Apparently NOT if you’re an Obama Administration official. Lying to Congress is a crime and Roger Stone was arrested and charged with lying to Congress. If convicted, he should received the “appropriate†punishment based on the “blind†administration of crime and punishment.
But…a big but, is if you are an Obama Administration member who lied to Congress (Hillary, CIA, FBI, IRS and more) apparently being arrested by the FBI’s heavily armed tactical team is reserved for retired 66 year old, with no passport, who support President Trump. Not to mention CNN’s early and illegal tip off of the operation.
Every civil libertarian in the country, from the right or the left should be outraged and worries. Politicizing our law enforcement and government agencies to engage in campaign related activities is VERY dangerous.
NEW Fairness Doctrine: Conservatives are regularly, if not systematically, getting “suspended†from their online social media accounts by the liberal online social media giants…while porn and swearing or attacking the president are ignored as “OK†speech.
I hate the idea of some kind of new “Fairness Doctrine†or federal regulation that has to protect free speech, but we may not have an option?
Non-Interventionist Hawk: Read the article below about Senator Ted Cruz’s speech to AEI. He lays out a rationale policy, a mix between Rand Paul and Dick Cheney. It makes a lot of sense and keeps us out of endless wars and nation building.
Book Recommendation: I just finished reading two books that I wanted to share with you and suggest you would find them very interesting and potentially insightful…if you haven’t already read them.
The author is Peter Zeiman, formerly with Stratfor:
The Accidental Superpower and The Absent Superpower
The premise is based on the geopolitical realities of “demography†and “geography†which are the key determinant factors in so many geopolitical situations. I don’t normally suggest/ push books in general, but these two have made a lasting impact on my thinking and are very timely.
-Saul Anuzis
Trump declares emergency on border, eyes $8B for wall as he signs spending package
President Trump said Friday he is declaring a national emergency on the southern border, tapping into executive powers in a bid to divert billions toward construction of a wall even as he signs a funding package that includes just $1.4 billion for border security.
“We’re going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border … one way or the other, we have to do it,†Trump said in the Rose Garden.
The move is expected to face a swift and forceful legal challenge that could stall the attempt in the courts for the near future. But the declaration and other money-moving plans allow Trump to continue to fight for border wall construction while also averting another partial government shutdown — which would have been triggered at midnight absent the new funding package. He signed the spending deal Friday afternoon.
Trump, in the Rose Garden, declared once again that “walls work” as he confirmed the emergency declaration would accompany the spending legislation.
“We’re talking about an invasion of our country,” Trump said.
Are We Really on the Brink of Electing a Socialist President?
Voters could be willing to elect a would-be socialist over a president they have never liked.
Has the socialist moment finally arrived in the United States? Increasingly, the Democratic party seems to think so. Capitalism has had a nice run for the past couple hundred years, but now it is time to let the technocrats take control of . . . pretty much everything — from health care to education to energy to banking.
This kind of view has long had a space in the Democratic party — recall Huey Long’s slogan, “Every man a king†— but it seems to be going mainstream. The wacky ideas of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are not limited to the lefty fringe of the House backbench but instead are being endorsed by major presidential candidates. And why not? Winning the Democratic nomination is going to require somebody to forge a coalition between minority voters and upscale white progressives, and the latter can’t get enough of AOC’s statist utopia.
But does this make for good politics? National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar — one of my favorite political analysts — is dubious. In a typically sober analysis, he argues:
GALLUP POLL: 69{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1} of Americans ‘Optimistic’ on Economy, 50{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1} Better Off, Highest since 1998
New Gallup Poll released Monday shows a whopping 69{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1} of Americans are “optimistic†regarding their personal finances and expect their position to “improve over the next year.â€
“Americans’ optimism about their personal finances has climbed to levels not seen in more than 16 years, with 69{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1} now saying they expect to be financially better off ‘at this time next year,’†writes the survey.
“The 69{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1} saying they expect to be better off is only two percentage points below the all-time high of 71{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1}, recorded in March 1998,†adds the poll.
The strong economic data comes as more and more Democrats officially enter the 2020 race for the White House, with liberal politicians blasting the economic recovery as un-even and unfair.
Read the full report here.
Michael Bloomberg’s $500 million anti-Trump moonshot
The sum represents a floor, not a ceiling, on the billionaire’s potential spending to defeat the president in 2020.
Billionaire philanthropist Michael Bloomberg is preparing to spend at least $500 million from his own pocket to deny President Donald Trump a second term, according to Democratic operatives briefed on his plans.
Bloomberg has not yet announced whether he will run in the Democratic primary. If he runs, he will use that half-billion-dollar stake — roughly $175 million more than the Trump campaign spent over the course of the entire 2016 election cycle — to fuel his campaign through the 2020 primary season, with the expectation that the sum represents a floor, not a ceiling, on his potential spending.
If Bloomberg declines to seek the presidency, his intention is to run an unprecedented data-heavy campaign designed to operate as a shadow political party for the eventual Democratic nominee.
A New Conservative Agenda
What has been known as conservatism in the Republican party since Ronald Reagan left office, fully thirty years ago, has become inadequate. This has been evident for a while, though we’re only now noticing. From the Great Recession and loss of manufacturing jobs to perpetual war in the Islamic world and intensifying culture war at home, conservatism as the GOP understood it over the last few decades was not only not the answer to our woes but was in many cases their cause. Thus our present moment: Post-Reagan conservative intellectuals soldier on in think tanks and on opinion pages, but conservative voters are abandoning the cause.
Donald Trump’s program when he arrived on the national scene four years ago was in almost every respect the opposite of conservative orthodoxy: on trade, on the Iraq War, on the need to apologize for politically incorrect utterances (and sometimes worse). Yet Republican voters preferred Trump over the paragons of every major conservative faction in the 2016 primaries: the latest establishment Bush; the neocon of the future, Marco Rubio; the libertarian Rand Paul; Ted Cruz, the movement conservative’s conservative; and every other flavor. Those who claimed that Trump only won because the field was so divided overlooked the obvious. If post-Reagan conservatism was satisfactory, there should have been a plurality for any one of its champions, not for the candidate who campaigned like a Nixon Republican.
So now conservatism is in flux. There are those who still insist on the old formulas. There is the Trump administration, with its inevitably imperfect implementation of his campaign agenda. There are Trump imitators, mostly unsuccessful so far. And there are a great many politicians and policy minds attempting to combine something of Trump with a traditional post-Reagan Republican program. Which way is a conservative to choose, with eyes on the good of the country, not just on the success of a faction?
Ted Cruz’s ‘Non-Interventionist Hawk’ Foreign Policy Is Exactly Right
While Cruz dedicated wide swaths of his speech to the procedural need for Congress to reassert its foreign affairs constitutional duties in the face of an increasingly runaway Executive Branch, the substantive portions of the speech with respect to foreign policy doctrine are more enticing.
Since joining the U.S. Senate in 2013, Cruz’s foreign policy has consistently been in the wide chasm between Ron Paul-style isolationism and Dick Cheney-style moralistic interventionism. Cruz has been blisteringly hawkish on true national security threats to the United States and our core allies — his stances on the Shiite supremacist Iranian terror regime mullocracry and the Sunni supremacist Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas alike both come to mind — but as a doctrinal rule, he has generally been warier of the risk of prolonged military deployments.
In 2014, conservative columnist Matt Lewis defended Cruz’s “militaristic pessimism” as “prudent and cautious and realistic…in a dangerous world.” Today, in his AEI address, Cruz referred to himself as a “non-interventionist hawk.” In so doing, he called for a national interest-based “third option” and cautioned against “rush[ing] into the arms of isolationism as if it were the only reasonable alternative to interventionism.”
Courts Should Not Defer to Trump’s National-Security Pretext
Earlier today, Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that President Trump will sign the compromise government funding bill and “will also take other executive action — including a national emergency — to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border.†These are ominous words, indicating that the president is prepared to defy Congress and the plain language of the relevant statutes in a blatant abuse of power. Moreover, because he’s apparently set to invoke “national security,†the stakes are particularly high. Here’s why.
Traditionally, the Supreme Court has granted the president an immense amount of deference on matters of national security. While that deference isn’t unlimited (see Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer), as a general matter, courts are reluctant to intervene when the president invokes his powers as commander-in-chief, preferring to leave key national security determinations to the political branches. But if the courts defer here, they’ll set a dangerous precedent. They’ll permit the president to override a comprehensive civilian statutory border-protection scheme in the absence of any armed conflict or event the reasonable prospect of any armed conflict on the southern border.
The border-security mission with an allied nation is a civilian mission. The border wall is a civilian structure that will be manned by civilian government employees. The border-security scheme is set by congressional statute (and is set to be modestly supplemented by the very compromise funding bill that Trump is about to defy). The wall is not a military fortification. Moreover, crime prevention and the enforcement of criminal laws is also fundamentally a civilian mission. The president waving his hands and citing “national security†doesn’t change any of these facts.
‘Strategic messaging’: Russian fighters in Arctic spark debate on Canada’s place at the top of the world
Recent Russian moves in the Arctic have renewed debate over that country’s intentions and Canada’s own status at the top of the world.
The newspaper Izvestia reported late last month that Russia’s military will resume fighter patrols to the North Pole for the first time in 30 years. The patrols will be in addition to regular bomber flights up to the edge of U.S. and Canadian airspace.
“It’s clearly sending strategic messaging,†said Whitney Lackenbauer, an Arctic expert and history professor at the University of Waterloo. “This is the next step.â€
Russia has been beefing up both its civilian and military capabilities in its north for a decade.
Sweden says it built a Russian fighter jet killer — and stealth is totally irrelevant
The commander of Sweden’s air force, Mats Helgesson, recently made the bold statement that his country’s Saab Gripen E fighter could beat Russia’s formidable fleet of Sukhoi jets with none of the expensive stealth technology the US relies on.
“Gripen, especially the E-model, is designed to kill Sukhois. There we have a black belt,” Helgesson told Yle at a presentation in Finland, where Sweden is trying to export the jets.
Russia’s Sukhoi fighters have achieved a kind of legendary status for their ability to out-maneuver US fighter jets in dogfights and pull off dangerous and aggressive stunts in the air, but Gripen may have cracked the code.
The Gripen can’t carry the most weapons and has no real stealth. And it isn’t the longest-range, the fastest, or even the cheapest jet. But it has a singular focus that makes it a nightmare for Russia’s fighter jets.
70 Percent Of Deaths Among Working Age Russian Men Alcohol Related
Russian health minister Veronika Skvortsova, says 70 percent of deaths among working-age men are alcohol-related, even though consumption of alcohol and alcohol surrogates has fallen in recent years. Her words have sparked controversy with some doubting the overall figure, others her claims about declining consumption, and some about both.
Skvortsova made her declaration in an interview carried on Vesti FM, but it immediately attracted attention from the mass media, health care experts, and political figures because the issue of super-high adult male mortality is one of the most important and most sensitive issues in Russia today.
Super-high male mortality has long been a feature of Russian life, and bringing it down is critical for the country’s economic future and for boosting life expectancies. Russia has made great strides in reducing infant and child mortality – which have the biggest effect on life expectancy figures — but it has had much less success in dealing with adult male mortality rates.
Russia considers ‘unplugging’ from internet
Russia is considering whether to disconnect from the global internet briefly, as part of a test of its cyber-defences.
The test will mean data passing between Russian citizens and organisations stays inside the nation rather than being routed internationally.
A draft law mandating technical changes needed to operate independently was introduced to its parliament last year.
The test is expected to happen before 1 April but no exact date has been set.
At San Francisco International Airport, private contractors handle security screening. Is it the airport of the future?
During the partial government shutdown, screeners at two Silicon Valley airports, San Francisco and San Jose International, moved thousands of people through security checkpoints.
Operations at the airports, 35 miles apart, looked similar — uniformed officers reminding people to take off their shoes and put their laptops in plastic bins — but there was one major difference: Only the officers at the San Francisco airport were getting paid.
That’s because San Francisco International is one of nearly two dozen airports across the country that use private contractors instead of the Transportation Security Administration to conduct its security screening.
As the shutdown stretched from days into weeks, growing numbers of TSA workers stopped showing up. At one point, 10 percent of TSA officers failed to report for duty.
New Surveillance Footage of FBI Raid on Roger Stone’s Home Reveals Excessive Show of Force
Newly released surveillance footage from former Trump adviser Roger Stone’s home shows CNN arriving about an hour before a fleet of trucks filled with heavily armed agents arrived to arrest the 66-year-old.
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson aired the footage during his show Friday night, saying, “The footage depicts what you’d expect if the FBI raided the home of a Mexican drug lord.â€
Stone was charged last month on seven counts, including five for making false statements to Congress, one for witness tampering, and one for obstruction of a government proceeding.
“For context, Roger Stone is a senior citizen accused of false statements to Congress. Take a look at what happened. It’s just before 5 a.m., and an SUV with a CNN cameraman arrives first to this quiet street in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,†Carlson said.
U-Haul move data reveals shifting American political landscape
Geography has become a crucial definer of American politics, as vote data suggest we are increasingly a nation of red communities and blue communities. And through that lens, new data from U-Haul offers a glimpse into 2018’s internal population migration and its potential electoral implications.
Every year the moving company lists its top moving destinations across the United States, gathered from more than 2 million one-way rental contracts at its 21,000 locations across the United States. And depending on how you view the numbers, 2018’s version had some good news for both Republicans and Democrats.
Looking at the numbers at the state-level, everything seems to be coming up crimson.
National debt tops $22 trillion for the first time as experts warn of ripple effects
The national debt surpassed $22 trillion for the first time on Tuesday, a milestone that experts warned is further proof the country is on an unsustainable financial path that could jeopardize the economic security of every American.
The Treasury Department reported the debt hit $22.012 trillion, a jump of more than $30 billion in just this month.
The national debt has been rising at a faster rate following the passage of President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax-cut package a little more than a year ago and as the result of congressional efforts to increase spending on domestic and military programs. The nation has added more than $1 trillion in debt in the last 11 months alone.
“Reaching this unfortunate milestone so rapidly is the latest sign that our fiscal situation is not only unsustainable but accelerating,†said Michael A. Peterson, chief executive officer of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonpartisan organization working to address the country’s long-term fiscal challenges.
For Americans, the growing debt should be a concern, experts said, because over time it can push up interest rates for consumers and businesses. The higher rates can ripple through the economy, nudging up rates for mortgages, corporate bonds and other types of consumer and business loans.
Putting it together: the Clintons and the Russians
John Solomon, writing for THE HILL, just keeps ‘em coming. The guy is on fire these days — probably in possession of much more than he is telling right now so that each revelation can have its moment — and with a new attorney general coming in and Lindsay Graham heading the Senate Judiciary Committee, we can at least hope the information won’t be left to die like an unwanted newborn in a New York delivery room.
The latest installment makes the case that it was Hillary Clinton who made use of Russian connections, through the Clinton Foundation and big-time donor Russian oligarch (rich guy) Viktor Vekselberg, along with several American donors who wanted to partner with him, while she was Secretary of State. At the exact time Bill was pocketing a cool half-million dollars to give just one speech in Moscow, Hillary was working on that Russian re-boot (never mind that her “reset†button actually said “overcharge†in Russian), teaming with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and then-President Dmitri Medvedev to create U.S. technology partnerships in Skolkovo, which was headed by Vekselberg and which Solomon describes as “Moscow’s version of Silicon Valley.â€
Daily Caller Editor In Chief Locked Out Of Account For Tweeting ‘Learn To Code’
The Daily Caller Editor in Chief Geoffrey Ingersoll was locked out of his Twitter account Tuesday night after tweeting “learn to code†at The Daily Show.
The Daily Show’s Twitter account made a video game-related joke about President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address, ribbing that the president unlocked the “asymmetrical background†achievement by getting Vice President Mike Pence to stand but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to remain seated.
“Learn to code,†Ingersoll replied.
The Caller editor received notification from Twitter shortly thereafter indicating that he would have to delete the tweet or remain locked out of his account. Ingersoll’s tweet allegedly “violated the Twitter rules,†according to a review, but Twitter did not say which specific rule or rules had been violated. (RELATED: Two Conservatives Suspended From Twitter — One For Tweeting About Brussels Sprouts)
