Unfortunately, that warning proved all too prescient with yesterday’s news about Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort. More on that in a minute.
               Now don’t get us wrong — Trump may not be a good man, but he’s been a good president. He has, as Mark Alexander noted recently, “dropped a bomb on the status quo” in Washington. A desperately needed bomb. No wonder he’s a target for destruction.
               As for Trump’s (lack of) character, that was baked into the 2016 election cake. Voters knew exactly who they were electing — and that he was vastly preferable to a criminally corrupt swamp creature named liar-Hillary Clinton. Moreover, as you recall, liar-Bill Clinton had multiple accusations of rape and sexual assault, but dummycrats-Democrats rallied around him. Barack scumbag/liar-nObama lied about the murders of four Americans in Benghazi to win reelection in 2012, yetdummycrats-Democrats rallied around him. Now they care about character? Please.
               Yet it’s also true, as David French argues, “There is no universe that exists under which all the MAGA-folks wouldn’t be calling for liar-Hillary’s impeachment or resignation under similar facts.”
               Which brings us to the facts about Cohen and Manafort. Cohen, the president’s former lawyer, pleaded guilty to tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions, and making false statements to secure a loan. As part of his effort to obtain a better plea deal, he threw Trump under the bus, alleging that “a candidate for federal office” ordered and reimbursed hush-money payments to mistresses “for the principal purpose of influencing the election,” a violation of campaign-finance law because these in-kind contributions by Cohen exceeded the legal limit. That’s a serious charge, but it’s a difficult one to prove. As Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said of the Cohen deal, “It’s not nearly as deadly lethal [to Trump] as some have portrayed it as being.”
               But Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, is a leftist who was special counsel to liar-Bill Clinton, so he knows how to protect a dummycrats-Democrat and attack a Republican.
               Manafort was targeted by Robert Mueller’s team for various crimes committed before Trump’s candidacy. The jury convicted him on eight of 18 charges — a decidedly mixed bag. None of it had to do with Trump, and none of it had to do with Russian collusion. As with Cohen, it was all related to tax and bank fraud, and anyone who thinks such sleazy behavior isn’t commonplace among campaign advisers isn’t paying attention. Recall that District Judge T.S. Ellis chastised Mueller’s team, saying, “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort. You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever.”
               As Mollie Hemingway points out, “One of Manafort’s associates in the whole lobbying enterprise was [ dummycrats- Democrat] Tony Podesta, who has yet to be indicted for his role.” The obvious double standard and specific political targeting actually helps Trump politically.
               Yesterday was a bad day for the GOP, not necessarily for Trump — “draining the swamp” notwithstanding. It most certainly was not, as NBC News laughably asserts, “the darkest day for the presidency since Watergate.” That assertion is being parroted across the Leftmedia spectrum. Trump uses chaos to his advantage, even if it is needlessly distracting chaos. But the House is in jeopardy of falling todummycrats-Democrats, who will then be sorely tempted to pursue impeachment proceedings. Most Leftmedia outlets seem to consider impeachment a foregone conclusion, even if a Senate conviction will never happen.
               Leftists’ sole strategy is delegitimizing Donald Trump. Driven by their own Trump Derangement Syndrome, they’ll use yesterday’s news to maximum effect in seeking to exact retribution for Trump’s only real “crime” — defeating liar-Hillary Clinton in 2016.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57801?mailing_id=3692&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3692&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             Authorities stated that Rivera had been living in the area for the last four to seven years and that he worked at Yarrabee Farms, a local family-run farm. Yarrabee Farms issued a statement saying that Rivera had been “vetted through the government’s E-Verify system, and [he] was an employee in good standing.” The company further added, “Yarrabee Farms follows all laws related to verifying employees are legal to work in the United States, and we regularly seek outside counsel to ensure we stay up-to-date on employment law matters. We keep records on all employees and have shared that information with authorities.”
               Meanwhile, the mainstream media continued its practice of blurring the lines between legal and illegal immigrants by referencing Rivera as an “undocumented immigrant.” Yet that proves to be ironic and misleading in this case, given that Rivera was actually “documented,” though it’s clear his documentation was not legal.
               On Monday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Executive Associate Director Matthew Albence noted the danger in dummycrats-Democrat and leftist calls for abolishing ICE. “If you abolished ICE and removed the whole interior enforcement arm of immigration enforcement, you will have created the greatest pull factor this country has ever seen,” he said, adding, “Individuals south of the border will know that as long as they keep trying and keep trying to get past the border patrol, that there is no possibility that they will ever be arrested, even if they get arrested for criminal violation in this country, that there is no possibility they will ever be arrested by immigration and by ICE. Without that deterrent effect, you will have rampant crime throughout our communities.”
               Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds asserted, “As Iowans, we are heartbroken, and we are angry. We are angry that a broken immigration system allowed a predator like this to live in our community, and we will do all we can [to] bring justice to Mollie’s killer.” Texas Republican Gov. Gregg Abbott took aim at sanctuary cities, writing, “This is why so many Americans are angry about sanctuary cities. It’s why Texas banned sanctuary cities. It’s about safety.” Perhaps he was hearkening back to the last high-profile death perpetrated by an illegal alien — that of Kate Steinle in the sanctuary city of San Francisco.
               No matter how dummycrats-Democrats and open-borders proponents try to spin it, crimes like this committed by illegal aliens are on their heads. Leftists play an active role in seeking to limit effective means of securing our country’s borders, working against the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws via the creation of “sanctuary cities” while calling for the abolishment of ICE.
               If  dummycrats-Democrats were truly concerned over the security of U.S. citizens as well as the plight of illegal aliens, they would be front and center in promoting a strong, secure border and the full enforcement of immigration laws. Doing so would go a long way in reducing the systematic and horrific abuse illegals suffer in the human-trafficking industry that thrives on lax immigration enforcement. But alas, for dummycrats-Democrats it’s all about securing their own hold on political power, not about serving their fellow Americans or even the illegals they claim to champion.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57803?mailing_id=3692&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3692&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             The Leftmedia quickly went to bat for dummycrats-Democrats, with the Center for American Progress predicting that scumbag/liar-nObamaCare’s “benchmark plan” would shoot up 25% next year, all because the individual mandate had been repealed by Republican tax reform. For example, CAP calculated that rates in Pennsylvania would climb 27%, Wisconsin would rise 28%, and the states of Arizona and Nebraska would increase 29%. By most estimates, dummycrats-Democrats saw the pain of skyrocketing rates as a political club to bludgeon their Republican challengers.
               However, insurers are now requesting premium increases at rates significantly less than even the CBO’s early projections. As Investor’s Business Daily explains, “scumbag/liar-nObamaCare premiums will rise a mere 0.7% in Pennsylvania, according to the state’s insurance commissioner. They will climb by just 1% in Nebraska. In Wisconsin, they’re expected to drop by 3.5%, and drop by more than 5% in Arizona.”
               It now appears that dummycrats-Democrats and their cohorts in the MSM will have to turn elsewhere to glean sparse evidence to support their message of a coming Armageddon should voters not elect them back into power. While Republicans did fail in their repeated attempts to repeal the ACA — as is almost always the case, once an entitlement program is implemented, it becomes almost impossible to repeal it in its entirety — Trump and Republicans have been successful in amending some of the most abusive aspects of the law, specifically the individual mandate. And people are going to save a little money.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57758?mailing_id=3690&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3690&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             “You are the patriots and you are the heroes,” Trump told the assembled agents and agency personnel. “You keep us safe and you keep us free. I am honored every single day to serve as your commander-in-chief. I will never leave your side; I will never leave the fight.”
               It’s a good thing, too. Both agencies are increasingly under fire by the Left and the media as the debate simmers over illegal immigration and how the government is supposed to handle it. According to leftists, the government shouldn’t do anything at all about illegal immigration. In fact, they are calling for the outright abolition of ICE.
               Don’t underestimate the power behind that challenge. The proposal to dismantle ICE may have started as an offhand remark by commie-Bernie Sanders’s socialist padawan commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but it is now a mainstream dummycrats-Democrat plank. Likely 2020 presidential candidates such as Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth dinky-Warren, and Kamala Harris have all joined the call. And three House dummycrats-Democrats introduced legislation to follow through.
               Leftists claim that U.S. border policies are harsh and inhumane, and their media lackeys dutifully go along, bending stories any way they can to fit that narrative. Take, for instance, the widely reported story of the illegal immigrant picked up by ICE while taking his pregnant wife to the hospital to have her baby. Conveniently left out of the reporting by virtually every major news outlet — at least the headlines or flashing TV alerts that most people see — was that the man was ducking an outstanding warrant issued for his arrest in Mexico on homicide charges.
               Stories like this are meant to cast ICE as the villain, which then leads to further attacks against the agency. What many don’t understand, however, is that ICE is the backbone of America’s immigration enforcement. There would be (even more) chaos without it.
               ICE is the principal agency for enforcing immigration laws inside the U.S., including the apprehension of illegal immigrants who have slipped past the Border Patrol; combatting the smuggling of weapons, drugs, and people into the country; and investigating immigration fraud schemes. ICE also protects immigrant communities by cracking down on criminal activity that takes place there. Gangs and other bad guys generally commit crimes in the communities in which they reside, making legal immigrants the victims.
               There are other agencies that also handle some of these tasks, but they are already stretched beyond their limits. The sheer volume of cases is more than any single law enforcement agency can bear. Consider that last year over 700,000 people overstayed their visas. That is 300,000 more people than the number apprehended while trying to illegally cross the U.S. border with Mexico during that same period.
               Take ICE out of the picture, and the whole immigration system would quickly unravel — which is exactly what the Left wants.
               It has been said that dummycrats-Democrats and the Left care more about illegal immigrants than they do about American citizens. But even that’s a stretch because they don’t care about illegal immigrants, either. The leftist call for open borders is an attempt to break down American society by overwhelming our communities and our culture with bad people from foreign lands. Leftists discourage assimilation and the learning of English to help further that goal. dummycrats-Democrats see a fresh batch of voters they can hook onto the government dole and keep leftists in office.
               But is this a political winner for dummycrats-Democrats? Not necessarily. As W. James Antle III notes, “House Republicans brought a pro-ICE resolution up for a vote to dare dummycrats- Democrats to vote against it — just 34 did, though 133 voted ‘present’ — while Trump brings it up often on the campaign trail.”
               People need to look beyond the rhetoric that demonizes ICE and support the agency’s work to protect American communities from fraud, crime, and terrorism. Without ICE, American streets will not be safe. And that’s why Trump’s celebration yesterday was welcome.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57769?mailing_id=3690&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3690&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

               Emanuel’s message is the point — and conservative columnist Walter Williams would surely agree — yet it’s been largely ignored by leftists for decades. In truth, a message of faith and morality needs to be repeated throughout the country’s urban corridors. After all, Chicago is hardly alone when it comes to high homicide rates. Nevertheless, Fox News reports that “Emanuel is once again coming under fire for blaming a lack of morals in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods for the recent spate of violent crime.” The report adds, “Critics quickly called him out for what they dubbed tone-deaf comments, in which he seemed to be blaming the victims.” These critics are simply condoning the status quo — and worse.
               As Williams says, “What’s needed most is to get poor people to change their behavior. … If we wait for Washington to solve our problems, we’ll be waiting for a long time.” It’s rare that we can agree with Mayor Rahm “Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste” Emanuel, but alas, his remarks on Chicago violence are appropriate and long overdue. His message is great, but will he stick to it? Depends on whether he has character.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57757?mailing_id=3690&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3690&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             Winner was arrested on June 3, 2017 for disseminating classified information to The Intercept, which published a story two days later on a classified NSA report regarding Russian hackers and the 2016 election. She was caught when the online news publication called the NSA to confirm the story.
               Despite the fact that Winner’s crime carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, federal prosecutors believe the 63-month sentence they recommended will be sufficient to deter other government workers from leaking sensitive information.
               The 27 ongoing investigations into leaks of classified information revealed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a House Oversight Committee meeting in 2017 suggest otherwise.
               Regardless, prosecutors cited prior cases to justify their recommendation. In 2013, former FBI explosives expert Donald Sachtleben received a prison sentence of three years and seven months for leaking classified information, including intel he supplied to the AP about a 2012 U.S. operation in Yemen aimed at thwarting a plot to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner. That same year, CIA veteran John Kiriakou received two and a half years in prison for disclosing a covert officer’s identity to a reporter who subsequently disclosed it to an investigator working with a Guantanamo detainee’s attorney. And in 2015, CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for leaking details of a secret mission to undermine Iran’s nuclear objectives.
               Unsurprisingly, Winner’s attorneys argued her conduct was less egregious than those who got lighter sentences, “including cases where the factual conduct, and information leaked, was arguably worse,” they stated.
               Government prosecutors insisted they gave Winner a deal to avoid exposing government secrets in a court room. “The Intelligence Community assessed that this further disclosure of the Intelligence Report and explaining its contents would compound the exceptionally grave harm to national security already caused by the defendant,” their court filing said.
               Maybe. Or maybe what would have been exposed is just how deep the Deep State rot really goes. Here is a list of statements Winner posted on Twitter under the pseudonym Sara Winners:
—"since @realDonaldTrump clearly believes in time machines, why don’t you go back to Nazi Germany" —Oct. 19, 2016
—#notmypresident#Recount2016" —Nov. 29, 2016
—"When we deploy ‘All Lives Matter’ as to correct an intervention specifically created to address anti-blackness,, [sic] we lose the way in which the state apparatus has built a program of genocide and repression mostly on the backs of Black people — beginning with the theft of millions of people for free labor—and then adapted it to control, murder, and profit off of other communities of color and immigrant communities.“ —Jan 15, 2017
—”#TrumpIsAC-nt,“ Jan, 30, 2017
—"There are many Americans protesting US govt aggression towards Iran. If our Tangerine in Chief declares war, we stand with you!” —Feb. 7, 2017
—"the most dangerous entry to this country was the orange fascist we let into the white house" —Feb. 11, 2017
               How do we know Sara Winners is Reality Winner? Each of the above posts contained her picture, removing any doubt that someone else posted the messages. And while Winner, like every other American, has a constitutional right to say virtually whatever she wants, she doesn’t get immunization from the *consequences *of doing so.
               And therein lies the damnable and highly likely possibility regarding what the NSA is really trying to prevent the public from seeing: according to a timeline of Winner’s activities published by Axios and corroborated by CNN, she was assigned to a U.S. government agency facility at Fort Gordon, a U.S. Army post near Augusta Georgia, and given top security clearance on February 13, 2017.
               Thus, every one of the above tweets was posted before the NSA granted her top security clearance, and before she was granted access to some of the nation’s most sensitive classified intelligence.
               How does a Trump-bashing, Caucasian-condemning, radical leftist who believes “white terrorist” America is engaged in genocide and repression of minorities not only get security clearance but maintain it, right up to the point she is indicted by a grand jury?
               How does anyone procure any job after publicly disseminating statements demonstrating utter contempt for one’s future boss?
               Are Americans supposed to believe NSA vetting procedures are so lax an agency that can ostensibly access more information than any other entity on the planet missed Winner’s social media posts? Or are those who vetted her — along with those further up the chain of command — of the same ideological mindset?
               It gets worse. During the grand jury hearing, the judge denied Winner bond because prosecutors revealed she was a flight risk. “Based on evidence seized from her home, federal prosecutors detailed Winner’s alleged plans to burn down the White House and travel to Afghanistan, pledging her allegiance to the Taliban,” WSB-TV reported in June 2017.
               Moreover, prosecutors recorded jailhouse calls between Reality and her sister, during which Reality revealed she would attempt to manipulate the court “by playing a cute white girl with her cute little braids and perhaps shedding some tears,” assistant U.S. attorney Jennifer Solari explained.
               The breathtaking lack of maturity demonstrated by the tweets, her addled ideas about burning down the White House, etc., and the obliviousness demonstrated by the fact it didn’t occur to her jailhouse phone calls might be recorded, brings us back to that uncomfortable question: How does someone with such obvious shortcomings get a job with the world’s foremost intelligence-gathering institution?
               In the midst of what looks increasingly like a coordinated deep-state effort to delegitimize a duly-elected president, the public deserves answers. Prosecutorial assertions about avoiding a trial to prevent compounding the harm to national security ring as hollow as similar — and already debunked — assertions made by the FBI and DOJ.
               There is no greater threat to national security than an NSA run by unelected, wholly unaccountable zealots. Zealots who remain protected by unverified assertions of the damage exposing the machinations surrounding Winner’s hiring would ostensibly engender.
               NSA Director Mike Rogers needs to get to the bottom of those machinations for the simplest of reasons: If someone as transparently radical as Winner can get hired, then the hiring process is corrupt. Corrupted by whom?

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57736?mailing_id=3688&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3688&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             Some of the most effective teams benefit from members’ manifold talents that function in a complementary fashion — to add to an organization or group and to make it better. These effective teams can be found in sports, the military, business conglomerates, schools where a block of teachers function as a unit, health care facilities where sub-specialists work synergistically, and so on.
               But in politics, diversity is employed as a tool for division. First, to be of value to the political Left, you’re given an identifier: woman, black, Hispanic, disabled, gender fluid, victim of white privilege, atheist, whatever. Then, according to that identifier, your status is the priority, not your individual rights or Liberty as an American.
               One’s status is the preeminent driver of the issues discussed and, therefore, your value to the political Left is to be a victim in need of an intervening agency, such as the government, to be your protector, your provider, your equalizer, your defender, your insert-function-here. Thus, dummycrats-Democrats love “diversity” for the purpose of having a variety of needy subjects. And, yes, “subjects” is the right term.
               Some leftists advocate no more citizens of sovereign nations, shouting, “No borders, no wall, no USA at all.” To eradicate borders is to abandon the need for citizenship. To abandon citizenship means that the government rules over wards (or subjects) of the state.
               While the true purpose of diversity is to ensure that talent, skill, human ingenuity, opinion, and experience should add value to an organization or group, dummycrats-Democrats carry the banner of diversity to appear morally superior while using it to bludgeon both majority whites and America as a whole. Though he made a lame attempt to walk back his comments, that’s what dummycrats-Democrat New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo meant when he said American “was never that great.”
               The diversity club has been used against Trump, too. In recent months, the open-borders crowd has become “woke” to a policy that was used by George W. Bush and strengthened in Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s last term due to human trafficking — the separation of children from their law-breaking parent/adult/trafficker. As with other adults who break the law in every other aspect of law enforcement, children are removed to safety until legal proceedings provide a remedy. Trump’s zero-tolerance approach to this policy’s enforcement was due to the massive influx of illegal immigrants seeking safe harbor in sanctuary cities, coupled with the true obstinance of bothdummycrats-Democrats and some Republicans to allocate funding for a wall and enforcement of America’s southern border.
               Additionally, there was Trump’s travel ban. Trump took the list of nations associated with terrorism itemized during scumbag/liar-nObama’s tenure and paused travel into the U.S. from these nations until adequate vetting and documentation could occur. But that wasn’t “diverse” enough.
               In his April lecture to the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar, California State University professor Edward Erler asserted, “If [the travel ban had been] signed by any president other than Trump, there would therefore be no constitutional objections.” That’s not based on any material changes of the proposal, but because of the assumed racist intent assigned to Donald Trump by the biased media and rabid Left.
               Following the arguments presented bydummycrats- Democrats, Americans must accept all who come to the United States for the supreme attainment of diversity as a defining moral trait that supersedes the value of citizenship or national security. Instead of the greatness of America and any exceptionalism, as Dr. Erler posited, the political Left wants universal persons to live in a homogenous world-state with global interests prevailing. It’s ironic that, using the ideal of diversity, America would be embracing sameness in a borderless society absent the foundations of freedom, right?
               In November 2016, Americans supported the candidate who loudly rejected the Left’s attempt to define our American culture as some universal slog of sameness with no exceptionalism based on some manufactured morality of diversity as constructed by dummycrats-Democrats. A constitutional government serves those with a shared desire for independence, self-reliance, and rights that exist not from the State but from one’s being a responsible, decent part of humanity. A constitutional form of government empowers its citizenry that is naturally diverse in its geographic divisions and cultural mix.
               America needs and must welcome immigrants. Our nation is great with its diverse culture that varies “from sea to shining sea.” Yet the idea that a constitutional government can truly exist without assimilation to a shared culture is not just foolhardy but impossible.
               Those highly functioning teams that lead in health care, sports, the military, business, and every area of life possess individuals of various talents, skills, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. Yet without a shared commitment to the stated mission of each team, they fail. Diversity is good when valued as part of a culture devoted to common goals. Diversity for the sake of itself and the advancement of politically correct indoctrination is the uniform destruction of America.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57747?mailing_id=3688&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3688&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             The news was welcomed by Hal Quinn, president and chief executive of the National Mining Association, who noted that scumbag/liar-nObama’s Clean Power Plan “was a major impediment for our industry going forward in terms of what our markets look like.” Quinn added that the EPA’s action today “removes that pressure.”
               The EPA noted that the decrease in coal-powered plants has created “tremendous strain on the power infrastructure even without the added pressures of an EPA mandate to further shift away from additional coal-fired generation.” The Trump administration argues that coal is an important fuel source and that its continuing decline threatens the electricity supply to the nation’s businesses and consumers.
               The EPA’s plan would scrap most of scumbag/liar-nObama’s Clean Power Plan, leaving the authority for determining power-plant regulations up to individual states. The EPA will also deemphasize the scumbag/liar-nObama-era obsession over climate change, instead focusing on balancing concerns for both the environment and the economic importance of thriving industry.
               Environmental groups and leftists were quick to cry foul, insisting Trump’s actions are illegal and will endanger the environment. There is little doubt that the courts will be heavily involved going forward. But, for now at least, Trump is delivering yet another win for American industry and energy.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57770?mailing_id=3690&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3690&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             The deleted video in question had no graphic content, bad language, or calls for violence warranting Facebook’s own parameters for its “hate speech” designation. So why were these videos censored? This is now the second instance of PragerU being “erroneously” censored on social media over the false designation that its conservative political content was “hate speech.”
               On Friday morning, Facebook issued a lame apology: “We mistakenly removed these videos and have restored them because they don’t break our standards. This will reverse any reduction in content distribution you’ve experienced. We’re very sorry and are continuing to look into what happened with your Page.” However, the question remains, how could this mistake happen, especially given the fact that PragerU is a well-known and vetted media organization to which millions of people intentionally subscribed for news and opinion?
               Much of the answer lies in the obvious leftist bias of those running these social-media giants. In a recent interview on CNN, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted as much, stating that those at Twitter do indeed have a “left-leaning” bias. Left-leaning? At the same time, he claimed that their bias did not affect how they handled “political ideology or viewpoints.” Dorsey added, “We do not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology. We look at behavior.”
               His answer is sly for its presumption of separating ideological content from behavior. Social media exists solely for the public sharing of various thoughts, viewpoints, and ideologies, no matter how trivial or mundane. Yet the social-media gatekeepers have a certain ideological bent that impacts how judgments are made as to what user content constitutes appropriate or inappropriate behavior. Thus, Dorsey’s assertion that his and his employees’ leftist bias doesn’t have an impact on decision-making is dubious at best.
               Back to Facebook. Giving no other explanation other than it was a mistake only serves to increase speculation that the pervasive leftist bias within the company was the primary culprit. It’s increasingly clear that Facebook’s post-2016 algorithms are tilted against conservative perspectives, which are too easily flagged by trolls as content containing “fake news” or “hate speech.” As long as millions of Americans seek to get their news from social media, this filtering by the thought police is going to be hugely problematic.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57751?mailing_id=3688&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3688&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

            On Wednesday, FBI agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested an Iraqi national who had fought for the Islamic State and had murdered an Iraqi policeman prior to entering the U.S. as a refugee in 2014. Omar Abdulsattar Ameen was an ISIS jihadi in Iraq in 2012 and later fled to Turkey, where he applied for and was able to secure refugee status with the U.S. in June 2014. Upon getting permission to enter the U.S., Ameen first traveled back into Iraq, where he joined a group of ISIS fighters who attacked and murdered an Iraqi police officer. Ameen was the one who fired the fatal shot. Then in November 2014, Ameen traveled to the U.S. as a refugee, where he subsequently applied for a green card and did not disclose to U.S. authorities his ties to terrorism.
               “This is just one example of how raising the bar on our security standards has directly increased our ability to protect and secure our nation from terror groups abroad,” Department of Homeland Security press secretary Tyler Houlton said in a statement. Houlton explained, “Soon after her confirmation, Secretary Nielsen directed further improvements to close identified security gaps and to make it harder for terrorists, criminals, and fraudsters to exploit our humanitarian system. Tighter screening and tougher vetting in the refugee program have already started to make Americans safer at home.”

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57729?mailing_id=3688&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3688&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

Even if you strongly oppose President Donald Trump and want to see him defeated in 2020 or impeached before then, you should hope his presidential campaign succeeds with its legal action against Omarosa Manigault Newman alleging she violated a nondisclosure agreement. And if she broke any laws, you should want her prosecuted.
               Manigault Newman — a fired presidential aide and earlier a member of the Trump campaign staff — has set a dangerous precedent by her secret recording of conversations with Trump and White House and campaign aides. The New York Times reported Thursday that Manigault Newman “is believed to have as many as 200” recordings of such conversations.
               If Manigault Newman suffers no penalty for making her secret recordings — and instead uses the recordings to boost sales of her virulently anti-Trump book “Unhinged,” as she is clearly doing now for maximum media exposure — future White House employees will be tempted to follow in her footsteps.
               While it is common for White House staffers to write books about the president they served after he has left office, it is far less common to see books coming out while a president is still serving. Whether the disclosures and allegations in “Unhinged” violate the nondisclosure agreement Manigault Newman signed while working on the Trump campaign is a matter still to be determined.
               And I know of no previous White House aides who secretly recorded conversations and then released them to the media. Further investigation is needed to determine if any of these recordings violated the law — and if they did, Manigault Newman deserves to be prosecuted.
               There’s no question that Manigault Newman’s disclosures will hinder the ability of the current president, future presidents, and their aides to candidly communicate.
               The issue at stake here is good governance — not politics. If liar-Hillary Clinton had been elected president in 2016 and her aide Huma Abedin secretly recorded conversations in the White House and released them, the action would be just as objectionable as what Manigault Newman did. However, you can bet that dummycrats-Democrats and the media would be far angrier at someone betraying a dummycrats-Democratic president.
               So far, Manigault Newman has released recordings of her conservations with Trump, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, presidential daughter-in-law Lara Trump, and staffers on the Trump campaign. Politico reports that “Manigault Newman has told friends and associates that she has tapes of private phone calls from first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, according to two sources with whom she has discussed the recording.”
               Manigault Newman recorded Kelly in the White House Situation Room when he fired her. Located in the White House basement, the Situation Room is run by the National Security Council. It is equipped with a secure communications system and used primarily for managing domestic and foreign crises.
               Cellphones and other recording devices are not allowed in the Situation Room — a prohibition Manigault Newman ignored, by her own admission. Even if a staff member does not knowingly use a cellphone as a recording device, hostile forces can hack into the phone and turn on its microphone to transmit conversations that spies can record. This can pose a grave national security risk.
               Now that White House officials know they’ve been secretly recorded, they — and staffers for future presidents — know they can be taped again, and that could have a very harmful chilling effect on their internal discussions.
               Effective management of the White House — or any government office or business — requires frank discussions among all parties. Presidential advisers must feel free to share all information that can help a president assess the nature and severity of a problem, all possible options for dealing with it, and the political, social, and public relations ramifications of every possible action or nonaction.
               The president, in turn, must have confidence that these candid discussions will remain confidential. This is particularly true when it comes to national security and foreign policy threats, where leaks could endanger lives or severely damage our interests abroad.
               No president — dummycrats-Democrat or Republican — should have to worry about secret recordings being made inside the White House. How important is it to preserve the confidentiality of presidential communications? Important enough that it is enshrined in the constitutional doctrine of executive privilege.
               George Washington didn’t have to worry about recording devices. But he first asserted executive privilege in 1792 when Congress demanded internal White House documents about a failed military expedition. Most recently, executive privilege was reasserted by the scumbag/liar-nObama administration to deny Congress access to Justice Department documents regarding Operation Fast and Furious, a failed investigation of illegal gun trafficking.
               In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court discussed “the valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties” in U.S. v. Nixon, the seminal case on executive privilege. This was the case in which the Supreme Court ruled that President Richard Nixon had to turn over tapes he secretly recorded of his Oval Office conversation.
               While that ruling went against Nixon, the high court said in its decision the importance of preserving confidentiality between the president and those he speaks with “is too plain to require further discussion. Human experience teaches that those who expect public dissemination of their remarks may well temper candor with a concern for appearances and for their own interests to the detriment of the decision-making process.”
               The Supreme Court ruling went on to say: The expectation of a President to the confidentiality of his conversations and correspondence … is the necessity for protection of the public interest in candid, objective, and even blunt or harsh opinions in Presidential decision-making. A President and those who assist him must be free to explore alternatives in the process of shaping policies and making decisions and to do so in a way many would be unwilling to express except privately. These are the considerations justifying a presumptive privilege for Presidential communications. The privilege is fundamental to the operation of Government and inextricably rooted in the separation of powers under the Constitution.
               Manigault Newman acted dishonorably and dishonestly in secretly recording confidential White House conversations. But the far bigger problem with this kind of behavior is that it threatens the ability of any president to get the unfiltered information and robust debate among his advisers needed to reach the best possible decisions.
               This violation of protocol and betrayal of trust is on par with the leaks from White House insiders that have come to plague all modern presidents. Future presidential candidates would be well-advised to require nondisclosure agreements from the individuals who assist them as part of their transition teams and who end up working in the White House.
               The perils of modern technology — such as button and pen cameras — combined with Washington’s pervasive “leak culture,” leave would-be presidents little choice. Otherwise, the odds of them getting their advisers’ “candid, objective, and even blunt or harsh opinions” are close to nil. And it’s precisely that kind of input presidents need when making decisions about vital issues that affect the health, safety, and prosperity of our nation and the American people.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/57735?mailing_id=3688&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3688&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

In 1972, Pope Paul VI warned that “the smoke of Satan has entered the Church of God.” We see that smoke throughout the report from a Pennsylvania grand jury, which alleges that more than 300 priests abused more than 1,000 children in six Pennsylvania dioceses — including 99 priests from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, which was led for 18 years by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, now archbishop of Washington.
             How bad was the abuse? The report notes that “during the course of this investigation, the Grand Jury uncovered a ring of predatory priests operating within the [Pittsburgh] Diocese who shared intelligence or information regarding victims as well as exchanging the victims amongst themselves. This ring also manufactured child pornography … [and] used whips, violence and sadism in raping their victims.” According to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, one victim, a boy named George, “was forced to stand on a bed in a rectory, strip naked and pose as Christ on the cross for the priests. They took photos of their victim, adding them to a collection of child pornography which they produced and shared on church grounds.” Abusing a child while mocking the Passion of Christ is truly diabolical.
               Wuerl, who served as the bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006, did discipline some priests — and even went to the Vatican to fight an order that he reinstate one. But the grand jury also wrote that he reassigned other predator priests — including the one who “groomed” George and introduced him to the ring that photographed him. In at least one case, Wuerl required a victim to sign a “confidentiality agreement” barring him from discussing his abuse with any third party as part of a settlement.
               That is a coverup. In addition, the grand jury also wrote that under his leadership the diocese failed to report allegations of abuse to law enforcement, advocated for a convicted predator at sentencing, and then provided a $11,542.68 lump-sum payment to the disgraced priest after his release from prison.
               The grand jury report comes on the heels of the sickening accusations that Wuerl’s predecessor as Washington archbishop, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, sexually abused seminarians and young priests, and spent nearly 20 years molesting a young boy, the first person he baptized, beginning when the child was 11.
               After the McCarrick allegations, Wuerl declared, “I don’t think this is some massive, massive crisis.” Excuse me, Your Eminence?
               It is a massive, massive crisis. How was McCarrick allowed to rise through the hierarchy despite the countless warnings to both his fellow bishops and the Vatican that he was a sexual predator? Who knew? Who helped him? The same conspiracy of silence that allowed sexual predators to flourish in Wuerl’s Pittsburgh diocese for decades also allowed McCarrick to become, until just a few weeks ago, one of the most powerful American cardinals, even in retirement.
               This is not just a matter of getting rid of a few bad apples. There is a ring of abusers and their enablers in the Catholic hierarchy that must be rooted out. Every report of abuse that was overlooked or ignored, every abuse that was covered up with a nondisclosure agreement, must be exposed. The bishops and cardinals who ignored or covered up abuses are complicit and must be removed. The church must be cleansed, and the conspiracy of silence ended.
               The only way to do this is through an independent investigation. The church has proved itself incapable of self-investigation and self-policing — which is evidenced by the fact we are just learning new details of the horrific extent of abuse from a grand jury 16 years after the scandal first erupted. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Michael Strain has recommended bringing back former Oklahoma governor, federal prosecutor and faithful Catholic Frank Keating to lead the investigation.
               In 2003, Keating resigned from a lay-member church-appointed board looking into abuse after he refused to apologize for comparing the coverup by the bishops to the Mafia. That makes him precisely the right man for the job.
               The bishops not only failed the victims but have also scandalized the church, undermined its teaching authority and driven countless people away from Christ. How many failed to go to confession, or left the sacraments, because of their actions — or their failure to act? We will never know. But they should heed Mark’s Gospel, where Jesus warns, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” This must be a time of repentance. Repentance requires accountability. And accountability requires resignations — starting with Wuerl’s.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/57708?mailing_id=3684&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3684&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             Last year, a Millennial couple, Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, quit their jobs in Washington, DC, and departed for a year-long biking tour around the world. According The Pluralist, “Austin, a vegan who worked for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Geoghegan, a vegetarian who worked in the Georgetown University admissions office, decided that they were wasting their lives working.”
               Before departing, Austin wrote: “I’ve missed too many sunsets while my back was turned. Too many thunderstorms went unwatched, too many gentle breezes unnoticed.”
               Their biking trip ended in tragedy on 29 July in Tajikistan, when five Islamists drove their car into the group of cyclists, then emerged with knives, killing Austin and Geoghegan and two others.
               Before the naive couple was murdered by the Islamic State adherents, Austin wrote:
               “You watch the news and you read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place. People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil. People are axe murderers and monsters and worse. I don’t buy it. Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own…”
               Regarding Donald Trump, Austin wrote on his trip blog from a location in the Middle East:
               “On the television across the room, Al Jazeera plays softly. Donald Trump has just announced his plans to move an embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and the Muslim world is visibly upset. … As a clip plays of a sullen Trump waddling across the screen, I do my best to disappear into the soft plush of the couch cushion behind me. But American as we may be, no one here seems to mind.”
               Unfortunately for Austin, Geoghegan, and their two friends, there will be no more “sunsets … thunderstorms … and gentle breezes.”

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57718?mailing_id=3684&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3684&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             Leftist heartthrob and prospective 2020 presidential candidate (even though she’s insisted there’s no interest on her part) Elizabeth dinky-Warren (D-Cherokee) was the one stepping into that breach. The senator has introduced what she calls the Accountable Capitalism Act, a measure she detailed more deeply in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week.
               Her bill hasn’t drawn any co-sponsors, and its prospects of getting through the Senate are between slim and none, but that’s not the point of the legislation. To dinky-Warren and her fellow travelers, there’s really no such thing as “too big to fail,” nor can they resist the corollary “too small to control.” But it’s much easier to pile on to the popular perception that large corporations are greedy — a perception gleefully aided by the leftist dummycrats-Democrats who aspire to live like the so-called “One Percent” but try to portray themselves as part of the 99%.
               To throw the tofu equivalent of red meat to that crowd, dinky-Warren complains in her op-ed, “In the early 1980s, large American companies sent less than half their earnings to shareholders, spending the rest on their employees and other priorities. But between 2007 and 2016, large American companies dedicated 93% of their earnings to shareholders. Because the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households own 84% of American-held shares, the obsession with maximizing shareholder returns effectively means America’s biggest companies have dedicated themselves to making the rich even richer.”
               Her solution? “Corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue would be required to get a federal corporate charter,” she explained, “The new charter requires corporate directors to consider the interests of all major corporate stakeholders — not only shareholders — in company decisions.” She continued, “Shareholders could sue if they believed directors weren’t fulfilling those obligations.” In other words, this bill would be the Holy Grail for trial lawyers.
               It’s this aspect of Warren’s proposal that rubs National Review’s Kevin Williamson the wrong way: “dinky-Warren’s proposal is dishonestly called the ‘Accountable Capitalism Act.’ Accountable to whom? you might ask. That’s a reasonable question.”
               Williamson has the answer to his own rhetorical question: “The answer is — as it always is — accountable to politicians, who desire to put the assets and productivity of private businesses under political discipline for their own selfish ends. It is remarkable that people who are most keenly attuned to the self-interest of CEOs and shareholders and the ways in which that self-interest influences their decisions apparently believe that members of the House, senators, presidents, regulators, Cabinet secretaries, and agency chiefs somehow are liberated from self-interest when they take office through some kind of miracle of transcendence.”
               Nor does it necessarily have to be government.dinky- Warren’s proposal leaves a low threshold of 25% plus one share to preclude corporations from proceeding with any political activity. Imagine a group of wealthy left-wingers buying up just enough of a minority interest in a conservative-leaning corporation — such as a large gun company — to put the brakes on political advocacy on their behalf. Losing their investment would be a small price to pay for eliminating a company like Remington Outdoor or Sturm Ruger.
               And that’s the main point. Companies sometimes succeed in ways that aren’t politically correct, and the Left hates this with a white-hot passion. Walmart’s non-union stance is a great example, despite Big Labor’s best efforts to overcome it. Amazon is a more recent example, as Scott Shackford argues at Reason. A bill such as the “Accountable Capitalism Act” leaves a corporation two bad choices: either grow sufficiently to come under its auspices and face sanctions from saboteur stockholders, or just stay small and under the threshold, such as a regional homebuilder passing up the opportunity to advance to a national scale.
               Pardon us, then, if we detect within this batty scheme — a scheme, says Shackford, in which dinky-Warren is less concerned about seeing businesses fail than about seeing them succeed in a manner more to her liking — a faint whiff of economic fascism.
               Needless to say, antifa won’t be rioting againstdinky-Warren’s idea anytime soon.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57721?mailing_id=3684&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3684&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             Why? Well, the list is long, but allow me to highlight the top three reasons.
               First, scumbag/commie-Brennan is a political hack. During his tenure under Barack scumbag/liar-nObama at the CIA, scumbag/commie-Brennan used his position to provide scumbag/liar-nObama political cover for Benghazi ahead of his 2012 reelection bid, and by extension provided liar-Hillary Clinton cover for her 2016 bid. scumbag/liar-nObama awarded him with CIA directorship in March 2013.
               Second, did I mention he is a political hack? In 2016, scumbag/commie-Brennan and ex-FBI Directorscumbag-James Comey orchestrated the fake Trump/Putin collusion charade to ensure Trump would not be elected.
               Third, he then, to put it kindly, “misled Congress” in testimony regarding numerous issues.
               And finally, after the election of Trump,scumbag/commie- Brennan was elevated to Leftmedia “analyst” with NBC News and MSNBC, and all of his black-bag bias against Republicans and Trump has been spewing out through his social media accounts, effectively betraying him for the political hack he has always been.
               After his security clearance was revoked, dummycrats-Democrats and the Leftmedia howled that the man who got Osama bin Laden deserves to be canonized, not ostracized.
               To that end, scumbag/liar-nObama’s former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, who was central in the Benghazi cover-up, protested yesterday, “scumbag/commie-John Brennan was the point person for the scumbag/liar-nObama White House on the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. He knows a lot more about defending our nation than someone who uses security clearances to punish his political adversaries.”
               Responding to Rhodes and others, Tier 1 operator Robert O'Neill, the Operation Neptune Spear SEAL team member who actually shot and killed bin Laden, responded, “Actually, @brhodes, 23 conservatives went after UBL. No offense, in case you were wondering.”
               I met with O'Neill most recently last month and can assure you this: O'Neill and those “23 conservatives,” who assumed they were on a virtual suicide mission to kill Osama and would not make it out of Abbottabad, Pakistan, alive — not to mention the hundreds of thousands of other Americans who have served our nation in combat — “know more about defending our nation” than scumbag/commie-John Brennan and his ilk.
               For the record, scumbag/commie-Brennon never served a day in uniform. In his CIA application process, he admitted having voted for a communist presidential contender because he was “signaling my unhappiness with the system.” He was and remains an angry, America-hating career bureaucrat, whose most notable field service assignment was under liar-Bill Clinton as CIA station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Under his watch there, 19 U.S. Air Force service members were murdered in the Khobar Towers bombing. And, as you recall, when Brennan was in the Middle East, liar-Clinton red-lighted operations to capture or kill bin Laden long before OBL orchestrated the 9/11 attack.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57724?mailing_id=3684&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3684&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body