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Barr then noted, “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. It’s a big deal.”

It is a big deal, which is why Democrats immediately attacked Barr’s credibility. House Speaker Nancy Pulosi led the way, grousing, “I don’t trust Barr. I trust dirty cop-Mueller.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer charged, “[Barr] is acting as an employee of the president. I believe the attorney general believes he needs to protect the president of the United States.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman scumbag-Adam Schiff — the man currently in hot water for notoriously claiming to have evidence that Trump was guilty of Russian collusion while producing none — offered this downright laughable response: Barr “should not casually suggest that those under his purview engaged in spying on a political campaign,” scumbag-Schiff lectured. “This type of partisan talking point may please Donald Trump, who rails against a deep-state coup, but it also strikes another destructive blow to our democratic institutions.” Please.

The fact of the matter is that the FBI admitted to spying, as has been documented via the FISA warrants for surveillance of members of Trump’s campaign — specifically Carter Page. The only reason the Democrats are so up in arms over Barr’s use of the term “spying” is that in common parlance it evokes more sinister imagery. However, what Democrats are actually more worried about is that Barr is doing what any good AG would do — investigating the investigators to determine whether they were justified in their actions. He’s begun to turn the tables on the Democrats’ longrunning anti-Trump narrative, which could prove that the Washington establishment engaged in a coordinated effort to oppose Trump from the get-go.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62340?mailing_id=4195&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4195&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

African Front

Harold Hutchison:  When we think of confronting Russia and China, the usual places we think of those confrontations taking place are either Europe or the Pacific. But the real conflicts are happening someplace few might expect: Africa.

This might sound surprising to many who are familiar with the usual stories of starving children. It is true — many countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, probably fit a certain scatological descriptive term allegedly uttered by President Donald Trump last year. But there is more to Africa than meets the eye.

One big issue: There are a lot of natural resources on and under that continent. Among them are gold (important for the obvious reasons), diamonds (also obviously important), uranium (for nuclear power and nuclear weapons), coal (for energy), and iron (which can be turned into steel for ships, tanks, and other items). And according to MiningAfrica.net, much of Africa’s natural resources are untapped.

China and Russia are greedily eyeing those natural resources. The ChiComs need the resources to propel an economy with more than one billion people. Russia, with its own wealth of natural resources, is going after it for pocketbook reasons: As we explained when discussing the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, American natural-gas exports shrink the Russian portion of the pie.

The more of the market share of natural gas, oil, or minerals, Russia controls, the easier it is for Vladimir Putin to not only rake in the money, but to also use it as leverage. China had the ability to do the same with rare-earth minerals, until Japan found a motherlode around Marcus Island.

China has been very active in Africa, pushing the so-called “One Belt, One Road” strategy. According to The Daily Signal, China has used debt racked up by countries like Zambia and Djibouti to extract concessions, including the expansion of military bases. Russia has turned to exporting arms in exchange for votes in the United Nations.

National Security Advisor John Bolton, who revealed the new strategy in an event at The Heritage Foundation, pointed out that the Russian and Chinese actions “stunt economic growth in Africa; threaten the financial independence of African nations; inhibit opportunities for U.S. investment; interfere with U.S. military operations; and pose a significant threat to U.S. national security interests.”

The good news is that President Trump has unveiled a new strategy to counter these moves and help get sub-Saharan Africa out from under the thumb of dictators in Moscow and Beijing. According to The Daily Signal, the three-pronged strategy includes enhancing commercial ties, countering radical Islamic terrorism, and taking steps to make the foreign aid we provide effective and efficient.

The fact of the matter is that America has largely ignored sub-Saharan Africa — not out of malice but due to the fact that between the Cold War and the War on Terror, there were bigger fish to fry. But now, Africa is becoming a key geopolitical battleground, and it’s time for America to get on the field.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62285?mailing_id=4191&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4191&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

In a seemingly coordinated effort to advance this narrative, The New York Times last week ran an article  claiming that “Attacks by White Extremists Are Growing.” The story highlighted the attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a self-proclaimed white supremacist murdered 50 people in an act of terror aimed at Muslims. The article then claimed that the Christchurch murderer “drew inspiration” from “an informal global network of white extremists whose violent attacks are occurring with greater frequency in the West.”

Once again we have a case of the narrative leading the story. It’s clear that the narrative the Times is pushing is that violence perpetrated by white supremacists is a serious and growing threat that is worse than people may believe. But do the facts support such a conclusion? Well, as is often the case with Leftmedia outlets like the Times, not so much.

The Times excluded several important contextualizing details, which immediately calls into question the reliability of the entire narrative. For example, no numbers were provided so as to establish the total number of extremist-related violent incidents globally. In 2017 alone, nearly 20,000 people were murdered by groups associated with radical Islamic extremists — a number not provided by the Times.

Meanwhile, the Times offers a nine-year timeline that notes 15 incidents of “white extremist” violence resulting in 194 people killed that were purportedly committed by individuals motivated by white racism. However, after a closer look into these attacks, one quickly finds that the motive of “white extremism” is not entirely clear … or even there at all.

As Seth Barron, writing for City Journal, observes, “Some of the most prominent killings … resist categorization as acts of white racial terror. Ali Sonboly, the son of Iranian Shi'ite Muslim immigrants and visibly a racial minority, carried out the 2016 Munich mall shooting. The 2016 Umpqua Community College shooting was carried out by a self-identified ‘mixed-race’ man, as was the 2014 Isla Vista massacre, whose perpetrator believed that being half-Chinese made him unattractive to women. The 2018 Toronto van massacre was perpetrated by a white man who declared that he was part of an ‘Incel Rebellion’ against the ‘Chads and Stacys’ of the world — in other words, he was angry that he could not get a girlfriend and was committed to overthrowing the ‘beautiful people.’ The killer mowed down pedestrians in Toronto’s business district at random. The Times’ inclusion of these four incidents calls into question the value of its diagnosis of ‘white extremist killers.’”

Finally, as The Wall Street Journal reports, “Since 1990, far-right extremists have killed 477 people in 214 attacks in the U.S., according to the crime data. A majority of the assaults targeted minorities, with 241 people dying in 170 attacks. (In the same period, the Global Terrorism Database records 31 far-right attacks with one or more deaths.)” In other words, violent attacks committed by “white extremists” are not on the rise — rather, the frequency of these violent hate crimes has remained relatively steady for the past 50 years. In any case, the crimes are dwarfed by attacks perpetrated by Islamofascists.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62284?mailing_id=4191&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4191&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Knowing what to expect? It was virtually a suicide mission given that the B-25s couldn’t land on aircraft carriers.

Immediately following the raid, Cole was able to parachute to safety where he was helped by Chinese partisans; his seven fellow crew members were not so fortunate. All seven died — three during the mission, three were captured by the Japanese and executed, and one died in captivity. However, the bold action and sacrifice made by these American heroes in punching back at Imperial Japan proved monumental in lifting the country’s spirits.

In 2015, all the Raiders were honored with the Congressional Gold Medal for their “outstanding heroism, valor, skill and service to the United States.” That same year, Cole published a book entitled Dick Cole’s War: Doolittle Raider, Hump Pilot, Air Commando (American Military Experience). In it he detailed his military service.

As J. Christian Adams aptly put it, “Richard Cole deserves a salute from all Americans today. An American hero in the truest sense of the word has passed.”  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62315?mailing_id=4195&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4195&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

The IRGC was established after the 1979 Iranian Revolution as a paramilitary group charged with the security of the ruling class of mullahs. It answers only to the country’s supreme leader, and neither the government nor the military has any jurisdiction over its actions.

The IRGC’s unique position in the Iranian power structure gives it influence over a significant portion of the country’s economy, especially in banking. These ties to domestic and foreign businesses have allowed the IRGC to provide materiel support to terrorists throughout the Middle East and beyond. It also controls the nation’s ballistic-missile program.

The new terrorist designation opens up IRGC front companies to sanctions, as well as bans any companies or governments that do business with the U.S. from doing business with the IRGC. “This action will significantly expand the scope and scale of our maximum pressure on the Iranian regime,” President Donald Trump said in a statement. “It makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC. If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism.”

The U.S. government has known for years that the IRGC takes part in terrorist activities, so this move is a long time coming. Back in 2015, then-Secretary of State Ash Carter testified that the Iranians, largely through the IRGC’s Quds Force, were responsible for the deaths of at least 500 American service personnel in Iraq. That number was recently revised to 608.

Trump’s predecessor, Barack scumbag/liar-nObama, chose to actually reward Iran’s terrorist behavior by signing on to a horribly weak nuclear deal and paying the Iranians $1.7 billion in cold, hard cash that he insisted at the time was not a ransom. Spoiler alert: it was.

At the time, scumbag/liar-nObama, who fancied himself an astute statesman, wanted to cement his legacy by creating better relations with Iran. The Iranians, seeing him for a sucker, made a complete fool out of Obama by getting the U.S. to agree to a payout to cover a $400 million business deal gone bad from around the time of the 1979 revolution, padded with 37 years of interest totaling $1.3 billion.

While scumbag/liar-nObama tried to insist that this was not a ransom payment, it was coincidentally timed with the release of foreign prisoners held in Iranian jails. The money was delivered on pallets in several different currencies via a military transport in the middle of the night. The deal had all the appearances of something you might see in a South American narco state, not a legitimate deal between two nations. But there was nothing legitimate about this deal, and nothing substantive was gained from it, either.

Iran did not alter its behavior. Shocking, we know. In fact, as is virtually always the case when going soft on totalitarian regimes, the Islamic regime doubled down. And why not? scumbag/liar-nObama basically rewarded them for taking U.S. sailors hostage, for pursuing nuclear weapons despite the so-called nuclear deal, and for supporting terrorism. In fact, scumbag/liar-nObama ended up supporting terrorism, too, because that’s almost certainly where much of the $1.7 billion ransom he paid out ended up.

At the time, we reported that scumbag/liar-Obama’s feckless foreign policy would only embolden our enemies. Thankfully, Donald Trump has worked to reverse that trend, first by pulling out of the sham nuclear deal, and now by ratcheting up sanctions against businesses tied to the IRGC.

The IRGC has threatened to retaliate against the U.S. for being labeled a terrorist entity, which essentially proves that the IRGC is indeed a terrorist entity. This should not stop America from acting in its own best interest. The IRGC has been actively plotting against the United States for the better part of four decades. At least now we’re calling it as we see it and doing something about it.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62262?mailing_id=4188&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4188&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

That “visibility” — the satisfying payoff of receiving a big check — is exactly why CBS headlined its story “Tax refunds so far this year are down by $6 billion from 2018.”

CBS did accurately report the numbers, but if all you read is the headline, or if you didn’t make it past the first three paragraphs, you were grossly misled.

With the tax-filing deadline just days away, Americans will start to see many more stories like this. It’s been a theme since the IRS began accepting returns this year, as the Leftmedia spins bigger paychecks as a bad thing.

Far too many Americans treat their tax refunds as a forced savings account for big purchases. CBS notes that “while the average refund, at $2,873, is only $20 less than it was last year, about 1.6 million fewer people are getting refunds.” That means a dip in retail sales for items like appliances or furniture.

Of course, just sticking your money in a low-yield savings account at the bank will earn a far better return than an interest-free loan to the federal government. Yet that’s the insidious nature of withholding from paychecks — people tend to overlook it. When the government has first dibs on your hard-earned money, it changes your behavior. And getting the withholding to match your actual tax obligation is really tough, so why bother? Just wait for the refund.

As our own Louis DeBroux concluded in February, “While the GOP/Trump tax cuts (which not a single Democrat voted for) have been a massive jumpstart to the economy, neither Trump nor Republicans can depend on a hostile press to really admit the truth. They’ll have to take this good news directly to the American people.”  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62275?mailing_id=4188&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4188&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

On March 13, Democrats introduced the Equality Act — a moniker that camouflages the deception involved — legislation that would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes under federal law on civil rights. Americans, however, know that not everything is equal. Nevertheless, Democrats plan to engage in their transformational role to use the power of law as their tool to bludgeon their secular beliefs into the masses to enforce their social-justice garbage as the norm.

Exactly what does this Equality Act do, you might ask, and why would anyone oppose equality? Glad you asked.

This radical legislation takes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and amends it. That’s right. Dr. King, a reverend and minister whose teaching came from the very same Bible that calls sexual immorality and perversion a sin, fought to have this landmark legislation passed into law to protect Americans from racism and discrimination based on the amount of melanin in one’s skin at birth. Democrats hope to commandeer this very same vehicle in attempts to align identity and gender confusion, which runs counter to biology, science, psychology, and, yes, God’s Holy Word, with the Civil Rights Movement. It’s not much more complex than that.

Race is a trait that is objective and can be confirmed through various markers present in biology. Sex, too, is an objective trait that can be validated via chromosomal confirmation, anatomy at birth, along with hormonal ratios in the blood. “Gender,” however, has become the darling of the militant LGBTQIA+ crowd, since they’ve redefined a perfectly good word to be about “identity” — a subjective identifier that can change according to an individual’s whim. Cosmopolitan magazine, in a May 2018 article, declares: “Gender is a social construct. Gender is someone’s own internal understanding about whether they are a man or a woman, something in between, [or] none of those things.”

Therein lies the problem. Putting into U.S. Code severe punishments that protect someone’s identity as they view themselves at a given moment and how a segment of society intends to normalize confusion or deviancy, not according to the fixed, measurable characteristics assigned to them at birth, is not just unconstitutional. It’s dangerous.

But, goes the argument, no one should experience discrimination. It’s a fact that hatred has no role of value in a decent society. Acts of hate, violence, and deception are indeed unacceptable. However, the confrontational Left is equating and making equal one’s racial composition, especially in law, to the ever-growing list of “genders.” This same group of activists treats gender as a “spectrum,” not a trait. This is supported by the list of 112 genders aggregated by Tumblr. A few are:

• Cisgender: the feeling of being the gender you were assigned at birth, all the time (assigned (fe)male/feeling (fe)male).
• Demigender: a gender that is partially one gender and partially another.
• Gender Neutral: the feeling of having a neutral gender, whether somewhere in between masculine and feminine or a third gender that is separate from the binary; often paired with neutrois.
• Neutrois: the feeling of having a neutral gender; sometimes a lack of gender that leads to feeling neutral.
• Transgender: any gender identity that transcends or does not align with your assigned gender or society’s idea of gender; the feeling of being any gender that does not match your assigned gender.
• Verangender: a gender that seems to shift/change the moment it is identified.

By protecting the subjective view of gender, thanks to the “tolerant” Left, as equal to race, there are several groups who’ll be harmed by the reach of this potential law. Employers and workers, nonprofits, medical professionals, parents and children, and women will experience harm due to the consequences, intentional or not, resulting from this proposal. Clearly, the magnitude of impact with small businesses can’t be measured but it can certainly be anticipated since the vacillating identity of gender could create a jackpot of fake justice with a surge of lawsuits and regulatory entanglements.

Parents are already experiencing court and legal intervention when they don’t permit their confused minor child to begin hormone-replacement therapy on the pathway to have a sex-change. Research records that as high as 90% of children with gender dysphoria have the distress resolved after puberty. With the Equality Act, courts and lawyers will find themselves in the role to permit the whims of hormonal teenagers to become costly realities.

Medical professionals, attempting to intervene on behalf of the health — both physical and mental — of confused patients have already come under assault. In Washington, the ACLU sued a Catholic hospital for refusing to do a double mastectomy on a 16-year-old girl struggling with gender dysphoria. In both New Jersey and California, Catholic hospitals have been taken to court for refusing to perform hysterectomies on otherwise healthy women wanting to surgically change to identify as a male. This is not health — this is Frankenstein-like medicine harming mixed-up victims.

An unusual victim in this new version of the Civil Rights Movement is that of women. Why, you ask? Well, as men identifying as women are accepted into sports, business, and academia, biological women will likely be displaced and replaced by their transgender, tragender (spanning across all genders), trigender, or whatever their identified qualifier in meeting diversity quotas in these areas that come with scholarships, hiring preferences, and access to placement in top institutions of learning.

This is no hypothetical fret that drew out the House hearing for a total of four hours with testimony from Julie Beck, a lesbian and former law and policy co-chair for Baltimore City’s LGBTQ Commission. Beck argued against the Equality Act with particular opposition to transgender women in sports, noting that men would dominate women’s sports, which would keep biological girls from scholastic opportunities and attainment.

There are countless other arguments that can and should be made opposing this legislation. For example, it endangers the First Amendment protections of Americans who do more than practice their faith on occasion, but, instead, live their lives around and supported by the teachings of Holy Scripture.

Democrats’ investment in identity politics and division are at the very root of this very wrong-headed proposal. American Patriots, engage to defeat this and other proposals that are part of the destruction of our great nation presented by the Left as their idea of equality to achieve their very costly political victory.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62250?mailing_id=4183&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4183&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

It appears that Trump’s decision didn’t sit well with DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who on Sunday tendered her resignation. In her resignation letter, Nielsen wrote, “Despite our progress in reforming homeland security for a new age, I have determined that it is the right time for me to step aside.” She also implied that much of the blame for the current border crisis lay with Congress, writing, “I hope that the next Secretary will have the support of Congress and the courts in fixing the laws which have impeded our ability to fully secure America’s borders and which have contributed to discord in our nation’s discourse.” Kevin McAleenan, head of Customs and Border Protection, will act as Homeland Security secretary.

A couple things can be gleaned from recent events. First, Trump is clearly frustrated by the DHS’s lack of success in stemming the migration crisis at the border — a crisis that, as Nielsen noted, Congress has thus far refused to act on. Worse, it’s a crisis Democrats have exacerbated for their own political aims, while they flippantly throw concern for national security and protecting the rights of American citizens under the bus. Meanwhile, by pulling Vitiello’s nomination, Trump claims a “get tougher” message, but his decision may also have been in deference to the opinion of senior adviser Stephen Miller and ICE union boss Chris Crane. In other words, it looks like there was a lot of internal politics behind this decision.

This also appears to be the motivation behind Nielsen’s decision. Nielsen, who supported Vitiello, recognized that change was coming, and maybe in a direction she was not as comfortable with.

Second, the big picture. Trump is shaking things up in his effort to deal with the border crisis and make it the central political issue for the nation. Obviously, he believes that a leadership course change is necessary to meet his stated desire to get tougher on border security. Trump may also be seeking less pushback from within the DHS over his threats to shut down the southern border should Mexico not get more aggressive in efforts to stop the caravans of migrants flowing through its country.

Arguably, one of the biggest issues that won Trump the presidency was his promise to aggressively tackle the problem of illegal immigration. Now as the border crisis seemingly only gets worse, Trump recognizes that if he doesn’t produce significant results, it could prove costly for his 2020 reelection bid. He knows Americans don’t want more of the same.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/62253?mailing_id=4183&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4183&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body