by Political Editors:  The federal government’s over-regulation doesn’t just consume Americans’ money and time, it’s impacting our freedom as well. One issue that has slowly gained the attention of an increasing number of Americans and politicians is the need for criminal justice reforms. America’s high prison populations, along with a high number of repeat offenders, is pointed to by many as evidence suggesting that the nation’s penal system is seriously broken. In October, Senate Republicans introduced three bills designed to reform the criminal justice system. These bills are a step in the right direction, but they still overlook one major component of the problem rarely mentioned — the problem of over-criminalization. Put simply, there are way too many federal laws and regulations on the books.

          Experts who have studied the problem estimate that only about 5,000 of the more than 300,000 criminally enforceable federal laws have ever been directly voted on by Congress. That means that almost 99% of the federal criminal law code has been created by unelected bureaucrats working within executive branch agencies. In other words, there are no elected officials who the American public can hold accountable for these federal laws. This was not how the federal government was designed to work, as the job of the creating and voting on laws is supposed to be the responsibility of the legislative branch, not the executive. Basic American civics.
          How did we end up here? Much of the initial blame falls on Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal executive power grab. Since 1940, the number of civilians employed in the executive branch has tripled. Along with increasing the size and scope of the executive branch was the development of legal doctrine stipulating that courts are to defer to a federal agency’s own interpretations of the scope of its authority. Essentially, these federal agencies have been granted the power to make whatever rules they claim fit within their own defined authority. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, for every law Congress passes, federal agencies create 18 new regulations.
          The greater number of criminal laws created, the greater the potential for more Americans to run afoul of those laws, intentionally so or not. More rules create more rule breakers. This power must return to Congress, where elected officials can be held directly responsible for the laws they vote on. No more of this handing off power and authority to unelected career bureaucrats.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52190

by Nate Jackson:  The Latino Victory Fund came under fire earlier this week for an ad it ran against Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie. The ad began with minority children (including one Muslim) walking along the street, only to become terrified by a truck sporting a Gadsden Flag license plate and flying a Confederate flag in the back because, the implication was, the driver was seeking to run them down. Each of the kids awakens to find it was only a dream, but the viewer is meant to conclude their fears were founded because Republicans are racist.

          After the New York terror attack Tuesday involving a jihadi running down his victims with a truck, the Latino Victory Fund — funded in part by George Soros — pulled the ad. Its mission was accomplished anyway.
          As Becket Adams writes, “It shouldn’t have taken an act of terror for the Latino Victory Fund to realize its ad was in extremely poor taste, and that it did nothing to lift our political discourse, but we’ll take the small victories where we can find them.”

VIDEO:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj3pqe24uRA

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/52187

by Nate Jackson:  Michelle liar-nObama is no stranger to race-baiting comments, and she often lets it be known there’s a chip on her shoulder. On Wednesday, she stepped into the foray once again, this time sounding off on men and women. “It’s like the problem in the world today is we love our boys, and we raise our girls,” liar-nObama said. “We raise them to be strong, and sometimes we take care not to hurt men — and I think we pay for that a little bit.” How so? “Are we protecting our men too much so they feel a little entitled and … self-righteous sometimes? But, that’s kind of on us too as women and mothers, as we nurture men and push girls to be perfect.”

          If anyone knows about self-righteous entitlement it’s Democrats. It’s true that in our increasingly feminized and fatherless society, boys are no longer taught to be real men. We don’t think that’s what liar-Michelle means.
          But never fear; Democrats are doing something about all this white male privilege that’s supposedly plaguing our society.
          The Daily Wire reports, “In an email issued to DNC insiders on Monday, Data Services manager Madeleine Leader announced that the Technology Department is looking to fill several positions and asked interested parties to forward the openings to their colleagues.” But some folks need not apply. “I personally would prefer that you not forward to cisgender straight white males, since they’re already in the majority,” she added.
          Ah, the party of diversity and inclusion. In reality, Democrats are the party of division and grievance, seeking to “rectify” wrongs both real and perceived by punishing white men who had nothing to do with it. Witness their fearmongering ad in Virginia. Or countless other examples of denigrating and destroying men rather than contributing to a culture of American value.
~The Patriot Posts  
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52207 

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5631780542001

by Jordan Candler:  Late into the regular season, Oakland Athletics catcher Bruce Maxwell decided to join the “movement” spurred by former NFL quarterback and apparent protégé Colin Kaepernick by kneeling for the national anthem. As Maxwell explained when he began his stunt on Sept. 23, “My kneeling is what’s getting the attention, and I’m kneeling for the people who don’t have a voice. This goes beyond the black and Hispanic communities because right now we have a racial divide that’s being practiced from the highest power we have in this country saying it’s basically OK to treat people differently. I’m kneeling for a cause but I’m in no way disrespecting my country or my flag.”

          A Sports Illustrated article later stated that “Maxwell has been the target of racial slurs and threats of violence” in the aftermath of his kneeling. That may or may not be true, but Maxwell is certainly no stand-up guy and can even be accused of perpetrating the very things he supposedly despises. In Huntsville, Alabama — his hometown — someone is accusing Maxwell of “outright lying” over allegations of discrimination.
          According to Fox News, “Maxwell, 26, claimed [last] week that a waiter … refused him service after identifying him as the MLB player who took the knee during ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ last month — only the waiter has a very different version of events and he told Fox News that was far from what went down.” In fact, the waiter says his refusal to serve alcohol to Maxwell’s friend due to an expired ID is what prompted the bogus story. And his manager is backing up the server’s version of events.
          And there’s now yet another reason to question Maxwell’s allegations. In a terrible and telling display of his true character, Maxwell was arrested over the weekend for brandishing a weapon. According to another Fox News report, he “pointed a gun at a female food delivery person in Scottsdale, Ariz. Scottsdale police said officers went to Maxwell’s home Saturday night after getting a call about a person with a gun. Maxwell was booked on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and disorderly conduct.”
          And this is why nobody takes athletes’ social activism seriously — because a disproportionate number of them are uncivil and need to practice what they preach. How many athletes, particularly in the NFL, can be accused of sexual abuse and violence? Too many. And too many also have absolutely zero tolerance for authority. For example, the Associated Press reports, “All but 10 members of the Houston Texans took a knee during the national anthem Sunday, as the vast majority of the team protested the owner’s ‘inmates running the prison’ comment.” Ironically, the one thing you won’t see is anthem kneelers protesting the actions that make some of them inmates.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52134

by Thomas Gallatin:  Historic Christ Church in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, suddenly found itself in the national news after its leaders’ recent decision to remove plaques honoring its most famous parishioners, George Washington and Robert E. Lee. “The plaques in our sanctuary make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome,” the church’s leaders explained. “Some visitors and guests who worship with us choose not to return because they receive an unintended message from the prominent presence of the plaques.”

          Since it’s all the rage today to take down monuments honoring Confederate leaders, the church’s decision to remove Lee’s plaque, while regrettable, is at least somewhat understandable. But why also take down Washington’s plaque? Were Church leaders fearful that an unhealthy degree of idolizing of the plaque had taken hold of the congregation to venerate Washington over Christ? If fear for the health of members’ souls was the impetus, then by all means remove these stumbling stones. Of course, that was far from the reason. Instead, the decision was made out of deference to the vacillating opinions of mere mortals. Christ Church leadership was afraid of offending someone because of the historic fact that George Washington owned slaves — the unforgivable sin of today.
          To be clear, Christ Church has every right to remove this plaque honoring its past members, even when one of those members just happens to be the first president of the United States. But Christ Church’s rationale for removing the plaques speaks more about a troubling spirit of our modern age, where those individuals of the past who accomplished great achievements are condemned for accepting that which was culturally common within their own day. Our inability as a modern culture to judge with a nuanced understanding those from the past says more about our own prejudice than it does our forefathers.
          And of all places a Christian church is built upon the foundation of recognizing that people are sinners who are saved by faith in the only perfect sinless individual, the God-man Jesus Christ. The parable of the woman caught in adultery comes to mind. The leaders of Jesus’ day brought the guilty woman before him saying that according to the law she deserved to be stoned. Jesus didn’t deny her guilt but made a simple and yet profound statement: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Beware of overstating the sins of those in the past while ignoring the sins of the present.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52135

by Political Editors:  Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is far from over. Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and two other men were indicted Monday on charges unrelated to “colluding with Russia.” There are now rumors of up to four more pending indictments, but the identity of those individuals is still a mystery. As we warned when the special council was announced, Mueller can take this investigation wherever he wants. Recall that after the Whitewater investigation, liar-Bill Clinton was eventually brought before Congress on perjury charges that were unrelated to the reason for initiating that investigation in the first place. As for Mueller’s investigation, National Review’s Andrew McCarthy notes, “After all these months of investigation, the much-anticipated Manafort charges turned out to be unrelated to Russian meddling in the 2016 election, let alone to any purported Trump-campaign collusion therein.”

          What is an interesting development is the fact that after news broke of Manafort being charged, Democrat lobbyist Tony Podesta resigned from his own lobbying firm, the Podesta Group, which he started with his brother and liar-Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta. As the ship begins to sink, the rats start to flee. As previously noted, Manafort has a long history of working for the Podesta brothers. Last year, Tony Podesta admitted to the Justice Department that he had failed to disclose meetings in 2014 he had put together between the Indian government and John Podesta, who was at the time a senior counselor to Barack liar-nObama.
          Meanwhile, what should be made of the third person charged by Mueller on Monday? That would be George Papadopoulos, a low-level policy adviser on Trump’s campaign team who pleaded guilty for making false statements to the FBI. Well, since Mueller went after Papadopoulos it may suggest that he has not extracted from Manafort the information he’s seeking, be that a conspiracy of a Trump/Russia collusion, or another as yet undisclosed target. It’s worth repeating that the original impetus for empowering these special counsels rarely ends up being where their investigations conclude.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52153

by Nate Jackson:  Fusion GPS is a Washington research firm founded and staffed by several ex-Wall Street Journal reporters. So when did the outfit responsible for the phony Trump/Russia collusion dossier paid for by liar-Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC get started in the whole enterprise? Well, it turns out that The Washington Free Beacon originally hired the firm to do some research on “multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary.”

          The conservative news site was unapologetic for its methods, writing in a statement, “All of the work that Fusion GPS provided to the Free Beacon was based on public sources, and none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier. The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele. Nor did we have any knowledge of the relationship between Fusion GPS and the Democratic National Committee, Perkins Coie, and the liar-Clinton campaign.”
          The Free Beacon is funded in part by billionaire GOP donor Paul Singer, which is no doubt why it was able to afford such expensive research. It ended the arrangement with Fusion GPS in April 2016, after which Fusion approached liar-Clinton’s campaign and offered to continue its research on Donald Trump. Steele wasn’t hired until months later.
          The news is significant in establishing a timeline, especially given the effort by The Washington Post to direct some attention in its liar-Clinton scoop to the mysterious Republican client who originally hired Fusion GPS. But it doesn’t appear that the Free Beacon committed anything other than journalism. Fusion’s research at that time had nothing to do with Russia and the entire collusion narrative was the propaganda product of Team liar-Clinton.
          We’ll see if Fusion GPS has anything to add this week in House testimony beyond invoking the Fifth Amendment as its executives did last week.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52121