A federal judge’s ‘tell’ in his order forcing Trump to turn over financial records to House committee. Thomas Lifson – “In effect, Judge Mehta has made himself the Supreme Court of the United States as far as litigant Donald Trump is concerned.”

“A stay of a ruling with irreversible consequences is standard operating procedure. In this case, once the records would be turned over before the appeals process could play out, any appeals reversal would be moot, since the records, once disclosed, cannot be made private and confidential once again. …

This is a “tell” – an unintentional indication that the judge is biased and willing to deny the right to appeal his decision in order to advance the political agenda of the House Democratic Caucus, as expressed through Representative Cummings’s committee’s subpoena.
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I expect an immediate appeal of the order to the DC Court of Appeals requesting an immediate stay while the appeals process plays out.

One mystery in the Mueller report still needs solving. Greg Richards – “one of the questions we would have hoped to see answered in the report is, what, exactly, was the charge against President Trump; what, exactly, is he supposed to have done?”

“It is astonishing that the word used for his alleged activity has been, from start to finish, “collusion.”

“Collusion” is a characterization of a charge, not a description of one.
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We can narrow things down because we know what did not happen and thus could not have been collusion with the Russians or anybody else.
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Mueller cleared President Trump of all charges, but that still leaves his report a disappointment because we still don’t know what charges it is that Trump was cleared of!

But who cares. It’s the seriousness of the charge and nothing else matters.

What are the odds that the Durham investigation is for real and will bring the bad actors to justice? Thomas Lifson – “But we must concede that there are plenty of reasons to worry that that the biggest political scandal in American history – the political weaponization of both the federal intelligence and law enforcement communities to spy on political opponents of the sitting president and remove a duly elected president from office – would be swept under the rug.”

Even the NY Times finds bankrupt taxi drivers shouldn’t be blaming Uber. Jazz Shaw – “So who was it that buried the cab drivers financially? Uber and Lyft, the credit unions, or the municipal government that constructed this rolling scheme in the first place?”

Is Dentistry Science Based? Grant Ritchey – “As for me, I feel that it was a bit heavy handed and focused too much on the evil doings of one derelict unethical dentist who did horrible things” … “This accusation paints all dentists as greedy and uncaring, who only want to do expensive treatment on their hapless, powerless victims.”

Fact-checking can’t do much when people’s “dueling facts” are driven by values instead of knowledge. David Barker And Morgan Marietta – “Perhaps the most disappointing finding from our studies — at least from our point of view — is that there are no known fixes to this problem.” This is cognitive dissonance on display with the Mueller dossier as the stimulant. Barker and Marietta provide an illustration of the nature of the problem they try to explain. It is not in the evidence nor in the facts but rather in the psyche and a matter of false witness even unto one’s self.

“In other words, people do not end up with the same answers because they do not begin with the same questions.
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Fact-checking tends to fall flat. The voters who need to hear corrections rarely read fact-checks. And for those who might stumble across them, reports from distant and distrusted experts are no match for closely held values and defining identities.
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In our data, those with higher levels of education are more, not less, divided. And the higher the level of training, the more tightly values and perceptions intertwine.
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Based on this evidence, we conclude that dueling fact perceptions (or what some have labeled “alternative facts”) are probably here to stay, and worsen.
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Our conclusions are much more definitive than Mueller’s: We see clear evidence of collusion and obstruction. Collusion between values and facts. Obstruction of the capacity to observe and accept legitimate evidence.

Words mean things. Perceptions and facts are two different things. Opinions and values need careful clarification. Collusion and obstruction have distinct meanings, especially in law. If higher levels of education are “more, not less, divided” it means that education is failing (unless you think the goal of education is indoctrination rather than enlightenment). They say they see ‘clear evidence’ and judge others on that basis without any consideration of why others many not see the evidence they do. They don’t debate, they argue. They make no effort to clarify perceptions, allow for bias and error, identify the ‘evidence’ they see or explain the rationale and logic behind their conclusions. This is not scholarly behavior – or at least at as scholarly used to be. For comparison and contrast, read VDH:

Progressives Face a Bleak Post-Mueller Landscape. Victor Davis Hanson – “Both the Mueller report and Barr’s summation can be found on the internet. Anyone can read them to see whether Barr misrepresented Mueller’s conclusions.”

“The besmirching of Barr’s conduct is surreal. He certainly has not done anything even remotely approximating the conduct of former President Obama’s two attorneys general.

Has Barr dubbed himself the president’s “wingman” or called America a “nation of cowards,” as did former Attorney General Eric Holder?

Has Barr’s Department of Justice monitored reporters’ communications or ordered surveillance of a television journalist? Has Barr used a government jet to take his family to the Belmont Stakes horse race, as did Holder?
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The Mueller report ignored the likely illegal origins of the Christopher Steele dossier, the insertion of an FBI informant into the Trump campaign, the unlawful leaking of documents, and the conflicted testimonies of former high-level intelligence officials.

All of those things were potential felonies. All in some way yielded information that Mueller drew on in his investigation. Yet Mueller never recommended a single indictment of any of the Obama-era officials who likely broke laws.

Excellent and clear summation of the central problem with the Mueller report. Neo – “To me, this “outrageous shifting of the burden of proof” should actually outrage all Americans, because it really is “a violation of our entire system of law.” But it obviously has not outraged all Americans, or perhaps even most.”

“And this is not the least bit surprising to anyone who has watched the decline of thought, knowledge, and discourse in this country. How many people even know how our system of justice works in the first place, or just why the system is set up so that a person does not have to prove his or her innocence, and how it is that it ultimately protects each individual, Democrats or Republican or anyone else?

And how many people who actually do understand those principles are still willing to suspend them if they can be weaponized against an enemy?

The malevolent vengeance of the Democrats and man’s inhumanity to man. Patricia McCarthy – “Watching and enduring the Democrats’ venomous drive to destroy President Trump brings the phrase to mind.”

“The Democrats in Congress now realize that the jig may be up, that the hoax is about to be revealed to all. I.G. Horowitz and A.G. Barr are on the case. But their two-year, multi-million-dollar attempt to unseat a president has done irreparable damage to the nation, to the numerous people they bankrupted and charged with process crimes, to the presidency, and to the Trump family. They should be ashamed, but they are not. They are doubling down on stupid.

Let us hope the nation can recover from this long national nightmare the Democrats have visited upon us. In the end, “Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn.” Indeed, it does.

“Traitors, searchers after novelty, and those who err out of light mindedness” Paul Mirengoff – A history lesson from a 1740 Hasburg Empress.

DOJ to Nadler: Threaten Barr With Impeachment, You Get Nothing. sundance – “Smart move by DOJ lawyers” Read this letter to see the perfidy of House Democrat leadership.

“The letter below informs Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler the previous report content was provided without assertion of executive privilege; however, if Nadler follows-through with impeachment plan, executive privilege is now enforced and the totality of the report is withdrawn from congress.
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Essentially AG Barr et al is going old school with classic separation of power. POTUS Trump built a bridge from executive to legislative branch with voluntary production; however, if Nadler wants to be a resistance member then the executive branch will pull back and the customary three-branch separation of power rules will be the standard form of engagement.

DoJ fires back: Contempt vote on Barr will result in full executive-privilege claim on Mueller report. Ed Morrissey – “Nadler accused Trump of trying to make himself into a monarch rather than an elected official, and said it’s the responsibility of Congress to bring him to heel”

“In point of fact, Trump’s claim of executive privilege have less to do with royal ambitions than the fact that the executive is a separate and co-equal branch of government answerable to voters, and not operating at the pleasure of Congress. Executive privilege is a well-established legal framework that allows for some measure of confidentiality for presidents to work closely with aides. The conversations revealed by Mueller in the report fall clearly within those parameters, and it’s not clear whether Mueller agreed to keep privilege claims in place in exchange for frank discussions with Trump’s staff. Executive privilege claims don’t always succeed and carry some political baggage, but that doesn’t make executive privilege illegitimate.
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This threat looks like an attempt to attach some significant cost to the contempt charge, which otherwise would basically be a free shot for House Democrats but with little real bite. Just ask Eric Holder how a House contempt charge ruined his life.

Court Filing: From Day #1 Mueller Special Counsel Was Constructing “Obstruction” Case. sundance – “Special Counsel Attorney Michael Dreeben informed the court the special counsel was charged with investigating an obstruction case against President Trump from the beginning. President Trump was the target of their investigation from the outset.” i.e. the Mueller project was a fraud from the outset.

“Despite Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and Special Counsel Mueller assuring the President and his lawyers he was not the target of the investigation, they were lying.

As soon as the court was told Trump was the target (hearing January 22, 2018) the court agreed to seal everything relating to the journal of James Comey.

Citizen’s United: Docs Reveal British Spy’s Motive To Release Dossier Dirt On Trump Before 2016 Election. Sara Carter – “It is the first piece of solid communication that reveals Steele’s true intentions for the dossier.”

“A recently discovered memo written by former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec reveals stunning information that FBI informant and former British spy Christopher Steele planned to release the unverified information in his dossier before Election Day. He also admitted to Kavalec in a meeting that his research was political, according to the memo first obtained by Citizen’s United through a Freedom of Information Act request. Steele was paid by the embattled research firm Fusion GPS through the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

No question there was spying on Trump campaign, but how much? Byron York – “Barr was saying: If the FBI really took the Trump-Russia matter seriously, if they thought it was a threat to the republic, would that be all they would do?”

“So now there are Halper, Turk, and the Page FISA warrant. If they represent the totality of the FBI’s surveillance, that would still be a pretty anemic response to what some in the bureau viewed as a full-scale Russian attack on American democracy.
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It is abundantly clear that Barr was correct. He was careful to add that the unknown factor about the spying was “whether it was adequately predicated” — that is, whether the FBI had a legitimate reason to do it. But there was no doubt spying happened.

Now, the question is whether there was more than is now publicly known. Congressional investigators are anxiously awaiting the results of an investigation into at least some of the surveillance by Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz. That report is thought to be coming in the next couple of months. They are also watching to see what Barr will investigate on his own.

Just don’t tell this to the current FBI director who got in bed with the Democrats at a recent hearing trying to pretend his agency did no wrong etc.

Study: The real cost of Renewable Fuel Standards is… a lot. Jazz Shaw – “What’s often left out of the debate about states adopting these sorts of energy portfolios are the questions of how effective they are and how much they wind up costing.”

“The rest of the study deals with a variety of factors that delve into less easily measured factors, such as the “social cost” of carbon. But the upshot is fairly clear. Adopting renewable energy standards in this fashion is generally not cost-effective and the bill gets handed off to the consumer in the end.”

Cost effective? Productive? Beneficial? So many distractions and so many who seem to revel in them.

Robert Mueller, Director of Opposition Research. Thomas McArdle – “In the United States, we don’t let prosecutors publicly blemish the reputations of law-abiding citizens for actions that fall short of criminality. At least we didn’t until special counsel Robert Mueller.”

“When it comes to “guilty” or “not guilty” there is no gray, nor should there be. A President is not above the law, but he is also not outside the law’s protection of those innocent until proven guilty. With his unauthorized “not guilty but not exonerated” assertion, Robert Mueller has, in effect, left lawyering, and the rules prosecutors must follow, and made himself stealth director of a lavishly-funded team of political opposition researchers eager to help House Democrats impeach Trump – or defeat him at the polls in 2020.

AG William Barr Cancels Appearance for House Committee Hearing Tomorrow… sundance – “House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler has created a circus atmosphere ahead of a scheduled appearance by Attorney General William Barr tomorrow.”

‘Barr Did Nothing Wrong’: WSJ Exposes Dems’ Hypocrisy After Shameful ‘Washington Pile-On‘. Tyler Durden – “Joe Biden became the latest presidential contender to demand that AG Barr resign following a 5-hour-plus hearing on Wednesday where Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee howled, mostly without evidence, that Barr was improperly trying to cover for President Trump, that he had deliberately watered down Mueller’s findings and that he was, in effect, acting as a mole within the DOJ feeding information on the 14 ongoing investigations to the White House.”

“Given his treatment at the hands of the Senate, it’s hardly a surprise that Barr declined to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, which is stocked with even more bloodthirsty Democrats who will all need to defend their seats in 18 months time. And while Democrats will inevitably portray this as Barr shirking responsibility, as WSJ points out in an editorial published in Thursday’s paper, Barr’s treatment at the hands of the Judiciary’s Democrats was nothing short of reprehensible – and the coordinated ‘leak’ of the Mueller letter on the eve of the hearing was a blatant attempt to discredit an Attorney General who had done nothing wrong.
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This trashing of Bill Barr shows how frustrated and angry Democrats continue to be that the special counsel came up empty in his Russia collusion probe. He was supposed to be their fast-track to impeachment. Now they’re left trying to gin up an obstruction tale, but the probe wasn’t obstructed and there was no underlying crime. So they’re shouting and pounding the table against Bill Barr for acting like a real Attorney General.

Barr laid it on the line with the simple question the Russia Hoaxers can’t answer. Thomas Lifson – “his willingness to speak plainly and directly, such as his use (and defense of his use) of the word “spying,” demonstrates that that he and his associates can make their cases in convincing language.”

Suicidal Dems Continue to Foolishly Malign Barr. Roger L. Simon – “We are already–if you paid attention to Barr’s testimony or even the story in general–well into Russia Probe II – The Predicate. And that investigation involves real, documented collusion with Russia (on the part of the Clinton campaign and who knows who else) augmented by pervasive media dishonesty.”

“What’s interesting, and somewhat disturbing, in all this is how well these people know each other. It’s quite incestuous. Mueller and Comey were buddies when Mueller was named special counsel after Comey was fired. Barr and Mueller have apparently known each other for thirty years.

So it was notable when Barr indicated in testimony Wednesday that when he phoned Mueller about the special counsel’s letter of complaint, he did so on a speaker with others around, taking notes. Apparently, Bill didn’t trust his old friend. Would you?

Dem attacks on Barr come down to three-week gap. Byron York – “Why are so many Democrats and so many of their allies in the press so angry at Attorney General William Barr? What explains the intensity of their feelings?”

“Why were those three weeks so important? Because, whatever Barr’s motive, they allowed the attorney general to shape public opinion on Mueller’s findings before Democrats had a chance to spin the report their way. Barr, Democrats said, should have at least released the executive summaries of Volume I and Volume II of Mueller’s report, which detailed the collusion and obstruction questions, respectively.
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The Democratic protest might have carried more weight had Barr’s summary of the Mueller report’s principal conclusions been inaccurate. It was not.

William Barr exposed the rampant desperation of Trump’s foes. Michael Goodwin – “They smeared him, called him a liar and said he should resign. The same Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee who tried to assassinate the character of Judge Brett Kavanaugh last year pulled the same stunt on Bill Barr — with the same result.”

“It was a legitimate, if thin, line of questioning, but Dems didn’t like the answer and lost it again. Obviously frustrated that their main talking point for the entire Trump presidency has come up empty, they savaged Barr and accused him of covering up for a corrupt president.

It was politics at its most dishonest as they tried to argue that up is down and black is white. Barr was mostly stoic, but allowed himself a brief moment to brilliantly summarize the outlandish effort to twist reality.
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At one point, he talked of possible “overreach” by top officials, then added: “But what we have to be concerned about is a few people at the top getting into their heads that they know better than the American people.”

At another point, he said, “We have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon.”

The references are unmistakable and the strongest sign yet that Barr suspects wrongdoing in very high places. It’s also a sign that the worm is turning.

In Barr’s Battle With Congress, He’s in the Right. Seth Lipsky – “It turns out that Mr. Mueller wanted the report released piecemeal. Mr. Barr overruled him.”

The Barr Testimony: Democrats Gone Wild. John Hinderaker – “I am not up on the stages of grief, but the Democrats are in one of them, grieving through their loss of the belief that Robert Mueller would deliver them from the illegitimate Trump presidency.”

Clinton Projection Syndrome. Victor Davis Hanson – “Psychologists might call her claims “projection.” That is the well-known psychological malady of attributing bad behavior to others as a means of exonerating one’s own similar, if not often even worse, sins.”

“What Mueller strangely did do — and what most federal prosecutors do not do — was cite all the allegedly questionable behavior of a target who has just been de facto exonerated by not being indicted.

What Mueller did not do was explain that much of the evidence he found useful was clearly a product of unethical and illegal behavior. In the case of the false charge of “collusion,” the irony was rich.
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For much of her professional life, Hillary Clinton had acted above and beyond the law on the assumption that as the wife of a governor, as first lady of the United States, as a senator from New York, as secretary of state and as a two-time candidate for the presidency, she could ignore the law without worry over the consequences.

For Clinton now to project that the president should be indicted suggests she is worried about her own potential indictment. And she is rightly concerned that for the first time in 40 years, neither she nor her husband is serving in government or running for some office, and therefore could be held accountable.

Mueller left the plantation in his report as it is political and not in accord with established legal practice. Those who go after Barr, as after Kavenaugh, Thomas, and others, also leave the plantation and strike out into the wilderness. Going rogue like that can be dangerous.

Massachusetts judge busted for playing ‘coyote’ to a deportable illegal. Monica Showalter – “Predictably, the Left is yelling about the indictment, not the criminal getting let out to prey on citizens, hollering that it’s a problem of President Trump interfering in the justice process.”

“Justice apparently isn’t blind in a leftist place like Massachusetts.

And it’s pretty clear that a leftist judge decided that laws were there to be broken. Expect a lot of rubbish from the press about the whole thing being a matter of President Trump’s ‘hard-line’ stance on immigration or ‘racism’ or other leftist talking points. The issue is whether the law means anything at all and whether the lawmen have a right to enforce the law. The U.S. Attorney who brought the case says it’s not about Trump, it’s about law. He’s right. This bust signals a turn in the tide and one hopes a leftwing judge is about to learn about that the hard way.

Trump speaks of ‘attempted coup’ and previews coming storm headed toward the plotters. Thomas Lifson – “President Trump has gone on the record that the plotters against him in what he called an “attempted coup” are going to be exposed and brought to justice for their misdeeds, and that it is happening faster than most people believe.”

5 Times The Mueller Probe Broke Prosecutorial Rules That Ensure Justice. Adam Mill – “There are rules against using the power and authority of a prosecutor to smear a defendant without giving him his day in court.”

“Like Aesop’s scorpion on the frog’s back, the partisans on Mueller’s team just couldn’t help themselves. The Mueller report poisons public opinion without bringing charges. It should have been written on a postcard, because the outcome of a criminal proceeding is binary: Guilty or not guilty. There’s no middle ground under constitutional principles. President Trump is not guilty until the Senate convicts him otherwise.

Rosenstein: The “previous Administration” didn’t tell us the whole truth, and don’t get me started on Comey. Ed Morrissey – “If this valediction is any hint of what might come in the future, then a whole new set of people should be concerned about what he’ll say once freed of the constraints of his current office.”

Mueller Investigation Was Driven by Pious Hypocrisy. Victor Davis Hanson – “Mueller’s team went down every blind alley relating to its investigation—except where Obama-era officials were likely culpable for relevant unethical or illegal behavior.”

“The problem with the Muller investigation, and with former intelligence officials such as Brennan, Clapper, Comey and McCabe, is pious hypocrisy. Those who have lectured America on Trump’s unproven crimes have written books and appeared on TV to publicize their own superior virtue. Yet they themselves have engaged in all sorts of unethical and illegal behavior.

The only mystery left is whether our elite investigators actually believe their own delusions. Or were they constantly broadcasting their virtue as a preventive defense against growing evidence of their own moral lapses?

An Antidote to Leftist History Textbooks. Steven Hayward – “this account does not assume that the mistakes and shortcomings of America define the whole of America, as does every leftist who has drunk deeply of sour, third rate Zinnfandel.”

National Trend to Mandate Renewable Energy as Major Power Source is Ill-Conceived and Foolish. Nancy Thorner – “Even someone as cynical as I am would never have imagined that the con men and women would still be able to pass off this nonsense as gospel after all this time. The old line about whether you’re going to believe me or your lying eyes seems to sum up the situation pretty well.”

Propaganda, Trust, and the Media. Rick Hayes – “So destroying the President with extreme dishonesty is a penalty-free propaganda activity for the leftist media who are also interested in systematically eliminating the first amendment. ”

CBO Report: 1.4 Million Lost Health Insurance Since 2016 — And Obamacare Is To Blame. John Merline – “those on the left to blame the Trump administration for its Obamacare “sabotage.” … But the data in that report — which was released on the same day the Mueller report came out and largely ignored — tells an entirely different story.” The behavior is no longer considered odd or unusual.

“All of the increase in the uninsured over the past two years — all of it — is the result of the massive rate increases Obamacare’s mandates and regulations caused. According to the Health and Human Services Dept., premiums in the individual insurance market doubled from 2013 to 2017. They shot up again in 2018.

25 Questions for Robert Mueller. Julie Kelly Liz Sheld – “The 448-page document is filled with innuendo that has nothing to do with collusion (the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape is mentioned a few times for no apparent reason); it cites irrelevant articles planted by Trump foes as evidence, including this egregious National Review hit piece on Carter Page from April 2016; and it intentionally omits material facts, including key details about the Russian lobbyists involved in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.”

Elijah Cummings Won’t Let Witness Have Lawyer. Paul Mirengoff – “Barr is right to attach this condition, one that, according to a Department of Justice spokesperson, is consistent with longstanding DOJ policy.” Some might say this is a setup in collusion with the Press to impugn the President.

“Clearly, obtaining information from Gore is not the priority of Cummings and his fellow Democrats. Otherwise, they would permit a lawyer to accompany Gore, get what information they can, and (if necessary) fight any battles that may arise over executive privilege in court.

But that course of action wouldn’t maximize the Democrats’ real priority — feeding their narrative that the Trump administration is defying Congress without justification.

The Washington Post duly parrots this narrative in this article under the headline “Trump’s defiance puts pressure on Congress’s ability to check the president.”
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That’s dishonest reporting. As noted, the DOJ is willing to have Gore testify. It just wants him to have a lawyer present. The Post fails to inform its readers of the real nature of this dispute.

The pattern is all too familiar. The Democrats decide on their anti-Trump theme de jour. Their media allies peddle that theme leaving out any facts that might call it into question.

If “democracy dies in darkness,” the Washington Post is doing its best to kill it.

Mueller Investigation Was Driven by Pious Hypocrisy. Victor Davis Hanson – “Despite compiling private allegations of loud and obnoxious Trump behavior, Mueller also concluded that there was not any actionable case of obstruction of justice by the president.”

“Mueller’s team went down every blind alley relating to its investigation — except where Obama-era officials were likely culpable for relevant unethical or illegal behavior.
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Some of the collusion narrative Muller examined was based on FBI informants’ unverified stories. Yet strangely, the Mueller team did not investigate whether it was legal in the first place for the FBI, possibly with CIA help, to use informants to spy on a presidential campaign.
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What bothers many Americans about the collusion hoax is the accompanying sanctimony of the so-called investigators.
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The problem with the Muller investigation, and with former intelligence officials such as Brennan, Clapper, Comey and McCabe, is pious hypocrisy. Those who have lectured America on Trump’s unproven crimes have written books and appeared on TV to publicize their own superior virtue. Yet they themselves have engaged in all sorts of unethical and illegal behavior.

The only mystery left is whether our elite investigators actually believe their own delusions. Or were they constantly broadcasting their virtue as a preventive defense against growing evidence of their own moral lapses?

The ideologue who wrote the textbook calling Trump and his supporters “racists” Paul Mirengoff – “It’s scandalous that the international education giant Pearson entrusted a relentlessly leftist ideologue and admirer of Communist era Eastern European textbooks with the task of writing its AP U.S. History book. Any school in which the book is used should be the target of vigorous protests. The political blowback should be fierce.”

Did President Trump obstruct justice? Judge Andrew P. Napolitano – “On obstruction, the report concluded that notwithstanding numerous obstructive events engaged in by the president personally, the special counsel would not charge the president and would leave the resolution of obstruction of justice to Congress.” The Judge presents the Democrat case but misses on two critical issues. First is that he takes the report as gospel and second he conflates speech with actions. As others have noted, the report is highly biased and has no provision for any cross examination or rebuttal. The idea that discussing options is equal to implementing decisions is also very dangerous territory for jumping to conclusions. Napolitano does illustrate just how difficult it can be to honor integrity.

The walls are closing in on Obama. Thomas Lifson – “The truth of violations of law by the Obama White House, long buried, is being excavated by two private groups.”

“Judicial Watch has obtained testimony from a top FBI official that Hillary home brew server emails were found in the White House. This means that Barrack Obama’s illegal handling of classified information contained in those emails is closer to being exposed. This implicates him in the same felonies committed by Hillary Clinton that James Comey falsely claimed “no reasonable prosecutor” would pursue.
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A second scandal threat for the Obama administration is also slowly being excavated. Proof is piling up that White House operatives exploited the NSA’s surveillance of all electronic communications in the United States to monitor political opponents.

The Obama Use of FISA-702 as a Domestic Political Surveillance Program…. sundance – “Now that we have significant research files on the 2015 and 2016 political surveillance program; which includes the trail evident within the Weissmann/Mueller report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the entire objective and gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of approximately four to six years.”

“Unfortunately, due to intelligence terminology Judge Collyer’s brief and ruling is not an easy read for anyone unfamiliar with the FISA processes outlined. The complexity also helps the media avoid discussing, and as a result most Americans have no idea the scale and scope of the issues. So we’ll try to break down the language.
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The key takeaway from these first paragraphs is how the search query results were exported from the NSA database to users who were not authorized to see the material. The FBI contractors were conducting searches and then removing, or ‘exporting’, the results. Later on, the FBI said all of the exported material was deleted.
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Tens of thousands of searches over four years (since 2012), and 85% of them are illegal.
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Private contractors with access to “raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to FBI’s requests”:
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All of this is laid out inside this 99-page opinion from FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer who also noted that none of this FISA abuse was accidental in a footnote on page 87: “deliberate decisionmaking“

Impeaching Trump. William L. Gensert – “Mueller is a man who has built his career on destroying the careers, families, and lives of people with little regard for guilt or innocence — or the law and the truth for that matter. He was a perfect choice to tee up the ball for the Democrats in the House.”

“It’s not as if Americans are going to see it as unfair persecution of a man who did nothing wrong, much like themselves. And maybe it will take voter’s minds off Democrat plans to seize their guns, cars, free speech rights, most of their money, and every other little thing the Democrats want to do to destroy the people in order to save the nation.

Obama crony Eric Holder should stop lecturing William Barr on legal ethics. Deroy Murdock – there’s a lot on the record to examine.

“Are you gonna stay around for all four years?” radio host Tom Joyner asked Holder on April 4, 2013, early in Obama’s second term.

“I’m still the president’s wingman,” Holder replied. “So, I’m here with my boy.”

The “president’s wingman” was the president’s lawyer, and got nailed for it. Holder was held in contempt of Congress for not surrendering documents on the Fast and Furious scandal. This involved some 2,000 marked guns that Holder and Obama leeched into Mexico. They hoped that these weapons would lead them to drug cartels south of the border.
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When Congress investigated this disaster, Holder refused to yield relevant documents. So, on June 28, 2012, the U.S. House voted 255-67 for a criminal-contempt resolution. Seventeen Democrats voted Yes. Earlier, the House approved a civil-contempt measure, 258-95. Twenty-one Democrats concurred.
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But wait. There’s more.

WaPo’s Latest Weapon. Baldilocks (ht Hinderaker) that cites Everything I don’t like is far-right. Arthur Chrenkoff – “The Washington Post (“Democracy Dies in Darkness”) spends the whole article discussing how various “far-right” figures and forces, from France’s Marine Le Pen to Germany’s Alternative for Germany, got angry at the coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks that targeted churches among other locations and killed some 300 people.”

“And so we increasingly live in a world where, if you believe the media, everywhere you turn there’s the “far right”. Mainstream centre-right ideas and concerns are now being redefined as being somehow associated with and tainted by extremism. If you are worried about the violence against and the persecution of Christians you might be far right. If you value the cultural and philosophical heritage of the Western civilisation you might be far right. If you don’t believe in an open borders immigration policy you might be far right. If you prefer local democracy to transnational institutions you might be far right. If you are defending your country from an armed invasion by another country you might be far right too. If these are all to be the indicators of far right extremism, then what exactly is the “normal” right right now?

This effort to use language as a cudgel has several sinister implications. … For every action there is eventually an equal and opposite reaction. The left might think it’s courageously defanging the fascist dragon but instead it’s just sowing its teeth.

A Response to Checks & Balances’ Press Release on the Mueller Report. Seth Barrett Tillman – I think a more prudent approach might have been for the Press Release’s signatories to await a review of the process that launched the Special Counsel’s investigation before describing its conduct as “lawful.” This is a succinct description of the ‘when did you stop beating your wife’ approach to politics, justice, and law on display in the assault on the President. Supposedly reasonable and mature thinkers are tossing out wild accusations and allegations without any effective support or rationale nor any apparent awareness of the consequences of their actions.

The Press Release also states: “The facts contained in the report reveal that the President engaged in persistent conduct intended to derail, undermine and obstruct ongoing federal investigations.” It is unclear what specific allegations within the report the Press Release is relying on. Whether those allegations are, in reality, “facts” or not has not been established by anything like an unbiased or independent decision-maker—like an Article III judge—after both parties have had notice and an opportunity to be heard. By contrast, the Special Counsel’s report is merely a prosecutors office’s memorandum which attempts to marshal one side of the evidence, where the object of the investigation has had no opportunity to respond. As far as I know, the Special Counsel’s report is not even sworn to, as one would swear (or affirm) to any ordinary affidavit or declaration offered into evidence. Yet the Press Release relies on this report in arriving at far-reaching conclusions about the President’s conduct. Checks & Balances’ care free attitude in regard to fair play (a/k/a due process) is somewhat odd for an organization named “Checks & Balances.”

Finally, the Press Release speaks to “the President’s violations of his oath, including but not limited to [1] his denigration of the free press, [2] verbal attacks on members of the judiciary, [3] encouragement of law enforcement officers to violate the law, and [4] incessant lying to the American people.” Examples of [1], [2], and [4] are not specified. Absent some specific examples, I will posit that the Press Release’s signatories (which includes several legal academics) are merely characterizing lawfully protected free speech as constitutional violations by the President. Likewise, no example in regard to [3] is specified—if it refers to the President’s exercise of his pardon power, then the critique amounts to just a mundane political disagreement in regard to who should be the object of the President’s bounty—a matter entirely committed to the President’s discretion. All the allegations, mentioned above, from the Press Release amount to [1] constitutionally protected free speech; [2] internal Executive Branch deliberations (and legal advice) about policy during policy formation; and, [3] normal politics—being recharacterized as a constitutional wrong, tort, or crime. Indeed, the Press Release concludes by supporting an investigation of the President based upon his having had engaged in First Amendment protected free speech and his exercise of the pardon power (which remains lawful even when exercised to achieve contested or political purposes). If this is not the criminalization of democratic politics, it is too close for comfort.

At Instapundit – KYLE LAMB: I Fought In The Battle Of Mogadishu. Here’s What Rep. Ilhan Omar Gets Wrong About ‘Black Hawk Down.’ – “Ingrate” would be the nicest possible thing you could say about Omar.

somewhat odd? massive dose of somewhat odd at hand.

Understanding Jesus’s Mission. Trevor Thomas – One of the most important questions in the history of the universe is “Why did Jesus have to die?”

“One of the greatest lies ever told is that your (and my) sin is not really sin. One of the greatest debates within the church today surrounds the question of what is sin. If we can’t answer that question well and accurately, then we will fall short of understanding and appreciating all that Jesus did for us.

The Mueller Report’s Active and Passive Idiots. Gary Gindler – “an unusual television interview was held by former President Obama’s director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. A fantastic phrase came from his mouth: “If there was no active collusion proven, then I think what we have here is a case of passive collusion.””

“The entire Mueller Report is written in such a way that it becomes immediately apparent that it is not designed for the one to whom it was originally intended by law: the U.S. attorney general. It is clearly intended not for a legal, but a political effect from its publication. This farce with the Mueller investigation had purely political goals from the very beginning.

Things the Media Ignored in the Mueller Report. Clarice Feldman – “there are two important things underplayed or ignored: the ubiquitous nature of Russian interference from 2014 on, which Obama ignored, and the real target of the witch hunt — General Michael Flynn (and why).”

“It’s not unreasonable to believe this entire $30 million hoax of an investigation was not only to undermine the legitimacy of Trump’s victory over Hillary, but as well to cover up Obama’s failures to respond to Russian interference to protect his crackpot nuclear deal with Iran.
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It’s Easter Sunday and Passover. For those who value truth, hang on. I think it has been slow in coming, but coming it is.

What Trump is guilty of. Andrew Benjamin – “Donald Trump, the president of the United States, behaved as any innocent man would, behave having been framed by fabricated propaganda prepared by foreign intelligence agents and paid for by his political enemies.”

“This is the injustice against his person, integrity, and performance, the injustice of being framed by greedy, self-dealing, soulless, and cowardly criminals not fit to shine his shoes. These are criminals who paid for the fabricated pack of lies and evidence illegally obtained. They deliberately and speciously persecuted him, knowing he was innocent. They, along with their media associates, coordinated, colluded, and conspired among themselves and with foreign agents to give the false impression to the nation that the president obstructed justice by vocally objecting to the three-year-long witch hunt against him, his family and associates, and the American people.

The Mueller Report And The Starr Report: Compare And Contrast. Paul Mirengoff – There is a difference and both sides are not the same.

“They Were All Lying!” Tyler Durden – “this has nothing to do with defending Trump, it’s about defending and maintaining my own sanity and yours, and the rule of law.”

The Climate Cult. Steven Hayward – “someone writing as “Will” over at The Medium has done me one better in calling attention to how the climate change fanatics resemble nothing so much as a full-blown religious cult. … here are the ten signs and his introductory description to each, based on the indicators developed by the Cult Education Institute:”

The Mueller Report, the persistence of Russiagate, and the conspiracy theory phenomenon. Neo – “Lots of people on the right are talking about what’s going on, but my favorite go-to-guy for anything legal, Andrew C. McCarthy says it soberly but says it best”

“This is unbecoming behavior for a prosecutor and an outrageous shifting of the burden of proof: The constitutional right of every American to force the government to prove a crime has been committed, rather than to have to prove his or her own innocence.

Instapundit on those dripping contempt for the president: “I like David French, but this is ahistorical bullshit:” and then there’s Romney …

House Dems Sign Secret MOUs To Target Trump. Sara Carter – “Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Elijah Cummings and Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters executed a secret Memorandum of Understanding to “target” President Trump and subpoena all his financial and banking records, according to a letter sent to Cummings from ranking committee member Rep. Jim Jordan.”

“On Monday, Jordan sent a memorandum explaining his objections to the partisan behavior of Cummings and “unprecedented subpoena to Mazars USA LLP,” as reported by SaraACarter.com.

“We’d describe (the MOUs) as an agreement to conspire and coordinate their efforts to attack and investigate POTUS,” said a congressional official with knowledge of the MOUs. “This is not how committee’s normally operate. Dems aren’t interested in legislating. Only attacking POTUS.”

Jordan emphatically objected to the secret MOUs and excoriated Democrats who “did not consult with Republican Members of the Committee or allow Members to consider and debate the terms of your MOU before executing the MOU with Chairwoman Waters. You did not disclose the MOU’s existence to Members or the American people until after I raised the matter.”

In the letter Jordan asks Cummings to “provide greater transparency around your secretive conduct.” …

“If you intend to continue to use the Committee’s limited resources to attack President Trump for political gain, I hope that you will at least be transparent about your actions,” said Jordan at the end of his letter. “Your ability to function as a fair and unbiased finder of fact is now at grave risk. The Members of the Committee—and, more importantly, the American citizens we represent—deserve to know exactly how you are leading this Committee. I look forward to your detailed answers to these questions.”

Obama turned the FBI into the KGB. Don Surber – “In the eyes of our myopic media, Obama could do no wrong, and President Trump can do no right.”

“McCarthy wrote in the New York Post, “There is no doubt that the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign. As Barr made clear, the real question is: What predicated the spying? Was there a valid reason for it, strong enough to overcome our norm against political spying? Or was it done rashly? Was a politically motivated decision made to use highly intrusive investigative tactics when a more measured response would have sufficed, such as a ‘defensive briefing’ that would have warned the Trump campaign of possible Russian infiltration?”

Ah, McCarthy knows the answer. There is no valid reason for a president to spy on a political opponent.
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Nixon had his team of plumbers to fix press leaks.

Obama had the FBI.

That is Obama’s true legacy.

Woman who assaulted Kellyanne Conway skates. Paul Mirengoff – “The message sent by McCormick is clear: Montgomery County residents can assault conservatives and Trump administration officials with impunity here. There has been a wave of confrontations by leftists of such figures in the Washington, D.C. area. Montgomery County is saying that it’s okay during these confrontations to grab and shake the target.”

Climategate Remembered: The Need for a Second Opinion (new panel taking shape). Rbradley – “While Climategate has been the subject of several dedicated posts at MasterResource, Bell’s retelling is particularly relevant to what has been going on behind closed doors by a band of mostly deep-ecologist academic climatologists who work from an agenda of climate alarm and Malthusianism.” … “A March 20 article co-authored by Mann and Bob Ward in The Guardian equated the planned NSC panel to Stalinist repression.” hyperbolic evidence starved ad hominem tells the story.

2019 Update: “For every 100 girls…..” Mark Perry – “I’ve updated the original list with the most recent data available and added some new items that demonstrate empirically the many significant differences between boys (men) and girls (women) on many measures of health outcomes, educational outcomes, educational and learning disabilities, suicide and homicide rates, incarceration rates, alcohol and drug abuse frequency, behavior problems leading to suspension or expulsion in school, etc.”

What will it take for journalists and other Democrats to tell the truth to the public? Jack Hellner – “The next time Russia is accused of spying, they should say, “No that is authorized surveillance.”

“The Founding Fathers gave the press freedom to hold the powerful to account, not to protect people they liked no matter what they did while seeking to destroy others they didn’t like with no evidence.

Bill Barr, Dirty Cops, and the O.J. Simpson Trial. Charles Lipson – “The Democrats’ ferocious pushback confirms the gravity of the issue. Their fears are well-founded.”

“The Obama administration politicized the Department of Justice, FBI, and intelligence agencies, and a serious investigation is very likely to find criminal wrong-doing. The response of top Democrats is to smear Barr as a partisan hack.

The mainstream media, predictably, adopted the Democratic perspective, even in their “hard news” coverage.
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What is so striking is not just the starkly different partisan views of Barr’s testimony and, worse, his integrity. After all, that chasm is now the defining characteristic of American political life. What is striking—and truly disturbing—is how each side thinks the other’s views are so obviously wrong that they must be corrupt and dishonest, explicable only by “bad faith” and malevolent intentions.
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These accusations of bad faith raise another troubling question: In this hyper-partisan environment, will both parties accept the evidence Barr and Horowitz find? If they do not, if Democrats continue to say everything is the malign work of partisan hacks, then, Lord help us, we’re in for another special counsel.

As has been seen, any special counsel or investigation is irrelevant when evidence and reason are overwhelmed by bad faith. And, no, both sides are not the same when it comes to acepting evidence and reality.

9 Apocalyptic Lies Fed To Americans About The Republican Tax Bill. Madeline Osburn – “What falsities did these liberal opponents tell the American people would happen pending the passing of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act? Here are a few of the most outrageous examples of fear-mongering.”

EPIC: Sean Davis Absolutely Destroys Media Hypocrisy Over Barr’s Use Of The Term “Spying”. Bonchie – “The media have this odd way of moving the goalposts on verbiage depending on who’s in office.”

Awards and honoring, whether in the press or in other venues, are a means to establish credibility where it doesn’t belong. Many are tarnished by the Left’s attempts to impress the victims of their scams.

Bill Clinton Honoree Thrown In Jail Over “Biggest Clean Energy Scam In American History”. Tyler Durden – “Instead of high returns, the over 300 victims of this fraud unwittingly invested in uninhabitable land and a bogus trash-to-green energy business idea based on bogus scientific methodology, said US Attorney William McSwain last October after McKelvy’s conviction.

“Of the $54 million thought to have been invested in Mantria, $17 million was returned to early investors to keep the Ponzi scheme going, while misleading new investors into thinking the venture was hugely profitable. By the time they were shut down by the SEC in 2009, Mantria had just $790,000 of the remaining $37 million.

Google Bigots and the High-Tech Lynching of Kay James. Jeffrey Lord – “Among other things the outrage mob of over 2000 Google employees accused Kay James of being a “white supremacist.” Kay is an African-American. With a gay son. But Google quickly caved to the mob, dismissing Kay and then dissolving the board entirely.”

“Ms. James, after laughingly mentioning the charge of white supremacy by saying that for her entire life the first thing she does in the morning is “put on black face,” became quite serious when she spoke about the American Left’s intolerance and mob outrage designed to silence free speech.
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What we have here — as Kay James specifically took time to note in her PLC speech — is an all-out assault on free speech. If you are conservative — on a college campus, at Google, on Fox News or anywhere else — the mob is coming for you. And if you are black — or Hispanic or a woman or gay — their fury knows no bounds.
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The cultural revolution has arrived at Google. Where intolerance reigns. And in the case of Kay Cole James, out and out racism as thick as it can be cut.
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In sum? In sum what we are witnessing in Google culture and on too many college campuses is what Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the first head of the then-new Soviet Union’s secret police known as the Cheka, described this way: “We represent in ourselves organized terror — this must be said very clearly.” And that “organized terror,” Dzerzhinsky emphasized, involved “the terrorization, arrests, and extermination of enemies of the revolution on the basis of their class affiliation or of their pre-revolutionary roles.” Or, as in the case of Kay James, the mother of an openly gay son, her race.

Kay James just had an up-close and personal encounter with this totalitarian mindset — from a major American high-tech company. The organized terror of a Google lynch mob came for her. The quite deliberate message for the rest of America from Google is: Watch out. The next time it could be you.

The Unlawful Campaign against Chick-fil-A. National Review – “The immediate justification for the bans was a ThinkProgress allegation that the Chick-fil-A foundation supported “groups with a record of anti-LGBTQ” discrimination.”

“Simply put, there is a fundamental difference between enforcing a valid anti-discrimination or public-accommodations statute — such as a law prohibiting discrimination in the provision of services — and blocking a restaurant that complies with anti-discrimination law simply to punish the politics (and faith) of its owners.

Second, it’s worth pointing out the sheer extremism and intolerance of San Antonio’s and Buffalo’s actions.
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The virus of public reprisal against private expression is spreading. For example, the Los Angeles City Council now requires contractors to disclose any ties with the National Rifle Association. In 2017 it passed an ordinance requiring contractors to disclose if they’d submitted bids to work on President Trump’s border wall.

It is the role of government to protect liberty, not promote ideological conformity by punishing dissent. San Antonio and Buffalo are on the leading edge of a dangerous trend, and if they don’t relent, then Chick-fil-A should sue. It’s time to make unlawful retaliation costly for America’s most intolerant cities.

Court Filing Reveals Numerous Comey Memos Including Investigative Meetings, Sources, Methods and Contacts. sundance – “The documents surface as part of the FOIA case”

“Exhibit A” is a filing from the FBI on January 31st, 2018, essentially supporting an earlier “in camera ex parte declaration” requesting continuance of a prior court order to keep the background material sealed from public view. In essence, the FBI didn’t want the public to know what was/is contained within the Comey memos (including the scale thereof).

“Exhibit B” is where the action is.
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The next section gets to the heart of why the FBI wants to keep the Comey memos hidden and not released.
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There’s also really good news in here. Think about it. Now we know the entire anti-Trump operation is memorialized in writing. There is documentary evidence of the entire operation within these memos. We did not know that before this moment.

Socialist Venezuela now an exploding supernova of spreading infectious disease. Monica Showalter – “So much for all that free health care. … Now for what it looks like up close:” but a judge in New York has decreed that the health department cannot require vaccinations for those in public spaces during an outbreak.

“So as the West is forced to admit Venezuelan refugees (and unlike the Central Americans, these are real ones), each and every one of them is potentially a carrier, if not openly suffering from, of some of the most awful and once-thought-eradicated diseases from the 19th century. Next time a socialist speaks of ‘progress’ remember that this is what socialists deliver on their ‘progress.’

It amounts to biological warfare on the West, given that people outside Venezuela’s socialist zone of misery are going to die from these diseases which had long been eradicated from the capitalist West up until now.

Obama judge blocks Trump from keeping illegals in Mexico. Don Surber – “Democrat obstruction of the presidency continues as Obama-appointee Judge Richard Seeborg sided with a liberal group”

“Seeborg is the same obstructionist judge who earlier blocked the Trump administration from restoring the citizenship question on the census that Obama had unilaterally removed in the 2010 Census. That unconstitutional decision is on appeal.

How did Motel 6 wind up owing millions for cooperating with ICE? Jazz Shaw – “since when is it okay to refuse law enforcement when they request information in the course of investigating a possible crime? Well, this is Washington State we’re talking about, and it’s all sanctuary city rules I suppose”

“Let’s just cut to the chase here. If those people were detained and then deported, they were in the country illegally. And they were presumably staying in the hotel with other patrons who were legal residents of the United States. Exactly who are we trying to protect by going after Motel 6 in this scenario?

Strangely, the motel chain reiterated its privacy policy in their statement about the settlement. In it, they include the fact that they don’t share guest information with law enforcement, “except in cases where a judicially enforceable warrant or subpoena is present or local law requires release of the information.”

WaPo op-ed: Let’s face it, the Electoral College is an utter failure. Ed Morrissey – “The Articles of Confederation failed because of the lack of federal authority, which meant creating an executive. The states still wanted the executive to be chosen by the states rather than by popular election in a manner which gave each state enough influence to have a reasonable say in the choice.”

A second California glyphosate verdict. Walter Olson – “Our system lets trial lawyers win jackpot jury verdicts even when science is not on their side.” Evidence and intellectual integrity seem to take a back seat in the courtroom these days.

Devin Nunes Op-Ed Reflects Intelligence Dance to Thread a Needle. sundance – “there is a stark absence within Nunes outline; there is something completely mssing, “the second operation“. The operation that originated from within the U.S. government in early 2016. The CIA operation started by John Brennan.” … “HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes has an excellent op-ed today in the Washington Examiner” (recommended reading)

“I can understand why Devin Nunes would want to avoid attention on the second ‘inside government’ operation due to collateral damage that might hit our intelligence capabilities, ie. FISA. Indeed, with Mr. Nunes in charge of keeping those intelligence capabilities intact, he has somewhat of a conflicted professional interest in full exposure.

However, let me state clearly I’m very concerned the U.S. intelligence system is going to take the same approach toward defending their conflicted interests that Devin Nunes is taking inside this op-ed.

Trump lawyer sends letter to Treasury: You shouldn’t hand over his tax returns to House Democrats. Allahpundit – “A strong letter, worth reading in full. Click on the images here to read the separate pages. There are legal arguments made and precedents cited but at the heart of it is a simple prudential question: Why should Congress be able to use the IRS to gather dirt on its political enemies?”

“The linchpin for that argument is a 1957 case, Watkins v. United States, in which the House Un-American Activities Committee demanded to know from a witness during testimony whether certain other people were members of the Communist Party. The witness refused to answer, arguing that such questions were outside the proper scope of the committee’s activities, and was held in contempt of Congress. The Warren Court ruled for the witness and vacated the conviction.
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Richard Neal and House Democrats will claim that the Watkins case doesn’t apply because Trump hasn’t been found in contempt of Congress or suffered any other penalty. They’re not seeking to violate his First Amendment or Fifth Amendment rights by compelling him to testify before the House, as was the case in Watkins. All they’re asking for is a copy of a document he was already required by law to provide, and did provide, under a statute that already authorized them to obtain that document.

It’s not quite as simple as Allahpundit describes it, though.

Top Dems Demand Capital One Turn Over Trump Records, Kept Republicans In The Dark. Sara Carter – “House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings, along with two other Democratic Committee chairpersons, sent a letter in early March demanding Capital One Financial Corporation turn over all of President Donald Trump’s financial documents pertaining to trusts, businesses, real estate and any foreign investments” … breathtaking. Overturns the entire idea of presumption of innocence, the idea that a crime should come before a prosecution, and the basis of equal justice under the law.

“Brent M. Timberlake, Vice President, Senior Associate General Counsel Card Litigation, Subpoena and Intake at Capital One, responded to Cummings demands on March 21.

Timberlake said get a “subpoena.”

“As requested, we are preserving the documents and materials listed in the request attached to your letter,” said Timberlake in a letter. “Given the confidentiality obligations we have as a financial institution, including under state and federal law, we respectfully request that any production of materials be made pursuant to a subpoena rather than an informal request.”

Republican members were not consulted on the Democratic inquiry Trump’s financial institution, according to a letter sent by Ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-NC.

The letter sent by Meadows and Jordan stressed concerns that over the Democrats exceeding their authority in gaining access to the private financial documents.

Ineffective Democrat Subpoenas. Paul Mirengoff – “Democrats are holding a losing hand. This subpoena, like all the others House Democrats are thinking about issuing, cannot, in all likelihood, be effectively enforced.”

“If Democrats try this move, we can expect Republicans to behave similarly when they control the House. We will be well down the road to becoming a banana republic.

Meanwhile, I hope Republicans remember Katyal’s recommendation when, almost inevitably, some Democratic president nominates him for a job requiring Senate confirmation.

Prayers For President Trump During West Coast Travel. sundance – “With anxiety visible amid the DC crew now contemplating accountability for their failed soft-coup attempt, we enter a dangerous phase.”

“After all, 40 federal law enforcement agents openly participated in the effort; along with more than a dozen members of the Department of Justice. What does that tell us about the fidelity of the FBI and DOJ to their oath of office? What does that tell us about their current intentions?

The Full Story of How Obama, Hillary and Brennan Carried Out The Crime of the Century. DCWhispers – “It’s just that this time because President Trump fights so hard, refuses to give up, and his tens of millions of supporters stand by him, that the Deep State was caught in the act.”

“This article will firmly demonstrate the following:

-Hillary Clinton’s campaign used the Christopher Steele dossier before their involvement was covered up

-Senior Obama administration officials secretly plotted to involve senators in the “Russia” conspiracy

-James Clapper tried to use the “Russia” narrative to get the Supreme Court to invalidate Trump’s presidency

-Natalia Veselnitskaya was a Fusion GPS set-up agent who worked out of an Obama official’s office in D.C.

-Peter Strzok ran point on destroying General Flynn and covering up for Hillary Clinton

–Barack Obama used foreign powers to keep the scheme going, even after he left the Oval Office to President Trump

Your Family Can Save Our Civilization. Sebastian Gorka – “That’s when I understood the value of freedom, I understood what human dignity is, and for the rest of my life, I understood why the truth matters. And that is the essence of our civilization. It is a civilization to which both Hungary and America are a party— our shared Judeo-Christian civilization. We are proud of being part of that civilization.”

“A key part of that speech is where the president asked a question. He asks the only question that matters right now, which is: “Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it” That is the question. What are the core values of that civilization?
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Judeo-Christian civilization believes that true freedom, the true realization of Man’s worth, his value, his objective essence is when you are given freely the choice to decide by your God, and you use that power to do the right thing—which is rarely the easy thing. …

And then lastly justice. This word has nothing to do with “social justice” or with SJW idiocy. This has to do with objective truth. Objective justice. Our civilization believes that truth exists outside of humankind. Truth is immutable. A man is a man, a woman is a woman, good is good, bad is bad. And we strive to create manmade justice systems that reflect that objective reality, not the capricious systems we see outside our civilization.

Romney self owns. Don Surber – “Well, Romney wanted to be the thorn in the Republican hide like his buddy (and 2008 nominee) John McCain.” Neither of these former Republican nominees for president has distinguished himself post election. “President Trump appointed Cain because he has experience.” It appears many of his opponents are totally unaware of the resume.

The Blatant Left. Ed Rosalie – “The Left uses or manipulates the civility and personal responsibility of those not with it to insure its own invincibility.”

“The rabidity of TDS is relentless, to the point that some of its zealots are turning on Mueller for not providing the desired outcome, and subsequent schemes for Trump’s destruction are already being aggressively pursued.
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Almost as frightening as the Left’s overt attack on our democracy and its traditions is everyone else’s seeming aversion to seeking revenge or even accountability.
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The left has no fear, thus it doesn’t need to operate in the dark, because it knows those who are not with them do not have the same focus. The Left knows that negative impacts and even shock at their blatancy is diluted for those rubes on the other side who are more focused with living their lives, caring for their families, and keeping their heads above water. Those others don’t have time to spend their lives plotting and scheming and obsessing over how to undermine and overthrow those who do not agree with them politically. That stuff takes time.
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The Left is neither shy nor inhibited nor possessed of a conscience.
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The actions of the Left are reminiscent of the Middle Ages and most dictators: use the ignorance or lethargy of the masses to keep them inert and diminish any threat they might offer. Today, the Left uses or manipulates the civility and personal responsibility of those not with them to insure their own invincibility while its own well-armed miscreants blatantly and indomitably strut their stuff in full view, fully aware that they can pretty much do as they wish. …and woe to those who warrant their ire or oppose them in any way.

Read this if you believe that you will never need a semi-automatic rifle. hedgeless_horseman – “Day in and day out I observe that The Rule of Law is being eroded in America, especially the Highest Law of the Land.”

‘John Brennan, the Russia lie ringleader?’ Monica Crowley – “Over the past two years, one of their biggest “tells” has been their hyper-aggressive and gratuitous attacks on the president. Given that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found no collusion or obstruction of justice, their constant broadsides now look, in retrospect, like calculated pre-emptive strikes to deflect attention and culpability away from themselves.”

“Any investigation into the origins and execution of the Big Lie must focus on Mr. Brennan, whose job as the nation’s chief spook would have prohibited him, by law, from engaging in any domestic political spy games.

Of course, the law didn’t stop him from illegally spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee by hacking into its computers and lying repeatedly about it, prompting Democratic senators to call for his resignation.
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If the devil is in the details, Mr. Brennan is all over the details.

No wonder he — and his fellow caballers — have been so loud. They doth protest too much.

Dems Have Vastly More to Fear from Full Mueller Report than GOP. Roger L. Simon – “Likely Nadler is secretly praying Barr redacts the whole damn thing or ties things up in the courts for long enough for the investigation to disappear at least somewhat down the memory hole.”

“The natural question will then be — what was all this for? Cui bono? A full airing of the report, what Nadler claims he wants, will instead “open the door,” as they say in court, more than ever for an investigation of why this probe was launched in the first place, by whom and for what reason. The results of that investigation will be quite scary, if not humiliating, for Democrats because they will lead close to, if not over, their highest doorstep — the portals of the Oval Office during the previous administration.

… Nadler has to be very careful not to anger Barr too much because the attorney general has within his control the ability to appoint a special counsel and make life miserable for the Democratic Party straight to the election of 2020 and beyond.

Meanwhile, besides whatever Barr decides to do, several other vectors are pointing at the Democrats and their DOJ/FBI/media allies.
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So many unanswered questions are sitting there crying out for answers. Even the most reluctant investigator or prosecutor may be constrained to deal with them or face historical disdain.

Finally! Mitch McConnell shuts down Democrats’ obstruction of confirmation of Trump appointees. Thomas Lifson – “Because of unprecedented abuse of Senate rules, two-and-a-half years into his presidency, President Trump has not been able to put all of his own qualified, confirmable appointees into senior-level positions. This obstructionism has allowed Obama administration holdovers to obstruct and sabotage implementation of his policies (and to leak to the media).” There are consequences to being irresponsible.

“Senate Democrats have cynically exploited the Senate rules allowing 30 hours of debate of each appointee to slow down the staffing of his administration. Finally, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday pushed through a majority-vote measure that changes those rules, limiting debate to two hours per appointment.

The same trick has been used to limit the confirmation of federal judges, and those rules also have been changed.

Naturally, Politico’s coverage of the story is long onDemocrat taling points, nd short on examination of the unprecedented obstructionism of the Dems
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The lesson for Dems and their media lickspittles is simple: abuse the rules of the Senate and those rules will be changed.

Gone fishing. Six years of Trump’s tax returns? Jazz Shaw – “if Richard Neal does manage to have Trump’s tax returns delivered to him and any of that information makes its way out into open hearings or to the press, he will have committed a felony. There’s also the question of the validity of a request such as this. In general terms, you only conduct an investigation when there has been a crime committed and you have reasonable cause to believe that such a disclosure would be fruitful in resolving the matter.”

“What specific crime took place that might be resolved by viewing Donald Trump’s tax returns? The idea of proving some sort of conflict of interest is a fascinating one, because it would essentially set a precedent saying that anyone with any business interests should be barred from running for the presidency. After all, every decision the White House makes could arguably impact any business in the country in some way or another. The Democrats would also apparently like to claim that if anyone from a foreign country spends the night at a Trump hotel they’ve committed some sort of “collusion.”

The more you read through the details of this request, the more it begins to look like this is yet another fishing expedition. But the Democrats in the House are playing with fire on this one. They would obviously like to find some dirt in Trump’s tax returns and air it out in the media to gain an advantage in the next elections. But if they do, the Justice Department might have quite a few things to say about that.

That’s two blatant attempts to skirt the law for political dirt by Democratic leaders in the house. The change of rules in the Senate show what happens when you behave irresponsibly like this.

Retroactive continuity is not a good way forward.

Make No Mistake: The Mueller Investigation Was All About Flynn. Michael Ledeen – “I think it began on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, when Flynn changed the way we did intelligence against the likes of Zarqawi, bin Laden, the Taliban, and their allies.”

“General Flynn saw that our battlefield intelligence was too slow. We collected information from the Middle East and sent it back to Washington, where men with stars on their shoulders and others at the civilian intel agencies chewed it over, decided what to do, and sent instructions back to the war zone. By the time all that happened, the battlefield had changed. Flynn short-circuited this cumbersome bureaucratic procedure and moved the whole enterprise to the war itself. The new methods were light years faster. Intel went to local analysts, new actions were ordered from men on the battlefield (Flynn famously didn’t care about rank or status) and the war shifted in our favor.

This earned him a following among some who worked for or with him, but it also gained him the enmity of those who had been cut out of “the chain of command.”
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The operation against Flynn provided the model for the anti-Trump assault. …

The accusations against Flynn were fanciful from the outset, and need to be undone.

Mueller’s conclusions expose disgrace of Obama’s spy chiefs. New York Post – “Of all the reputations in tatters now that Robert Mueller has exploded the Russian-collusion fantasy, Obama-era spy chiefs John Brennan and James Clapper stand out.”

“These two weren’t average citizens: They spoke with the authority of having headed federal intel operations. Brennan even cited his training as an “intelligence professional” as the basis for his views.

By milking that status for brutal hits on Trump, they not only misled and divided the country, they damaged the credibility of the US intel community.

Of course, they were crossing the line while in office, running interference for President Barack Obama’s disastrous Iran deal and other policies.

But America’s top spooks are supposed to steer clear of politics completely once they leave office. By ignoring that rule (as well as basic honesty) for purely partisan ends, Clapper and Brennan violated their duty — despicably.

The tarnish on the Bush family goes apace, too – Barbara Bush blamed Trump for ‘heart attack’ – sad. Very sad.

Rep. Swalwell: Why, yes, I still think Trump is a ‘Russian agent’. John Sexton – “When you have an inconsistency in your storyline you just tell people that the old story didn’t mean what it meant or didn’t happen the way you told them it happened. You retcon the mistake.”

“If you thought that at this point Swalwell might decide to stop playing games and be a bit more forthcoming, you’re going to be disappointed. For the second time in this segment, he compared the collusion narrative to the Jussie Smollett story. But as MacCallum pointed out, the Smollett case didn’t have the top cop giving the all clear after two years of investigation. On the contrary, in Smollett’s case, the cops and even the Deputy SA who dropped the charges all said Smollett committed a hoax. That’s not what Mueller said about Trump.

But according to Swalwell, not only is Trump still a Russian agent, the entire Russia dossier is still entirely credible. Again, MacCallum is struggling to believe what she’s hearing and I don’t blame her.

Yes, we need to talk about this Jussie Smollett debacle. Jazz Shaw – “after more and more facts and opinions began trickling out, it clearly appeared that this was a case of the Chicago Way on steroids.” Racial overtones and an Obama connection also play into the story. Also, neo: Prosecutor attempts to explain the dropping of charges against Smollett. “No wonder Chicago police are angry. This isn’t the first time they’ve had the rug pulled out from under them in a case on which they’ve worked hard.”

Profiles in courage: Senate Dems wimp out, vote “present” as Green New Deal gets zero votes. Allahpundit – “Vox explains, or tries to explain, the Democratic reasoning.” See also John Hinderaker: Democrats Punt on the Green New Deal. “There are several serious problems with global warming alarmism. One of them is the disconnect between the problem, as described by alarmists, and their proposed solutions.”

Russiagate’s Damage To The Country Will Take Years To Realize. Willis L. Krumholz – “The media and Democrat Party have dug themselves so deeply in a hole, they must keep on digging. That’s absolutely terrible for this country, as has been this entire endeavor.”

“No evidence of collusion was found between the Trump campaign and Russia. Leftwing media that had spent years pumping the conspiracy theory of Trump-Russia collusion made sure to add that the report “stops short of exonerating [Trump] for obstruction of justice.” Ergo, the report stays away from the patently ridiculous charge of obstruction, which would seek to politicize and decimate a president’s Article II powers.

But Democrats are making sure to stress that investigations into Trump are ongoing—in Congress, and in the federal prosecutor’s office in the Southern District of New York. And CNN promised the “Mueller report is just the start of a new Russia showdown.”
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The mainstream media was just as deranged. For the entire year of 2017, anything that could damage Trump, no matter how outlandish, was published. Journalistic standards collapsed.
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if you were ever tied to Trump, you were treated differently.
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Regular American families who used to agree to disagree about politics are now at each other’s throats. After all, the media has been telling people that Trump is a traitor. How could any decent person support a traitor?
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The damage to America’s interests, and a rational foreign policy discourse, has also been far-reaching and yet to be realized.
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liberalism is dead. It has been replaced by an insane, corporatist, identity-politics-fueled, and, yes, pagan mob that would only be possible in a country sliding towards post-Christianity. The new left is power-hungry, wants nothing to do with the traditional working class, and the ends always justify the means.

What Price Maddow? Stephen Ryan – “the folks who truly deserve to be put in their place and totally humiliated are the viewers of these pretend news shows.”

“But the ringmaster understood that nobody listens to the critics. What mattered most was the act: the bearded lady would be on the show the next day and the mob would show up.

The Trump tax return debacle, in certain ways, was a game changer for progressive media.

The fallout from the Trump tax return show was that network news producers tossed their journalistic ethics out of the window. …

The Russia/Trump collusion story became the “Greatest Show on Earth”. Money, prizes, and careers were up for grabs. The circus act took off and P.T. Maddow became a star, a rating behemoth and a gigantic moneymaking machine for MSNBC.
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But now, Donald Trump’s total vindication of the charge that he colluded with the Russians to win the presidency has starkly revealed an ugly corruption between important institutions of the United States.
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We can be sure of one thing: the perpetrators of the Russia conspiracy theory, the politicians and the journalists, will not police themselves. It will be business as usual unless voters understand that being lied to by powerful institutions is a lot more dangerous than “climate change.”

But don’t hold your breath. The expensively educated folks who blindly watch Rachel Maddow spin her web of nonsense will be the last people on earth to admit they were duped.

As Mark Twain said: ‘It’s Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled.”

ABC, Guardian: Trump trying to “weaponize” the Mueller report. Ed Morrissey – “Well, we can’t have that, can we? We must remake the story from Democrats blowing all their credibility into Trump weaponizing the fact that the Democrats’ public accusations of treachery just got shown to be baseless after two years of hammering (another clichéd metaphor!) Trump with them. That wasn’t “weaponizing,” but apparently disarming the argument is.”

Russiagate: why did the press do it? neo – “The fact that Russiagate was actually the un-Watergate probably did not even cross their minds.”

No, Sarah Sanders didn’t accuse Trump’s Russiagate critics of treason. Allahpundit – “When you read a transcript of what she said, the identity of the “treasonous” party might seem ambiguous. When you watch, it isn’t. And yet, because partisanship in 2019 requires an endless supply of bad faith and willful misunderstanding, hundreds of people on social media who actually did watch the clip are in a lather about the White House supposedly claiming Russiagate true believers are traitors.”

“Right, right, it’s not news that social media is populated by morons. But what’s the New York Post’s excuse?

Drudge headlines tell the story: 533,074 articles about Russia probe. 2,284 Minutes. Zucker: No Regrets. 50 Hollywood Stars Who Accused President of Treason, Collusion. LIST: FALSE BOMBSHELLS. Most embarrassing predictions. Former Spy Chiefs Exposed. DEMS: PLAN B… TAX RETURNS!

The DOJ Just Delivered A Major Blow To Obamacare. Beth Baumann – “The Department of Justice on Monday sided with U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor’s previous ruling that the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, is unconstitutional.” See also Jazz Shaw DOJ siding with Fifth Circuit in striking down all of Obamacare.

Today’s Green New Deal vote is going to be spectacular. Jazz Shaw – “we’re probably about to watch the Democrats defeat a measure they accused Republicans of not supporting all through last year. You might want to fire up a batch of popcorn and turn on CSPAN this afternoon. You don’t often find this type of quality entertainment on television anymore.”

Other stories are about the SPLC ‘meltdown’ and Pentagon progress on 57 miles of border wall.

John Oliver on Jay Leno’s call for civility: Remember Monica Lewinsky? Karen Townsend – “Last week former late night talk show host Jay Leno called for “a bit more civility” in public discourse and now he must be punished.”

“Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton were savaged in the press and on the radio during that scandal. Both sides of the aisle went after them but for different reasons. The left smeared Lewinsky because her sexual relationship with Clinton threatened his presidency once it was exposed. The right went after Clinton for his behavior. The real hypocrisy was the left’s treatment toward a young woman being taken advantage of by the most powerful man in the world. This pre-dates the current cries from first, second, and third-wave feminists to believe all women, period. Lewinsky wasn’t so innocent as not to know what she was doing but the left was more concerned about saving Clinton’s presidency than they were about Lewinsky. She was slut-shamed like all of Clinton’s conquests.
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The liberal mob always demands an apology for any manner of speech that doesn’t fit into current groupthink. Calls for civility and standing up for yourself must be squashed and mocked. This is who they are.

Tectonic plates are moving underneath Fox News. Thomas Lifson – “Under capitalism, ownership brings control, and Fox News has a new corporate parent that began trading yesterday on NASDAQ.”

“The rise of Fox News as the sole mass media counterpoint to the progressive media establishment changed American politics, and it has been a long-held goal of the Left, particularly Soros-funded attack dog Media Matters, to either destroy it or politically neuter it, thereby monopolizing all media with a large national reach. So, the question naturally arises, does this new ownership under the control of a new generation of Murdochs signal a chance for the Left to accomplish this critical goal?

CNN Interviews Brad Parscale, Then Accidentally Notes the DNC 2020 Strategy. sundance – “What Tapper notes as the urgent data collection priority of the DNCis specifically the reason why the club has enlisted Beto to draw-in the community they need to harvest.”

“Planning, scheming, endless meetings, talking points, operational organization and strategy is one of the key elements of the Democrat party. This is what they do. This is all they do. It might seem weird at first, but the DNC club is not chaotic; and, from my perspective, that is their weakness. It makes them predictable.The Democrats rarely, if ever, go off script.

New York prosecutors throw out Constitution to charge Manafort. Jonathan Turley – “The New York state charges that Vance filed against Manafort appear to run afoul of state and federal protections against double jeopardy, or being prosecuted twice for the same underlying conduct.”

“The problem is that the case appears not only constitutionally flawed but ethically challenged, coming right out of the Max Bialystock School of Prosecution. I have long been one of the longest and loudest critics of Manafort. He is a corrupt and despicable person who deserves the two sentences that could keep him in jail for the rest of his life. However, it is not his crimes but his association with President Trump that has driven the manic effort to charge him in New York. In this current age of rage over Trump, Manafort is a readily available surrogate for selective prosecution.

For more than a year, leading New York state prosecutors have openly pledged to get Manafort on some undefined crime to prevent Trump from releasing him from jail on a presidential pardon. They promised to find crimes that could be alleged in the state system, which would not at all be impacted by a presidential pardon. To do that, they only had to strip all citizens of certain rights. Former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman pushed the legislature to rescind a core protection against double jeopardy to allow him to charge Manafort on the same criminal conduct that he would later be sentenced for in federal court.
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When I read the complaint against Manafort, I was struck not only by the overlap but the overkill.
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What emerges is a picture that should trouble everyone who values blind and fair justice.
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The greatest danger is not that Vance will fail on constitutional grounds but that he may succeed.

SCOTUS Gives Trump a Big Win on Immigration. David Catron – “Court rules that criminal aliens can be held without bond during deportation proceedings.” The issue for the Left is about discrimination between citizen and non-citizen; between criminal and non-criminal.

“On Tuesday the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration in Nielsen v. Preap, allowing the Department of Homeland Security to detain illegal aliens without bond while awaiting deportation for committing crimes within our borders.
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The respondents challenged the Trump administration’s interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which requires DHS to take any alien convicted of a deportable crime into custody “whether the alien is released on parole, supervised release, or probation, and without regard to whether the alien may be arrested or imprisoned again for the same offense.”
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The basic point Alito is making here is that the text of the statute means what it says, and no amount of grammatical Jiu Jitsu will change that meaning.
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Not all the justices took this view, of course. The position of the minority was laid out in a dissent written by Justice Stephen Breyer, who focused on the rights of the aliens impacted by Tuesday’s ruling.
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One could hardly ask for a better example of what’s wrong with liberal jurisprudence. It isn’t the Supreme Court’s job to reflect on the “likely intent” of Congress.

Part VI: DC & MD v Trump—Can the President of the United States get Married or Divorced? Seth Barrett Tillman – another example or torturing words and phrases for political insanity via a judicial oligarchy. This example is about the emoluments clause. It’s what they do, It’s who they are.

Andrew McCarthy on Manafort and double jeopardy. neo – “I agree with McCarthy that this should make everyone afraid. … But it doesn’t. Some are applauding.”

Waging War Against the Dead. Victor Davis Hanson – “Not since the iconoclasts of the Byzantine Empire or the epidemic of statue destruction during the French Revolution has the world seen anything like the current war on the past.”

“The West prides itself in the idea that liberal societies would never descend into such nihilism. Think again.
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such attacks usually revealed a lack of confidence. The general insecurity of the present could supposedly be remedied by destroying mute statutes or the legacies of the dead, who could offer no rebuttal.
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opportunism, not logic, always seems to determine the targets of destruction.
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in the past there usually has been a cowardly element to historical erasure. Destruction was often done at night by roving vandals, or was sanctioned by extremist groups who bullied objectors.
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ignorance both accompanies and explains the arrogance of historical erasure, past and present.
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The past is not a melodrama but more often a tragedy. Destroying history will not make you feel good about the present. Studying and learning from it might.

I Love the DisneyWorld Monorail. Here is Why It is A Terrible Public Transit Technology. District 48 – “When I talk about industrial design, I often use a scale where 1 is the Boston City Hall and 10 is the Disneyworld monorail.” … “Disney has essentially abandoned the monorail for all its future expansions. … it relies on busses now almost exclusively for internal transport.” Here’s why. It’s another tale of reality meeting dreams and fantasies.

EDITORIAL: One tongue for all. Washington Times – “The idea of making English the official language is back.”

‘Massively incorrect’: Point-by-point rebuttal to Michael Mann’s Newsweek smear of Trump, Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Moore & Princeton’s Dr. Happer — Update: Michael Mann responds: “Ooooh deniers. Did I touch a nerve? I’m sawee.” The response to being caught in flagrant lies is telling. And indicative.