Sanders partisan. But the relevant question here is not violent rhetoric but violence itself. The violence at Berkeley and Middlebury did not lead to the shooting in Alexandria — they are part of the same phenomenon: The American Left has embraced political violence.
“More precisely, the Left has embraced “anarcho-tyranny.” (Yes, I know what kind of man Sam Francis became; his phrase remains useful.) The anarcho part: Progressives including mainstream Democrats have embraced the sort of violence that has been directed against the likes of Charles Murray as an instrument of liberationist politics. Representative Val Demings, a Democratic congressman from Florida, shared her view that the riots greeting Milo Yiannopoulos at Berkeley were “a beautiful sight.” After a physical attack on white nationalist Richard Spencer, Jeremy Binckes of Salon wrote: “Maybe the question shouldn’t be, ‘Is it okay to punch a Nazi?’ but, ‘If you don’t want to be punched in the face, maybe you shouldn’t preach Nazi values to the public?’” A lively debate about the ethics of using violence to suppress certain political views ensued. Short version: Free speech did not experience a runaway victory. . .”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448660/alexandria-shooting-political-violence-left-berkeley-middlebury

VIRGINIA SHOOTING

AP: WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (all times EDT): 11:45 p.m.

“Doctors say the Louisiana congressman wounded during Wednesday’s attack by a gunman on a baseball practice session remains in critical condition but has shown improvement.

“MedStar Washington Hospital Center says Rep. Steve Scalise, who was shot in the left hip, had surgery Thursday related to his internal injuries and a broken bone in his leg. The hospital says Scalise ‘will require additional operations, and will be in the hospital for some time.’”

https://www.apnews.com/7edb0aed4cc7463d9b6132ee34e07bfd

Katherine Rodriguez & Alex Clark, BigGovt: “‘Let’s Play Ball’: 25,000 Dems and Reps Come Together to Celebrate America’s Favorite Pastime in Record Turnout”

“After a politically-motivated shooting that left Republicans and Democrats disheartened about the state of politics, lawmakers and spectators in both parties came together to celebrate America’s favorite pastime at the 56th annual Congressional Baseball Game Thursday evening.

Attendance at the game was a record turnout — nearly 25,000 people attended Thursday night’s game. The 24,959 tickets sold was the most in the game’s history. The game has taken place since 1909.

There was a heightened security presence in light of Wednesday’s shooting. A police helicopter flew overhead and squads of cops clad in bulletproof vests scattered throughout Nationals Park.

Right before people started packing the stadium, Ivanka Trump, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with the players in the dugout.

Soon after, young professionals in their 30s and 40s packed the stadium.

“Before the game began, the announcer asked for a moment of silence in remembrance of the victims of the Alexandria, Virginia, shooting that injured five. Among the injured were House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who was critically injured, Capitol Police Officers David Bailey and Crystal Griner, congressional staffer Zachary Barth, and lobbyist Matt Mika. . .”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/15/lets-play-ball-swamp-temporarily-drains-dems-reps-come-together-25000-celebrate-americas-favorite-pastime-record-turnout/

Drudge Links 6-15-17

CONGRESSMAN STILL IN CRITICAL…
‘Act of God’ shooter’s aim was off…
Security fears grow on both sides of aisle…
NYT: Blame Palin…
SAVAGE: WE ARE AT BOILING POINT. GOING TO BE CIVIL WAR…
COULTER: THE ‘RESISTANCE’ GOES LIVE-FIRE…
Man vowed to hunt Republican rep down, hang him from lamppost…
List of threats against GOP & Trump from Hollywood…

LEADS

Aida Chavez, TheHill: “Putin offers political asylum to Comey”

“Russian president Vladimir Putin on Thursday offered to give political asylum to former FBI Director James Comey, poking at tensions between Comey and President Trump.

“If Comey will be under the threat of political persecution, we are ready to accept him here,” Putin said at a press conference, according to Russian state media outlet TASS.

“Comey testified last week that Trump pressured him to “let go” of the FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, before Trump fired him. Comey acknowledged leaking his personal memos about his conversations with Trump to the media, which the White House has seized on to attack the former FBI head’s credibility.

“Putin compared Comey’s decision to leak details of conversations with Trump to the actions of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency leaker who was granted asylum by Russia.
“This is strange. How then is the director of the FBI any different from Snowden? He is not a head of the special services, but a human rights activist,” Putin said. . .”

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/337907-putin-offers-asylum-to-comey

WSJ: “ObamaCare’s ‘Secret’ History”

“Jonathan Gruber is back and betting again on public ‘stupidity.’

“Senate Republicans continue to negotiate the details of their health-care reform, and one measure of progress is that their opponents are more manic and disingenuous. Progressives who used to deride the GOP for incompetence are now panicked that they may really succeed, and thus the faux tantrums.

“The distortion du jour is that the GOP is operating “in secret.” This week Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of working ‘behind closed doors, writing a bill they won’t let the public read. . . . Today, no Member of Congress can read the bill because we don’t know what it is.’

“Despite Mr. Schumer’s bewilderment, he still knew enough to assert that the Senate bill will “greatly hurt the American people.” Well, which is it? And if Republicans are trying to suppress a public debate about repealing and replacing Obama Care, then they haven’t prevailed, either now or across the presidential campaign. Health care has been central to U.S. political debate for nearly a decade as Democrats created a new entitlement with little public support.

“Compared to that effort, the Senate this time has been a model of deliberative democracy. On Dec. 19, 2009, a Saturday, then Majority Leader Harry Reid tossed the 2,100-page bill the Senate had spent that fall debating and offered a new bill drafted in an invitation-only back room. Democrats didn’t even pretend to care what was in it while passing it in the dead of night on Dec. 24, amid a snowstorm, in the first Christmas Eve vote since 1895.

“Liberals excused this legislative sausage-making as the price of making history, which was an insult to sausages. MIT economist and ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber told an academic audience in 2014 that ‘lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.’

“Mr. Gruber has since re-emerged to complain of the current debate that ‘I’m just worried about the speed they’re moving at for what that implies, because it implies no effort to actually get this right.’ The professor had apologized for what he called his ‘inexcusable’ remarks in 2014 but he’s betting he can con Americans again.

“The irony is that the GOP negotiations are so time-consuming because Senators are trying to improve the product as they build a consensus that can get 50 votes. They’re trying to answer the House bill’s critics on the left and right, not that they’ll get any credit.

“One objection is that the House’s tax credits aren’t generous enough to help the working poor; the Senate is likely to increase their value. Another is that the House’s Medicaid expansion wind-down is too disruptive for Governors to manage; the Senate will probably create a longer off-ramp. When they reach an agreement, they’ll release the specifics.

“The policy parameters are known to anyone paying attention, including those like Mr. Gruber who are arguing in especially bad faith because no bill the Senate could possibly produce would satisfy them. Even as the GOP moves the bill toward the political center, reflexive liberal opposition increases.

“Mr. Schumer claimed Republicans have “solicited zero bipartisan support,” which is hilarious. Democrats opted for total pre-emptive resistance to the Trump Administration, and in January Mr. Schumer and Nancy Pelosi announced together that “we are a united caucus. We are two united caucuses. And we’re united in our opposition to these Republican attempts to make America sick again,” as he put it. House Republicans hadn’t even released a bill at that point and the ObamaCare exchanges were already in increasing distress, but Democrats refused to participate.

“This is also a notable change from 2009-10, when Democrats froze out centrist Republicans who wanted to cut a bipartisan deal of the kind Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy had struck on the children’s health insurance program. The Obama White House preferred a far more liberal program that would complete the entitlement state. The GOP’s obligation now is to start to clean up that mess.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/obamacares-secret-history-1497482858

Washington Times: “A shooting war on Republicans”

“Trump Derangement Syndrome leads to an attempted assassination

“The only person responsible for shooting up a congressional baseball practice Wednesday in Alexandria, wounding a Republican congressman and several aides, is James Thomas Hodgkinson, 66, of Belleville, Ill. He died of a gunshot wound, but it was brought on by the rage in Democratic ranks of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

He was a man consumed by politics. “I know he wasn’t happy with the way things were going, the election results and stuff,” his brother told The New York Times shortly after he got the news. The news, he said, came “totally out of the blue.” His brother, he said, “was engaged in politics but otherwise led a normal life.”

“Engaged in politics but otherwise led a normal life.” This is the coda for our times. Millions are consumed by politics, so unhappy with “the way things are going” that picking up a gun to make their point is regarded as the only recourse, but they “otherwise lead a normal life.”

Trump Derangement Syndrome leads to the obsession that every ill and annoyance of life is the work of Donald Trump, a traitor out to betray the nation to its enemies. Millions of Democrats, disappointed with the results of the 2016 elections, have built their lives around despising the president. It isn’t healthy for the republic, it isn’t healthy for those afflicted and it won’t be healthy for those who die at the hands of assassins.

“The Alexandria assassin, slain at the site, seemed to have been obsessed with equal parts hatred of the president and devotion to Bernie Sanders. “He did not come off as a radical,” a friend in his hometown says of him. “He did not come off as an unstable individual. He wasn’t belligerent, he was just a kind of normal guy.”

Normal, but deranged. Mr. Hodgkinson’s “social media accounts” — Twitter, Facebook and the other instruments of the life of an obsession with trivia — showed him, observes The New York Times, “as deeply committed to liberal politics and distrustful of Republican-controlled Washington. In posts, he rails against Republicans, lavishes praise upon [Mr.] Sanders … and shows a deep engagement with the churn of news coming out of Washington.”

“This is naturally a deep embarrassment for Democrats and particularly for the senator from Vermont, who is naturally against assassins and their grim work. “I am sickened by this despicable act,” Mr. Sanders said in the wake of the incident. “Let me be as clear as I can be. Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society and I condemn this action in the clearest strongest possible terms.”

“To be equally clear, Mr. Sanders is not responsible for what happened at the congressional baseball practice. To make that charge, as some partisans were quick to do on social media, is to betray a fundamental conservative principle, that there is no such thing as collective guilt. Every man is responsible for himself and the things he does.

“But Bernie Sanders is part of those who spread the derangement, of making losing an election, with all the pain that goes with it, both science and art. The derangement he suffers carries over into how he conducts his Senate business. The senator, an atheist, declared he wouldn’t vote to confirm a Trump nominee for a trade post because he doesn’t approve of the nominee’s Christian faith, though the Constitution expressly forbids making a religious test a qualification for office.

“Though neither Mr. Sanders nor any other Democrat is responsible for the attack on the Republican congressmen, but they are responsible for creating the current partisan climate, where anything goes in the crusade to destroy a duly elected and duly qualified president of the United States. Trump Derangement Syndrome will destroy everything we all hold holy and priceless unless political passions can be brought under control. The hour is late.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/14/editorial-a-shooting-war-on-republicans/

Rachel Stoltzfoos, Daily Caller: “NYT Corrects Palin Smear In Editorial On Baseball Shooting”

HT Infowars!

“The New York Times corrected an editorial on the GOP baseball shooting Thursday that baselessly accused Sarah Palin of inciting the 2011 shooting of Gabby Giffords.

“‘An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated that a link existed between political incitement and the 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords,’ the correction reads. ‘In fact, no such link was established.’

“The editorial initially stated there was a ‘clear link’ from Palin’s rhetoric to Giffords’ shooting, as a means of justifying the board’s decision not to place the same kind of blame on Democrats for the baseball shooting. . .”

http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/15/nyt-corrects-palin-smear-in-editorial-on-baseball-shooting/

Devlin Barrett, et al.; WaPo: “Special counsel is investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, officials say”

“The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.

“The move by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump’s conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said.

“Trump had received private assurances from then-FBI Director James B. Comey starting in January that he was not personally under investigation. Officials say that changed shortly after Comey’s firing.

“Five people briefed on the interview requests, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said that Daniel Coats, the current director of national intelligence, Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, and Rogers’s recently departed deputy, Richard Ledgett, agreed to be interviewed by Mueller’s investigators as early as this week. The investigation has been cloaked in secrecy, and it is unclear how many others have been questioned by the FBI.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/special-counsel-is-investigating-trump-for-possible-obstruction-of-justice/2017/06/14/9ce02506-5131-11e7-b064-828ba60fbb98_story.html?utm_term=.89bc0688a283

Mark Levin, (06-15-17)

“On Thursday’s Mark Levin show, The shooting of Republicans in Virginia was predictable as the Leftists have become increasingly lawless and extreme. This personalization of politics, where the left attacks people personally, isn’t new, it’s as old as Marxism. What’s new is its embrace by democrat leadership. Rules for radicals pointed this out when Saul Alinsky wrote: pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it. The democrat party and media have embraced this kind of politics of the street. Of course, the shooter is responsible for his own actions but there’s an atmosphere of violence that has been created by the left. The shooter loved Bernie Sanders, hated America, hated the rich, hated the system and hated President Trump. He hated everything he was told to hate by the left.

“Also, we have roving prosecutor, Robert Mueller, whose subject is whatever he wants to investigate, it’s as broad as he chooses. He’s independent from every branch of government to take down Trump. Now, Mueller is investigating Jared Kushner’s business dealings. This is what happens when you have a king for a prosecutor. Who will charge the prosecutor if the prosecutor violated any laws – like leaking? Nobody. The democrats plan is to have Mueller write a report one day which they will use as a basis for impeachment, not indictment, if they can win back the house. This is their plan and the Republicans allowed it to happen and the Deputy AG, Rod Rosenstein, triggered it.

“Finally, Otto Warmbier is back home from North Korea after 17 months of captivity with a severe brain injury. North Korea is very good at torture, they do it to their citizens. Kim Jung Un needs to be taken out and China needs to do it.

http://www.marklevinshow.com/2017/06/15/june-15-2017/

PA

Sy Snyder, PoliticsPA: 6/16 Ups & Downs

“Congress. After the attack on Congressional Republicans at their practice Wednesday morning, members of Congress came together and reached across the aisle and united behind condemning the violence. Congressman Mike Doyle, who is the manager of the Democratic baseball team, sent a powerful message with the picture of him leading his team in prayer. Everyone at PoliticsPA wished Rep. Steve Scalise, the Capitol Police Officers, and staffers who were injured in the shooting a quick and full recovery.

“Philly Soda Tax. The Commonwealth Court ruled that the Philadelphia soda tax is lawful despite complaints from the American Beverage Association, but the city had to lower its projected revenue from the tax after just a few weeks of the fiscal year made it clear the city would not bring in the expected $46 million.

“Mike Stack. After coming under investigation, people have been rumoring runs to challenge Lieutenant Governor Mike Stack next year. This week, the first official challenger emerged, which may cause more to jump into the race.

“Tom Wolf. Decision Desk HQ entered the race rating game, and gave Governor Tom Wolf good news, rating Pennsylvania as “lean Democratic.” The rating matches up with Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and will likely help Wolf bring in donors and motivate volunteers.

“Kris Hart. How many statewide campaigns have been derailed by a single question? Businessman and former Gubernatorial candidate Kris Hart can be added to the presumably short list. He announced this week that he was running for Governor, but had to quickly cancel his scheduled kickoff event after WHYY reporter Dave Davies learned Hart was not eligible to run for Governor. Hart has not lived in Pennsylvania for the Constitutionally required seven years before running for Governor. He is exploring a bid for U.S. Senate instead.

“Chrissy Houlahan. National Democrats are throwing their support behind Chrissy Houlahan who is running to challenge Congressman Ryan Costello (R-Chester) next year. Houlahan received the early endorsements of VoteVets, EMILY’s List, and was plugged by the DCCC as their candidate in the race.

“Pittsburgh Penguins. As painful as it is to write this, the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup, making them the first back to back Stanley Cup champions since the Detroit Red Wings in 1997 and 1998.”

http://www.politicspa.com/616-ups-downs/83471/

Yet while Maher has never hidden the joy he takes in busting on Trump — or, for that matter, his broadly Democratic leanings — he has distinguished himself from John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers by sucker-punching the Left as gleefully as he does the Right. Before introducing his panel, he talked one-on-one with Elizabeth Warren, the senior senator from Massachusetts, about why Americans chronically vote against their interests. Maher didn’t miss a chance to needle her with one of Trump’s own epithets. Attempting to explain the Democrats’ dismal fortunes with working-class voters, he told her, “They don’t like you, Pocahontas.” Warren didn’t respond to the insult, choosing instead to stare a hole through her host’s high forehead.

A few weeks later, Maher would answer a joke by Nebraska senator Ben Sasse with a similarly tone-deaf response. When Sasse extended an invitation to come work in Nebraska’s fields, Maher playacted surprise and said, “I’m a house nigger.” Whereas the Pocahontas remark prompted another round of an ancient Internet dispute — whether Maher is a misogynist, a dick, or a fearless political savant — the comment to Sasse sparked universal outrage. HBO called it “completely inexcusable and tasteless,” and many clamored for Maher to be fired.

Full disclosure. I’ve been on Bill’s show and, heaven forbid, had a great time. Bill is a liberal, his audience is liberal, the panelists for the most part are liberal. He says outrageous things. And… what?

This time around he said something that truly was offensive, disgracefully so. He quickly and correctly apologized, saying his words were, indeed, “offensive.” CNN wrote up his apology and reported on Maher’s conversation the following week as follows:

“I did a bad thing,” Maher said to his first guest, sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson. “For black folks, that word, I don’t care who you are, has caused pain. I’m not here to do that.”

Maher added that, “It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t said in malice. If it brought back pain to people then that’s why I apologized freely and I reiterated it tonight.”

… “This was just a mistake,” he said. “This was just a dumb interception.”

Later in the show, rapper and actor Ice Cube told Maher that the word is “like a knife” in that it can either be used as a weapon or as a tool.

“I think this is a teachable moment not just to you, but the people watching right now,” Ice Cube told Maher.

Maher responded by saying, “I think the people watching right now are saying, ‘That point has been made.”

My CNN colleague Symone Sanders was also on the show and said that his remark was a “slap in the face to black America.” I rarely agree with Symone, but on this one? Are you kidding? She was right a thousand times over.

This was exactly the way to address this issue. Admit the mistake and have three Americans who are black on the show to discuss. Then… move on to show next.

https://spectator.org/in-defense-of-bill-mahers-free-speech/

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge. Email available!

http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Health Care – Hannity: Josh Umber Sites

Pure = Green Icon
Unknown = Yellow Icon
Hybrid = Red Icon

http://www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper/

Posted in Conservative, Pennsylvania, TEA Party | Tagged Baseball, Comey, Mueller, Palin, Putin | Leave a comment

Dead Cats: FlagDay, 06/14/17, (26)37: James Brody

Posted on June 14, 2017 by jamesbrody

CONTENTS:

Flag Day History; Happy Birthday DJT; BUCHANAN – Civil War?

VIRGINIA SHOOTING – K0PAN ET AL; DRUDGE LINKS

AP – Islamic state urges Ramadan conflicts; HANSON – Comey testimonies; CUNNINGHAM – Special counsel Dem contributors.

LEADS: NUSSBAUM – Megan boycotts; MARK LEVIN 6/13/17

RECOMMENDED: JEFFRY LORD – Free speech; Zero Hedge; Hannity on Health Care.

Flag Day June 14th

“The History of Flag Day”: Duane Streufert

“The Fourth of July was traditionally celebrated as America’s birthday, but the idea of an annual day specifically celebrating the Flag is believed to have first originated in 1885. BJ Cigrand, a schoolteacher, arranged for the pupils in the Fredonia, Wisconsin Public School, District 6, to observe June 14 (the 108th anniversary of the official adoption of The Stars and Stripes) as ‘Flag Birthday’. In numerous magazines and newspaper articles and public addresses over the following years, Cigrand continued to enthusiastically advocate the observance of June 14 as ‘Flag Birthday’, or ‘Flag Day’. . .”

http://www.usflag.org/history/flagday.html

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

“. . . along came the next Republican president, empowered by Obama’s exemptions to do almost anything he wished, albeit without the thin exculpatory veneer of Ivy League pretension, multicultural indemnity, and studied smoothness. . .” Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448562/donald-trump-ironies-wrecking-ball-long-overdue-may-benefit-country

Patrick Buchanan, CNS: “Are We Nearing Civil War?”

“President Trump may be chief of state, head of government and commander in chief, but his administration is shot through with disloyalists plotting to bring him down.
“We are approaching something of a civil war where the capital city seeks the overthrow of the sovereign and its own restoration.
“Thus far, it is a nonviolent struggle, though street clashes between pro- and anti-Trump forces are increasingly marked by fistfights and brawls. Police are having difficulty keeping people apart. A few have been arrested carrying concealed weapons.
“That the objective of this city is to bring Trump down via a deep state-media coup is no secret. Few deny it. . .”

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/patrick-j-buchanan/are-we-nearing-civil-war

Virginia Shooting

Tal Kopan et al. CNN: “Republican House Whip Steve Scalise, congressional staffer shot in Virginia shooting”

“Washington (CNN)Rep. Steve Scalise was shot Wednesday morning in Alexandria, Virginia, a House colleague told CNN, in what sources are calling an apparent “deliberate attack.” A congressional staffer was also shot.

Scalise, a member of the House Republican leadership as the majority whip, appeared to have been shot in the hip and it appeared two Capitol Hill police agents were shot, according to Rep. Mo Brooks, who told CNN he was on deck when the shooting occurred.

The shooting took place at a practice for the GOP congressional baseball team.

In a statement, Texas Rep. Roger Williams, one of the team’s coaches, said one of his staff members was shot during the incident and is receiving medical attention. There was no information on the staffer’s injuries.

According to both congressional and law enforcement sources, the shooting appears to be a “deliberate attack.”

Two law enforcement sources told CNN the shooter, who is in police custody, has been taken to a hospital. . .”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/14/politics/alexandria-virginia-shooting/index.html

Drudge Links

Gunman opens fire at congressional baseball practice…
High-Powered Rifle; More than 50 shots fired…
‘Are Those Republicans or Democrats Out There?’
Kept unloading and reloading…
Capitol Police prevented massacre…
Security tightened at White House…

AP: “ISLAMIC STATE CALLS FOR RAMADAN ATTACKS IN US, EUROPE”

“BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group is calling on supporters to carry out attacks in the United States and Europe during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that began two weeks ago.

“In an audiotape circulated online Monday, spokesman Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajer praised last week’s attacks in Iran’s capital, saying the country is “weaker than a spider’s web” and calling for more assaults.

“Al-Muhajer also called for attacks in Russia and Australia, saying “heaven is reached under the shadow of swords.”

“IS has called for attacks during Ramadan in the past. This year it has claimed responsibility for attacks in Britain, Egypt, Iran and the Philippines that killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds.”

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISLAMIC_STATE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-06-12-15-58-58

Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness: “Who Will Police the Police: The Comey Testimonies”

“Former FBI Director James Comey earnestly lectures about the inaccuracy of leaks and laments that it is not the purview of disinterested federal agencies to correct such erroneous information that the press such as the New York Times recklessly publishes.

“Fine. Yet for the last six months, information in the hands of the FBI, such as the infamous Steele fake-news dossier, a hit piece of opposition research, was leaked by intelligence agencies to the press for political advantage. Comey mirabile dictu himself confesses to planting leaked information to the press of a privileged conversation with the President, via a third-party friend—information that he composed while the Director of the FBI on government time in connection with his job and on a government computer.

“In the age of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, why would a former Director of the FBI himself leak a key government document to the press in deliberate fashion to undermine the president (and in the process mislead about the chronological sequencing of events that prompted him to leak) rather than provide the memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee? Why would he use a third-party to go to the press?

“Comey corroborates his earlier thrice-stated admissions that Donald Trump was never under investigation for collusion with the Russians to subvert the 2016 election, but suggests now that he could not release such exonerating information to the press because he might later have had to go back to amend it should Trump at some such future time become under investigation.

“This is an Orwellian argument—given:

“(1) that it is becoming clear that almost all scurrilous rumors about Donald Trump were leaked to the press by the FBI and other federal agencies—while exculpatory facts, such as that Comey was not investigating Donald Trump, were not leaked;

“(2) that Comey had in fact previously repeatedly done just the opposite of what he said he could not do in the Trump case—namely that he had first disclosed publicly that Hillary Clinton was no longer the subject of a “matter” (in obedience to Loretta Lynch’s mandatory euphemism aimed at helping the Clinton campaign), then later amended that public admission by saying that she was, in fact, again under renewed investigation, and then amending again that amendment by stating that she was no longer a subject of an investigation. In other words, there was no such FBI policy of prudently keeping silent on the progress of an investigation;

“3) that any American citizen in theory could be a future target of any theoretical investigation; but, of course, that fact is no reason for a federal agency to fail to concede that it is not conducting an ongoing federal investigation of said citizen being battered by press leaks and unfounded allegations—unless the aim of a federal agency was to spread doubt about its intentions and thereby cast a prejudicial cloud of suspicion over an individual not under investigation. In Comey’s world, we can all live under a cloud of future investigations, should a mum FBI wink and nod, bob and weave to the press and public about whether we are currently under an investigation—as we are libeled and smeared. . .”

https://amgreatness.com/2017/06/10/will-police-police-comey-testimonies/

Clifford Cunningham, InfoWars: “SHOCK: THREE MEMBERS OF RUSSIA SPECIAL COUNSEL TEAM DONATED TO DEMS”

“One previously represented Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation

“Three members of the legal team hired by special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia overwhelmingly donated to Democrats, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records.

“Mueller selected James Quarles, Jeannie Rhee, and Andrew Weissman to serve on the legal team investigating alleged collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russia, according to reporting by CNN.

“The three attorneys collectively made over $53,000 in political campaign contributions to Democrats since 1998, with over half of those donations coming from Quarles; Quarles was selected by Mueller from his old law firm, WilmerHale.

“Quarles has donated nearly $33,000 to Democratic campaigns, including the presidential campaigns of Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.

In addition, he donated $10,000 to elected Democrats to the House and another $10,000 for the Senate, including Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer.

“Quarles is also the only lawyer who donated to Republican candidates, including a $2,500 donation to Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz in 2015 and a $250 donation to then-Virginia Senator George Allen in 2005. . .”

https://www.infowars.com/shock-three-members-of-russia-special-counsel-team-donated-to-dems/

LEADS

Daniel Nussbaum; Big Journalism: Megyn Kelly Faces Boycott over Alex Jones Interview”

“Megyn Kelly has come under fire for a planned Father’s Day interview with InfoWars founder Alex Jones on her new Sunday night NBC News program, with social media users calling for a boycott of the program’s advertisers and urging others to tune out the show when it airs later this month.

“Kelly shared a preview clip of the interview with Jones on her Twitter account Sunday.

“In the clip, Jones defends against being called “the most paranoid man in the world,” calls the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. an “inside job,” and attempts to deflect criticism for his assertion that the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax.

“In response to the preview, several Twitter users identifying themselves as family members of the 27 victims of the horrific attack tweeted directly to the Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly host to express their outrage that the anchor and NBC would give Jones a platform to discuss his views.

“Cristina Hassinger — daughter of Sandy Hook Elementary principal Dawn Hoschsprung, who was killed in the attack — and Nelba Marquez Greene, who reportedly lost a daughter in the attack, both sent messages to Kelly denouncing the interview.

“Shame on you,” Hassinger wrote. . .”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/06/12/sunday-night-megyn-kelly-faces-boycott-threats-alex-jones-fathers-day-interview/

Mark Levin, (06-13-17)

“On Tuesday’s Mark Levin show, The Democrats are on a Soviet-style hunt against AG Jeff Sessions. But all of the alleged nefarious activity concerning the Russians happened on Barack Obama’s watch. When will the Republicans ask, where were the Democrats when Russia interfered in our elections ? Where was Obama? Where was Loretta Lynch? It was Obama who met with Russian leadership and famously noted the increased flexibility he would have after the upcoming election.

“After that, the President and Senate knew full well that they were going to come up with a liberal version of Obamacare. They are just putting window dressings on it and pretending to repeal it. Now an Obamacare partial repeal that keeps 90% of Obamacare and repeals 10% of it is too much for the President. The premiums and deductibles on healthcare will continue to be punishingly expensive.

“Later, if China won’t do anything about North Korea, then what are we going to do? America needs to build up our economy and tear theirs down. Look at what Ronald Reagan did to the Soviet Union; he put the pressure on them, and they collapsed like a house of cards.

“Finally, the Russians have developed a cyber weapon that is capable of attacking and disrupting electric systems in America. Congress is doing nothing about this and instead we have to listen to foolish hearings on Russian collusion. This Russian weapon is a game changer. Does it sound in any way that the Senate Intelligence Committee is on top of this?”

http://www.marklevinshow.com/2017/06/13/june-13-2017/

PA

Eric Boehm, Reason: “Pennsylvania’s Pension Reforms Aren’t Perfect, But They’re Pretty Good”

“401(k)-style retirement plans will save taxpayers in the long run.

“In a remarkable show of bipartisanship, Republican state lawmakers and a Democratic governor in Pennsylvania approved a pension reform bill moving most future public employees into 401(k)-style retirement plan, helping stanch a $70 billion unfunded liability.

“Gov. Tom Wolf, who signed the bill Monday, said ‘This bill is a win for Pennsylvania taxpayers. It’s also fair to Pennsylvania’s workforce.’

“The reform is far from perfect, but makes several important changes that should help Pennsylvania with a massive pension debt that will still take decades to get out from under. It could also serve as a model for other states dealing with similar pension problems.

“Future state workers and public school employees will be enrolled in a so-called “defined contribution” system, similar to the 401(k) retirement plans commonly used in the private sector that allow individual workers greater control over their savings. Taxpayers will no longer have to make up the difference between what the state promises retirees and what they set aside for themselves.

“Taxpayers, however, are still on the hook for the $70 billion in existing unfunded liabilities. Current workers and retirees will continue to make contributions and collect benefits from to the current “defined benefit” system. New hires by the Pennsylvania State Police and the state prison system are exempted from the reforms and will keep the current defined benefit system, which is nothing more than an act of political favoritism.

“Annual payments into that system will cost Pennsylvania taxpayers more than $4 billion this year. Those contributions will continue to grow annually through the early 2020s—accounting for as much as 10 percent of the state’s whole budget by 2019, according to the Wall Street Journal—before leveling off and eventually declining over the course of several decades as current enrollees stop collecting benefits when they die.

“Still, after years of struggling to get a pension reform bill passed while watching the unfunded liability grow ever larger—and in an environment that required bipartisan support for reforms—the passage of SB 1 is something to applaud. . .”

http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/12/pennsylvanias-pension-reforms-arent-perf

Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge: “Sessions to Testify Publicly Before Senate Intel Committee Tomorrow”

“After a lot of rumors, anonymous sources and back and forth over the weekend on whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions would appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee to discuss the Russia investigation, and whether that testimony would be public or private, it has now been confirmed that Sessions will appear tomorrow at 2:30PM EST and his testimony will be open for the world to see. . .”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-12/sessions-testify-publicly-senate-intel-committee-tomorrow

Andrew McCarthy, NRO: “Thinking about the Comey Memos”

“The commentary about James Comey’s memoranda has been all over the map. The former FBI director says he made memos contemporaneous to, or immediately after, all nine of the meetings or phone calls he recalls having had with Donald Trump, when the latter was president-elect and, later, president. Comey acknowledges that he orchestrated the leak of at least one memo — or rather, a snippet mined from its contents — to the New York Times. All of the memos, he testified, have now been surrendered to the special counsel, Robert Mueller. George Washington University’s Jonathan Turley does a good job in The Hill
outlining much of the relevant law. One major issue is whether these documents belonged to Comey, in the sense of being his property rather than the government’s. That is the position he took in his testimony. Like Turley, I think the former director is wrong.

“As a longtime prosecutor, I have a black-and-white test for this sort of thing: Would a judge in a criminal trial consider the documents to be government property for purposes of federal discovery law?
“That law requires the government to disclose to the defense any prior statement made by a witness, written or otherwise recorded, that is in the government’s possession. It also mandates that the government disclose any information that is material to the preparation of the defense (such as evidentiary exhibits that the prosecution plans to introduce into evidence). Finally, the government must produce any exculpatory evidence — meaning, any evidence that (a) suggests the accused is not guilty, (b) contradicts the prosecution’s theory of the case, or (c) could be used to impeach a witness’s testimony.
“Comey’s notes may fall into all three of those disclosure categories. . . “
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448529/comey-memos-leaking-improper

NY Post: “Another Iran deal low for the Obama administration”

“Just a week after the US Senate failed to stop the Iran nuclear deal, Tehran launched a major cyberattack on the State Department — and the Obama administration kept it secret.

“The Washington Free Beacon broke the story last week, revealing that Team Obama was even more craven than we’d thought.

“The two sides were then still negotiating the “side deals” to finalize the accord; it wasn’t too late to stop it. And the attack showed that Iran wouldn’t remotely begin to moderate its ways, as the Obamaites had hoped.

“Indeed, the hacking seemed to target the State personnel involved in those negotiations — the better to wring a last few concessions, no doubt.

“It’s obvious why Iran thought it could get away with it: Washington had proved willing to cede every point in order to reach a deal.

“President Trump has yet to junk the deal, and understandably so: President Barack Obama gave away so much up front (billions iAnn cash as well as hundreds of billions in sanctions relief) that America may be better off trying to make the rest of it stick.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Obama’s chief foreign-policy achievement was in fact a shameful defeat for the nation and the world.”

http://nypost.com/2017/06/11/another-iran-deal-low-for-the-obama-administration/

DIANNE FEINSTEIN?

Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge: “Feinstein: “Congress Should Investigate If Lynch Pressured Comey to Cover for Hillary Clinton””

“In a surprisingly non-partsian take by Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the California senator said that Congress should investigate whether – as we discussed last Thursday – former Attorney General Loretta Lynch pressured former FBI Director James Comey to cover for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“I think we need to more about that, and there’s only one way to know about it and that’s to have the Judiciary committee take a look at that.”

“As we noted last Thursday, Comey testified last Thursday that it gave him a ‘queasy’ feeling after Lynch asked him to characterize his probe into Clinton’s emails as a ‘matter,’ rather than an investigation. He told the Senate Intelligence Committee that such a request would match the wording of Clinton’s campaign. Feinstein said she would’ve also felt queasy.

“‘I would have a queasy feeling, too, though, to be candid with you,’ the longtime Senate Democrat said. She added that an investigation separate from the ongoing probe into Russian interference in the election is needed. . .”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-11/feinstein-congress-should-investigate-if-lynch-pressured-comey-cover-hillary-clinton

Peter Hasson, Daily Caller: “Dem Senator Wants Investigation into Lynch Interference on Clinton Email Investigation”

“Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein called for the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate former attorney general Loretta Lynch instructing James Comey to mislead the public about the Clinton email investigation.

“Comey testified on Thursday that Lynch instructed him, without explanation, to call the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use a private email server as secretary of a state a “matter” instead of an investigation. Lynch’s request, Comey said, made him feel “queasy” as it appeared she was “looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way the political campaign was describing the same activity, which was inaccurate.” (RELATED: Bush AG: Lynch ‘Betrayal’ Made DOJ ‘An Arm of The Clinton Campaign’)

“‘I would have a queasy feeling, too,’ Feinstein admitted in a Sunday morning interview on CNN. ‘I think we need to know more about that and there’s only way to know about it, and that’s to have the judiciary committee take a look at that.’”

http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/11/dem-senator-wants-investigation-into-lynch-interference-on-clinton-email-investigation/

Jeffrey Shapiro, Breitbart: “Dianne Feinstein Still Dogged by Allegations of Conflicts of Interest” (6-6-2012)

“The victor in yesterday’s California primary in the U.S. Senate, incumbent Democrat Dianne Feinstein, has long faced questions about potential conflicts of interest in Congress, according to Breitbart News sources. Specifically, for at least 15 years, Feinstein has appeared to support government contracts that push federal funds toward companies co-owned or governed by her powerful, billionaire husband, Richard C. Blum.

Breitbart News found evidence of possibly inappropriate influence from the period when Feinstein served on the Military Construction Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Subcommittee (MILCON), which supervises military construction and oversees quality of life concerns for veterans, including the building of clinics and hospitals for wounded soldiers and housing for military families. . . .”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2012/06/06/dianne-feinstein-still-dogged-by-allegations-of-conflicts-of-interest/

LEADS

Cody Derespina, Fox: “Ivanka Trump surprised by ‘viciousness,’ ‘ferocity’ of father’s critics”

“Ivanka Trump, in an interview Monday with “Fox & Friends,” said she has been surprised by the “viciousness” and “ferocity” that greeted her father’s presidency — but also said President Trump felt “very vindicated” by former FBI Director James Comey’s recent Senate testimony.

“Ivanka, a political novice like her dad who has been thrust into the Washington spotlight as a senior adviser to the president, nevertheless glided past the more controversial interview topics like a seasoned vet Monday. But she did provide a glimpse into the first family’s daily battle with detractors.

“‘There’s a level of viciousness that I was not expecting,’ Ivanka said, in between promoting Trump’s initiatives in infrastructure and job creation. ‘I was not expecting the intensity of this experience.’

She added: ‘But this isn’t supposed to be easy. My father, and this administration, expects to be transformative.’

“President Trump has been routinely assailed by a Democratic opposition that, at the least, seeks to stall his ambitious agenda and, in some corners of the party, seeks impeachment.

“‘Some of the distractions and some of the ferocity, I was a little blindsided by on a personal level,’ Ivanka said.

“She said, however, that Comey’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday backed up much of what her dad had been telling the press – to little avail – for months: that Trump was not being personally investigated for any alleged Russia ties and that Comey had orchestrated a leak to The New York Times on at least one occasion. . .”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/12/ivanka-trump-surprised-by-viciousness-ferocity-fathers-critics.html

Alexander Bolton, The Hill: “Comey fallout weighs on the GOP”

???

“Former FBI Director James Comey did not inflict any deadly blows against President Trump when he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, Republicans believe, but they’re concerned there will be more damaging revelations in the weeks ahead. . .”

“Republican lawmakers are under increasing pressure as, four months into Trump’s first term, they cannot point to any major accomplishments besides conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Instead, Trump’s political problems have distracted from the agenda.

“Republicans have publicly downplayed Comey’s testimony, but privately they’re nervous that they’re burning through the legislative calendar while remaining deadlocked over healthcare reform. Meanwhile, unfinished work on tax reform, infrastructure investment and the budget piles up behind it. . .”

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/337200-comey-fallout-weighs-on-the-gop

Niv Ellis, The Hill: “Economy emerges as bright spot for Trump”

“. . .The S&P 500 is up more than 12 percent since Election Day, unemployment has reached a 16-year low and economic growth in the coming year is expected to reach 2.3 percent, more robust growth than the 1.6 percent it grew in 2016.

“Trump sought to play up his handling of the economy again on Friday at an event to end a week meant to highlight his efforts on legislation to fund new infrastructure projects across the country. . .”

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/337203-economy-emerges-as-bright-spot-for-trump

Terence Jeffrey, CNS: “U.S. Mining Industry Sees First Profitable Quarter in 2 Years”

“(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. mining industry had its first profitable quarter in two years in the first quarter of this year, according to data published last week by the U.S. Census Bureau.

“In the first three months of 2017, U.S. mining corporations with assets of $50 million or more had combined after-tax profits of $1.957 billion, according to the Census Bureau, which has posted quarterly U.S. mining industry after-tax profits and losses going back to the fourth quarter of 2000.

“The after-tax profit that the U.S. mining industry earned in the first quarter of this year was a dramatic reversal from the first quarter of last year, when mining corporations with assets of $50 million or more posted losses of $27.075 billion. . .”

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/us-mining-industry-posts-first-profitable-quarter-2-years

Andrew Klavan, PJM: “Corruption and Collusion: Obama, Comey, and the Press”

“It now seems clear that Barack Obama was a corrupt machine politician in the worst Chicago mold. He used the IRS to silence his enemies, and the Justice Department to protect his friends. His two major “achievements” — a health care law that doesn’t work and a deal that increased the power and prestige of the terrorist state of Iran — were built on lies to the public and manipulation of the press. And that’s according to his own allies! Only the leftist bias and racial pathology of the media kept his administration from being destroyed by scandal, as it surely would have been had he been a white Republican.

“I don’t mention this to bring up old grudges, but for what it says about the current moment and the week just passed. Here’s some of what we recently learned:

“Former FBI Director James Comey’s Senate testimony concerning former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s corruption confirmed our worst suspicions about the Obama DOJ. In an apparent attempt to help Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Lynch told Comey to refer to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s abuse of classified material as “a matter” rather than an investigation. And, as we already knew but Comey confirmed, Lynch’s secret tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton so underscored Comey’s sense of her crookedness that the self-serving drama queen Comey actually went around her to publicly declare Hillary guilty-but-not-guilty.

“‘It won’t get much attention, but that was pretty damning,’ said CNN’s John King of Comey’s testimony about Lynch. You can translate ‘it won’t get much attention’ into ‘we won’t give it much attention.’

“But all that was nothing compared to the brutal, nearly 300-page report released last week by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a report absolutely blasting the previous Obama AG, Eric Holder. The report details how Holder and the Obama administration labored to cover up the details of the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal — a scandal which, unlike the non-collusion-with-Russia non-scandal, was implicated in the murder of an American law officer. Even the mom of the slain officer couldn’t get the truth out of Holder and his cronies. The report says Holder considered the officer’s family a “nuisance” because they were trying to get him to tell them how exactly the lawman died at the hands of gangsters who were wielding guns Obama’s DOJ had allowed them to buy. . .”

https://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/2017/06/11/corruption-and-collusion-obama-comey-and-the-press/

Ryan Lovelace, Washington Examiner: “Leading liberals develop blueprint to expand ‘deep state’ and undercut Trump”

HT Joel Pollak of Breitbart

“Forlorn liberals took refuge at the American Constitution Society’s national convention in Washington this week, discussing whether to encourage the growth of the “deep state” resistance inside the government or fight President Trump from outside.

‘The election of Donald Trump was an assault on the federal bureaucracy,’ William Yeomans said to a room full of students and civil servants, including those recently displaced by Trump’s administration. ‘His values are simply not consistent with the values of people who are committed to public service and who believe deeply in the importance of public service.’

“Yeomans, an American University law professor with more than 25 years of experience at the Justice Department, was holed up inside the Capital Hilton hotel downtown on a sunny Friday afternoon leading a panel of bureaucrats and scholars divided about how best to fight Trump.

“UCLA law professor Jon Michaels said he favors filling the Trump administration with liberals opposed to Trump’s agenda.

“‘We hear a lot of language about draining the swamp and this idea about a deep state that somehow was going to thwart the intentions or the political mandate of the president,’ Michaels said. “I kind of embrace this notion of the ‘deep state.'”

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/leading-liberals-develop-blueprint-to-expand-deep-state-and-undercut-trump/article/2625576

Kevin Williamson, NRO: “A Satisfying ‘Star Wars’ Sequel”

“Ronald Reagan is owed an apology. In 1983, President Reagan gave a speech in which he called for the development of a missile-defense system. The project was called the Strategic Defense Initiative, but Democrats and their media cheerleaders mocked it as “Star Wars,” its announcement coming, as it did, shortly after Reagan’s equally detested “Evil Empire” speech. Reagan laid out a broad vision for a long-term investment in technological development, possibly involving everything from satellites to lasers.

“Reagan’s critics especially hated the lasers. They thought he was just a goofy old man who’d spent too much time in the movies.
“In a recently authored memo, the Pentagon’s chief weapons-tester (the acting director of Operational Test and Evaluation), upgraded our current missile-defense system from “limited capability” to “demonstrated capability.” This followed a successful test of the system, in which it was used to intercept and destroy a dummy intercontinental ballistic missile. The small change in wording represents a big change in confidence.
“A missile-defense system is a textbook public good, which is to say, non-rivalrous and non-excludable in consumption: If a missile is stopped from hitting San Francisco, the benefit is not apportioned according to user fees. It is also a long-term project necessitating substantial investments in basic science, which means spending a great a deal of money following a great many promising ideas to a great many dead ends, which is how a great deal of science is done. Put another way: Developing a missile-defense system is precisely the sort of thing that the federal government exists to do. It is the opposite of the “free false teeth” school of government. . .”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448473/ronald-reagan-missile-defense-star-wars-initiative-huge-success-despite-critics

Amnesty Bill: ENLIST – Janet

HEALTH CARE

REPLAY: Kevin Williamson, NRO: “So, You Want a Swiss Health-Care System?”

Health Care – Hannity: Josh Umber Sites

NKOREA

Gordon Chang, Daily Beast: “High Noon in North Korea: Is Trump Ready for War?”

John Hayward, Breitbart: “North Korea ‘Willing to Talk’ Moratorium on Weapons Testing ‘If Our Demands Are Met’”

LEADS

Mark Sherman, AP: “Kennedy?”

NY Post: “Why Bernie Sanders needs a lawyer”

McCarthy, NRO: “The Antithesis of Obstruction”

Kit Daniels, InfoWars: “REPORT: TRUMP TO GET SECOND SUPREME COURT PICK”

Sara Burnett, AP: “Illinois could be 1st state with ‘junk’ credit due to budget”

PA

Nathan Benefield, CommonwealthFoundation: Stop Calling for Higher Taxes”

RECOMMENDED:

Daniel Chaitin, Washington Examiner: “Wikileaks founder Julian Assange explains why the Democratic party is doomed”

Amnesty Bill: ENLIST – Janet

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO: “Trump and his Generals” “Trump’s reliance on his generals shows that he values merit over politics.

PA

Leo Knepper, CAP: “Not buying the hype”

HEALTH CARE

Sean Moran, BigGovt: “Exclusive–Sen. Rand Paul on Senate Healthcare Legislation: ‘I Think the Bill Looks Too Much Like Obamacare’”

Alan Fram & Ricardo Zaldivar, AP: “GOP’s challenge: finding votes for Senate health care bill”

Daniel Horowitz, Conservative Review: “Conservatives, time to jump ship from phony Obamacare repeal”

Sean Moran, Big Govt: “Senate Releases Healthcare Bill”

Kevin Williamson, NRO: “So, You Want a Swiss Health-Care System?”

Health Care – Hannity: Josh Umber Sites

NKOREA

Gordon Chang, Daily Beast: “High Noon in North Korea: Is Trump Ready for War?”

John Hayward, Breitbart: “North Korea ‘Willing to Talk’ Moratorium on Weapons Testing ‘If Our Demands Are Met’”

LEADS

Dan Lyman, InfoWars: “CENTRAL EUROPEAN NATIONS FORMING NEW ANTI-MIGRANT DEFENSE COALITION”

Byron York, Washington Examiner: “Byron York: Georgia vote says more about Trump now than House in ’18”

NY Post: “Good riddance to the Russia myth — and blame Team Obama for promoting it”

Mark Levin (06-22- 17)

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO: “The Architecture of Regime Change”

GEORGIA/SOUTH CAROLINA

Rushbo: Georgia Pajama Boy

Bill Barrow & Kathleen Foody, AP: “In Georgia, Handel reaches out to Democrats and thanks Trump”

Charlie Spiering, BigGovt: “‘Laughing My Ossoff’ — Kellyanne Conway Celebrates Humiliating Democrat Defeat”

RCP: “South Carolina 5th District – Live Results”

NKOREA

NRO: “North Korea’s Brazen Act”

Gordon Chang, Daily Beast: “State-Sanctioned Murder: North Korea Killed Otto Warmbier”

AP: “US SENDS SUPERSONIC BOMBERS IN SHOW OF FORCE AGAINST N.KOREA”

LEADS

Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times:” Study supports Trump: 5.7 million noncitizens may have cast illegal votes”

Kurt Schlichter, TownHall: “If the Left Wins Their Soft Coup, Everyone Loses – But Mostly Them”

Rich Lowry, NRO: “Yes, Hate Speech Is Free Speech”

Mark Levin (06-20- 17)

RECOMMENDED: Camille!

Jonathan Last, Weekly Standard: “CAMILLE PAGLIA: On Trump, Democrats, Transgenderism, and Islamist Terror”

Steve Scalise: Morning Joe 6/19/17

Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness: Trump’s Way Out of the Progressive Labyrinth”

Rushbo: Trump Stars

Rushbo: “Civility? Democrat Congressional Staffers Boo Trump Video at Baseball Game”

LEADS

Caroline Glick, RCP: “Burying Obama’s Legacy”

“The Joys of Muslim Women”: Nonie Darwish

Alexander Bolton & Niv Elis, The Hill: “GOP considers cancelling August recess to salvage agenda”

Jordain Carney, The Hill: “Senate GOP shifts focus to Lynch”

Mark Levin (06-16- 17)

RECOMMENDED

Kevin Williamson, NRO: “Planned Parenthood’s Century of Brutality”

Replay: Walter E. Williams, Creators: “Rewriting American History”

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge. Email available!

Roger Simon, PJM: “Does Robert Mueller Want to Cause a Civil War?”

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO: “Can a Divided America Survive?”

Kevin Williamson, NRO: “The Left Embraces Political Violence”

VIRGINIA SHOOTING

AP: WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (all times EDT): 11:45 p.m.

Katherine Rodriguez & Alex Clark, BigGovt: “‘Let’s Play Ball’: 25,000 Dems and Reps Come Together to Celebrate America’s Favorite Pastime in Record Turnout”

Drudge Links 6-15-17

LEADS

Aida Chavez, TheHill: “Putin offers political asylum to Comey”

WSJ: “ObamaCare’s ‘Secret’ History”

Washington Times: “A shooting war on Republicans”

Rachel Stoltzfoos, Daily Caller: “NYT Corrects Palin Smear In Editorial On Baseball Shooting”

Devlin Barrett, et al.; WaPo: “Special counsel is investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, officials say”

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO: “Trump and his Generals”
“Trump’s reliance on his generals shows that he values merit over politics.