Never Again: What makes the United States of America unique in the world is that we are a Republic, based on the rule of law, not some political mob at any given point in time. What happened to Michael Flynn should never again be permitted in our country, by any political party, President or law enforcement agency for any reason.
Having trust in our system, knowing that most judges and leaders will defend your individual freedoms and not politicize law enforcement for partisan advantage is paramount in a fair and open system.
Take the time to read some of the articles below. The action taken for blatant political reasons are disturbing and unbelievable in a free society. We have to do whatever it takes to make sure this kind of political gamesmanship never happens again.
CoronaVirus: Still something to be aware of. Be smart. Pay attention to the advice health care professionals are giving. Be diligent about your habits. Do your part to help. This is serious and should be taken seriously.
It’s a problem. It was not Trump’s fault. The haters just have to get over it and pitch in to help make this better. Let’s learn from this and be a better country for it.
It isn’t and shouldn’t be political.
Use common sense, keep your distance, touch less, clean everything and say a little prayer, it can’t hurt!
-Saul Anuzis
Amazon will help US if you say yes: At NO cost to you, you can help the 60 Plus Foundation in its efforts to support conservative policies to protect senior citizens, get rid of the death tax and defend social security and medicare using sound fiscal policies.
Sign up…and Amazon will donate 0.5% of what you spend to the Foundation! Please help us out by signing up here…at NO cost to you!
Weekly News Video Summary
Links to the articles discussed in the video:
The Vindication of Michael Flynn
The Justice Department dropped its case against Michael Flynn on Thursday, “with prejudice,” in a legal filing that should echo far beyond this tragedy of justice delayed. The latest evidence further undermines the credibility of James Comey’s FBI, special counsel Robert Mueller, and the entire “Russia collusion” investigation.
The retired Army general had initially pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI on Jan. 24, 2017, when two agents interviewed him at the White House shortly after he took over as Donald Trump’s national security adviser. But he later reversed his plea as new information emerged that the FBI may have tried to entrap him.
The documents filed on Thursday in federal court vindicate the general’s reversal. Justice said the FBI’s interview of Mr. Flynn was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn,” and that the interview was not “conducted with a legitimate investigative basis.”
Dirty Dozen: The 12 revelations that sunk Mueller’s case against Flynn
Shortly after my colleague Sara Carter and I began reporting in 2017 on the possibility that the FBI was abusing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on Americans during the Russia investigation, I received a call. It was an intermediary for someone high up in the intelligence community.
The story that source told me that day — initially I feared it may have been too spectacular to be true — was that FBI line agents had actually cleared former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn of any wrongdoing with Russia only to have the bureau’s leadership hijack the process to build a case that he lied during a subsequent interview.
In fact, my notes show, the source used the words “concoct a 1001 false statements case” to describe the objections of career agents who did not believe Flynn had intended to deceive the FBI. A leak of a transcript of Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador was just part of a campaign, the source alleged.
Michael Flynn’s prosecution was a travesty of justice
It has long been obvious that the case brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller against Michael Flynn stunk to high heaven. That has been copiously confirmed over the last three weeks as the Justice Department made a series of stunning disclosures that undermined whatever vestige of propriety remained.
General Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, served fleetingly as President Trump’s first national security advisor. At the time, in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s stunning defeat in the 2016 election, the media-Democrat complex fueled a “collusion” narrative — purportedly, Trump had schemed with Russia to hack Democratic email accounts, and would now do the Kremlin’s bidding from the Oval Office.
Flynn was caught up in this fever dream because, as a top Trump campaign adviser and transition official, he had some conversations with the Russian ambassador — just as he was speaking with many foreign dignitaries.
Woodstock Occurred in the Middle of a Pandemic
In my lifetime, there was another deadly flu epidemic in the United States. The flu spread from Hong Kong to the United States, arriving December 1968 and peaking a year later. It ultimately killed 100,000 people in the U.S., mostly over the age of 65, and one million worldwide.
Lifespan in the US in those days was 70 whereas it is 78 today. Population was 200 million as compared with 328 million today. It was also a healthier population with low obesity. If it would be possible to extrapolate the death data based on population and demographics, we might be looking at a quarter million deaths today from this virus. So in terms of lethality, it was as deadly and scary as COVID-19 if not more so, though we shall have to wait to see.
“In 1968,” says Nathaniel L. Moir in National Interest, “the H3N2 pandemic killed more individuals in the U.S. than the combined total number of American fatalities during both the Vietnam and Korean Wars.”
And this happened in the lifetimes of every American over 52 years of age.
I was 5 years old and have no memory of this at all. My mother vaguely remembers being careful and washing surfaces, and encouraging her mom and dad to be careful. Otherwise, it’s mostly forgotten today. Why is that?
Nothing closed. Schools stayed open. All businesses did too. You could go to the movies. You could go to bars and restaurants. John Fund has a friend who reports having attended a Grateful Dead concert. In fact, people have no memory or awareness that the famous Woodstock concert of August 1969 – planned in January during the worse period of death – actually occurred during a deadly American flu pandemic that only peaked globally six months later. There was no thought given to the virus which, like ours today, was dangerous mainly for a non-concert-going demographic.
Stock markets didn’t crash. Congress passed no legislation. The Federal Reserve did nothing. Not a single governor acted to enforce social distancing, curve flattening (even though hundreds of thousands of people were hospitalized), or banning of crowds. No mothers were arrested for taking their kids to other homes. No surfers were arrested. No daycares were shut even though there were more infant deaths with this virus than the one we are experiencing now. There were no suicides, no unemployment, no drug overdoses.
1996 court document shows Tara Reade told ex-husband of harassment in Biden’s Senate office
A 1996 court document obtained by the San Luis Obispo Tribune shows that Tara Reade, the former Senate aide who has accused former Vice President Joe Biden of sexual assault, told her ex-husband about “a problem she was having at work regarding sexual harassment in U.S. Senator Joe Biden’s office.”
The new findings come as the Biden campaign has sought to locate a 1993 complaint of sexual harassment Reade claims she filed at the time.
In March, Reade publicly alleged that Biden had sexually assaulted her. She did not formally report the alleged sexual assault until April of this year, when she filed a police report in Washington, D.C.
Devos’s new Title IX guidance is a win for America’s rule of law tradition
Hats off to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who earlier this week officially reformed the rules governing sexual misconduct claims on America’s college campuses.
The move made Joe Biden unhappy; he immediately promised to reverse Devos’s reversal. Odd, given that the misconduct charge he faces would see him booted from most universities under the old rules, which were implemented when he was vice president.
It’s been hard, however, for Biden’s media allies to find fault with Devos’s plan. She has carefully designed a program grounded in principle and subjected to rigorous public comment—a sharp departure from the status quo ante.
Facebook names 20 people to its ‘Supreme Court’ for content moderation
The list includes nine law professors, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Yemen and journalists but no disinformation experts.
Facebook on Wednesday appointed 20 people from around the world to serve on what will effectively be the social media network’s “Supreme Court” for speech, issuing rulings on what kind of posts will be allowed and what should be taken down.
The list includes nine law professors, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Yemen, journalists, free speech advocates and a writer from the libertarian Cato Institute.
Absent, however, was any prominent expert in studying disinformation. Facebook has struggled to contain state-based manipulation efforts as well as hoaxes on subjects like false cures and gun violence.
DOJ Drops Case Against Flynn And More Shoes Are Bound to Fall.
On Thursday the U.S. Department of Justice dropped the case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. As Fox News reports, the announcement came “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.”
The new information included handwritten notes from FBI agents reading: “What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” Agents also thought Flynn had done nothing wrong but FBI counterintelligence boss Peter Strzok kept the “Crossfire Razor” case open. When FBI agents threatened Flynn’s son with prosecution, the general pled guilty to lying. That forced him to lawyer up and in short order Flynn’s life and reputation fell into ruin. That was doubtless part of the FBI’s intention.
The case should have been dropped months ago, Sen. Charles Grassley told reporters Thursday. According to Grassley, the National Security Advisor planned major changes in the intelligence community, which sought to take him down. On the other hand, as Andrew McCarthy explains, the real quarry was Trump, target of the “Crossfire Hurricane” operation to remove him from office.
Obama knew details of wiretapped Flynn phone calls, surprising top DOJ official in meeting with Biden, declassified docs show
President Obama was aware of the details of then-incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn’s intercepted December 2016 phone calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, apparently surprising then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, according to documents released Thursday as exhibits to the government’s motion to dismiss the Flynn case.
Obama’s unexpectedly intimate knowledge of the details of Flynn’s calls, which the FBI acknowledged at the time were not criminal or even improper, raised eyebrows because of his own history with Flynn — and because top FBI officials secretly discussed whether their goal was to “get [Flynn] fired” when they interviewed him in the White House on January 24, 2017.
Obama personally had warned the Trump administration against hiring Flynn, and made clear he was “not a fan,” according to multiple officials. Obama had fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014; Obama cited insubordination, while Flynn asserted he was pushed out for his aggressive stance on combating lslamic extremism.
House Democrat Nadler vows to bring Barr to Capitol Hill, after dropping Flynn case
House Democrats immediately criticized Attorney General William Barr’s move Thursday to drop the Justice Department case against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and signaled a new round of investigations.
New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Barr’s decision was “outrageous” and that he would summon him to Capitol Hill as soon as possible – with Election Day just six months away.
Barr, nominated to his post by President Trump in 2018, was supposed to testify in March before the committee, but the hearing was cancelled because of the coronavirus.
“Rest assured, we are going to reschedule that hearing, ASAP, and demand answers! Flynn PLEADED GUILTY to lying to investigators,” Nadler tweeted. “The evidence against him is overwhelming. Now, a politicized DOJ is dropping the case.”
Obama, Biden Oval Office Meeting On January 5 Was Key To Entire Anti-Trump Operation
Information released in the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case it brought against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn confirms the significance of a January 5, 2017, meeting at the Obama White House. It was at this meeting that Obama gave guidance to key officials who would be tasked with protecting his administration’s utilization of secretly funded Clinton campaign research, which alleged Trump was involved in a treasonous plot to collude with Russia, from being discovered or stopped by the incoming administration.
“President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia,” National Security Advisor Susan Rice wrote in an unusual email to herself about the meeting that was also attended by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, FBI Director James Comey, and Vice President Joe Biden.
The Breathtaking Hypocrisy of Dianne Feinstein
Go read Reagan’s post on Dianne Feinstein’s embarrassing performance yesterday on Capitol Hill, after she was asked about her treatment of Christine Blasey Ford in 2018 versus her treatment of Tara Reade now. Feinstein was the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Kavanaugh fiasco — which burst into the open despite her initial decision that Ford’s allegation against him wasn’t backed by sufficient evidence to pursue as an issue during the confirmation fight. But the information she’d seen and shelved behind the scenes leaked to the press at the eleventh hour, and the rest is history. (My best guess, incidentally, remains that the culprits were either ideological leftists on the committee staff, or one of the Democratic members who was planning to run for president).
I’ll remind you that not only did Feinstein say and tweet many sentiments in support of Dr. Ford, she even insisted on including the deranged, debunked, lunatic ravings of Julie Swetnick — of ‘gang rapes’ and Avenatti notoriety — in her formal questioning of Kavanaugh. In fact, she and every one of her party’s judiciary members seized on that insane accusation as the moment to demand Kavanaugh’s withdrawal. That embarrassing document remains accessible on their website. It is profoundly damning, especially in light of the utter garbage Feinstein is currently spouting:
Prevent Medicare’s ‘Pandemic Penalty’ on Seniors
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit seniors particularly hard. While no one is spared the risks of this virus, nearly three out of four deaths involve patients over age 65, many of whom also have one or more underlying medical conditions.
But it is not just exposure to COVID-19 that threatens seniors. There is also a threat to seniors’ future health benefits if the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) does not adjust its payment formulas for Medicare Advantage in response to the pandemic’s impact on health care.
More than 24 million Americans choose Medicare Advantage (MA) plans because of their comprehensive and cost-effective approach to providing care. Each year, CMS is required by law and regulation to decide how much it will pay MA plans, known as the “MA rate notice,” based on the medical experience of the prior year. This is a sensible approach that helps ensure that the health status and utilization of medical services by seniors is reflected in subsequent rates.
The MA rate notice is finalized early in the year so that Medicare Advantage plans have time to submit their bids for the following year. Unfortunately, the April 6 rate notice this year, which was issued at a time consistent with historic practice, came at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Why does this matter?counterintelligence.
Chinese Military Cyber Spies Just Caught Crossing A ‘Very Dangerous’ New Line
“This is the most extensive operation we have ever reported by a Chinese APT group,” the cyber researchers at Check Point told me, warning just how “targeted and sophisticated” this five-year campaign had been. Multiple overseas governments have been compromised by this threat group’s cyber weapons, and those government systems have been used to attack other countries.
The military espionage group’s tactics, described by Check Point as “very dangerous,” involved hijacking diplomatic communication channels to target specific computers in particular ministries. The malware-laced communications might be sent from an overseas embassy to ministries in its home country, or to government entities in its host country. “The group has introduced a new cyber weapon crafted to gather intelligence on a wide scale, but also to follow intelligence officers directives to look for a specific filename on a specific machine.”
Meet Naikon, a cyber reconnaissance unit with links to the People’s Liberation Army, outed in a ThreatConnect and Defense Group Inc. report in 2015. Back then, the group’s operations were described as “regional computer network operations, signals intelligence, and political analysis of the Southeast Asian border nations, particularly those claiming disputed areas of the energy-rich South China Sea.”
