I was the soldier who worked in public affairs who told Schwarzenegger to run for governor in 2003. My new campaign song is out and fans love it. But then Twitter #shadowban my account. Facebook also restricted my account. As the only combat veteran gubernatorial candidate, the #fakenews media also blacklisted my campaign and their method is to silence it. I was not invited to any debates. Please help me share my info. Thank you.
https://twitter.com/PeterLiuCAGov18/status/993972771133648896
by Publius: Nancy Pulosi promises to not only lead Democrats to victory in 2018, but to take back the speaker’s gavel in the House. “This may not be good news for Democrats,” says Scott McGrew, an anchor and reporter for NBC’s San Francisco affiliate. “Republicans use Pulosi as a cudgel in their ads to convince people not to vote for Democrats, and they’re not wrong [to do so]. We might like Nancy Pulosi in the Bay Area, but America doesn’t.”He then proceeded to list an organization and a couple of people who are more popular than the minority leader. We might also add things like flat soda, fender benders and chicken pox. ~The Patriot Post
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WKHSTqveQc
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55811
The Return of 'Last Man Standing'
by Nate Jackson: One year ago, ABC canceled it’s hit series “Last Man Standing,” and we surmised it was due to star Tim Allen’s conservative political leanings both in real life and as the show’s lead character, Mike Baxter. “There’s nothing more dangerous, especially in this climate, than a funny, likable conservative,” Allen said after the shocking cancellation, though ABC of course insisted politics had nothing to do with it. Allen never gave up trying to get the show restarted, however, and it paid off — Fox is picking up the show’s season seven for the 2018-2019 season. But this is no “Roseanne” — a show recently rebooted to appeal to Donald Trump’s supporters but without a truly conservative character. Allen has long been to the right of center, and thus has genuine appeal, while Roseanne Barr once ran for president on the Green Party ticket and her character espouses all sorts of leftist views.
There’s more to it. As Heather Moon notes at The Resurgent, “One of the things that makes ‘Last Man Standing’ such a fan favorite is its ability to make fun of the current political climate. Conservatives on the show certainly make fun of the liberals, but they also make fun of themselves. Matt Groening, creator of ‘The Simpsons,’ recently noted that people love to pretend they are offended see the recent flap over Apu], and this makes comedy much more difficult. However, in 2014, ‘Saturday Night Live’ creator Lorne Michaels explained that his show makes fun of conservatives more often because they actually have a sense of humor and can laugh it off. He explained that jokes aimed at liberals are too often taken personally, resulting in ‘offense’ as Groening noted, and making it very hard to make fun of liberals. ‘Last Man Standing’ is able to navigate jokes on both sides more easily, since the show does not tend to attract many liberal viewers.)”
In any case, it’ll be fun to see the Baxters back on television with a decent family comedy that resists the #Resistance. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55809
Dems' Tax-Hike Plans Take a Hit
by Thomas Gallatin: With the mainstream media salivating over the “real” possibility of Republicans repeating a Roy Moore fiasco in the West Virginia primary — only this time with a much more problematic candidate — the GOP braced for the worst. Then Tuesday night came and, much to Democrats’ chagrin, the most dangerous Republican candidates to Dems’ hopes of a “blue wave” won. In other words, Tuesday night proved to be a good night for the GOP, dimming Democrat dreams for regaining control of the Senate and maybe even the House in November. The two most significant primary wins for Republicans came in the states of Indiana and West Virginia, both having heavily voted for Donald Trump. In Indiana, Washington outsider and anti-establishment candidate Mike Braun won the primary and will face off against Joe Donnelly, the vulnerable Democrat incumbent senator. Of the three Republicans who ran, Braun was widely considered the best candidate to challenge Donnelly. In West Virginia, former Massey Energy CEO and ex-convict Don Blankenship was defeated by a wide margin, coming in a distant third with just 20%; the victor was state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who was instrumental in blocking Barack liar-nObama’s Clean Power Plan and saving the coal industry. That’s huge in West Virginia, and Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin must be sweating it now.
Meanwhile, if Democrat hopes for a “blue wave” are to materialize, Rep. Nancy Pulosi (D-CA) seems bound and determined to make it as difficult as possible. The House minority leader declared this week (again) that one of Democrats’ primary goals is to raise taxes. On Tuesday, a reporter asked Pulosi to respond to a Republican ad charging that, should Democrats regain control of Congress, they would seek to “institute a single-payer health care program” and raise taxes. Pulosi responded, “I think they mean roll back the tax cuts they passed this year. Well, the second part there is accurate.” She added, “I do think we should revisit the tax legislation in … a bipartisan, transparent way.”
Remember, not a single Democrat voted to reduce anyone’s tax burden last year.
So while the Democrats’ anti-Trump base may be loving the prospect of getting back at the president, there are a couple of warning signs for Democrats. First, polls show that a majority of Americans now view the Robert Mueller investigation against Trump as primarily politically motivated. That may not seem like much, but it’s the spearhead of the #Resistance, and the American people are seriously skeptical. Second, and even more significantly, a good economy is bad for Democrats — and we’re in the midst of a good economy.
Obviously, the midterms are still months away and, as that old adage goes, don’t count your chickens before they hatch. But the Democrats’ strategy of offering little more than Trump-bashing in the midst of a booming economy may prove to backfire. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55854
by Political Editors: White House rolls out agenda for more deregulation to boost business (The Daily Signal)
Promise Kept — Trump Nukes Iran Deal
by National Security Desk: Keeping his promise, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the United States will withdraw from the “horrible” Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and reinstate sanctions that were suspended as part of the deal. “We will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction. We will not allow a regime that chants ‘Death to America’ to gain access to the most deadly weapons on earth,” Trump declared. “Today’s action sends a critical message: The United States no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises I keep them.” Despite attempts by the Europeans to dissuade Trump, despite hanoi-John Kerry’s smoke-filled-backroom efforts to save the deal, and despite Iran warning that it would be “a historic mistake” to withdraw, the president reiterated what he has said all along: “We cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement.” Trump reportedly remains open to improving the deal, and he will now have economic leverage to persuade Iran and the Europeans to do just that.
Barack liar-nObama, who paid the Iranians $1.7 billion in ransom cash loaded on pallets as well as hundreds of billions more in sanctions relief, predictably criticized the decision to withdraw — which is tantamount to an endorsement in our book. “Walking away from the JCPOA turns our back on America’s closest allies,” liar-nObama admonished, adding that it’s “a serious mistake.” But the biggest mistake was made by liar-nObama and his feckless secretary of state, hanoi-Kerry, caving in to one Iranian demand after another and agreeing to the deal. As we said at the time, “You want it bad, you’ll get it bad.”
liar-nObama was so desperate for a foreign policy “victory” that getting a deal was more important than the content of the deal. Having agreed to a deal that he knew would never pass the Senate as a treaty, the minute the ink was dry liar-nObama instead ran to the United Nations, which passed a Security Council Resolution establishing the deal’s terms. But only laws passed by the U.S. Congress, or treaties approved by the Senate, are binding on the actions of the United States. And as “constitutional scholar” liar-nObama and long-time Senator hanoi-Kerry undoubtedly knew, any deal that really was in the United States’ best interest would have been able to pass muster in the Senate and gain the two-thirds votes needed to ratify a treaty.
liar-nObama and his various minions told us time after time that the deal would moderate Iran’s behavior and help bring it back into the community of nations, but a quick survey of recent events shows the spectacular deception of that claim.
Iran is fighting a proxy war in Syria to keep Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime in power, and it probably has more troops on the ground than any group other than the Syrian Army. It continues flying military equipment into Syria via Iraq, attracting the occasional Israeli airstrike (including one just last night) and risking major escalation of the fighting there. Its proxies in Yemen have fired Iranian-made weapons at U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea, as well as used one of Iran’s signature weapons, the explosive boat, to hit and severely damage a Saudi warship. Its ballistic missile activity has continued unabated, despite UN Security Council Resolution 2231’s prohibitions on such activity. In addition to missile testing, Iran has actually fired ballistic missiles at targets in Syria, and its Yemeni proxies have fired Iranian-made missiles into Saudi Arabia.
Needless to say, we don’t see much moderating in Iran’s behavior. Worse, liar-nObama helped fund Iran’s increased terror sponsorship.
In the coming days and weeks we expect the various actors that supported the deal — Democrats, the Leftmedia, the Europeans, the Iranians — will all make the most of the opportunity to paint President Trump as a bumptious and warmongering rube. The Europeans will follow liar-nObama’s cue and decry the undiplomatic behavior of withdrawing from a gentlemen’s agreement. The Iranians will shout about the untrustworthy nature of the United States. We even expect Rep. mad-Maxine Waters will ascribe racism to President Trump’s decision, claiming it is an act of spite against his African-American predecessor.
But all the wailing and teeth-gnashing among various Europeans, Iranians, Democrats (and even some short-sighted Republicans) will merely serve to demonstrate the double injury liar-nObama inflicted when he accepted the deal. The first injury was the deal itself. The second, as we said at the time, was that some future president would have to withdraw and harm our standing with friends and foes alike.
That day has now come, and our standing with our European allies may indeed suffer temporarily. Iran may try to create even more mischief around the Middle East. Oil markets and the U.S. and world economies may feel some pain as Iran’s oil market is squeezed.
But the undeniable fact is that the existing nuclear agreement merely kicked the can down the road for a decade, ensuring that Iran would emerge with a full, UN-approved nuclear fuel cycle that would enable very rapid nuclear breakout in the future. Dealing with this problem now, even if painful, is vastly better than dealing with it later, when it may not only be painful but also deadly. Withdrawing from the nuclear deal is a first step in the right direction.
On a final note, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un should take note that Trump isn’t messing around. Perhaps he already has, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo returns home today from Pyongyang with three released American hostages. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55846
by Cal Thomas
{ townhall.com } ~ The "wall of protection" conservative media has erected around President Trump may be crumbling.
Fox News Channel, whose opinion programs -- especially Sean Hannity's -- have been staunch defenders some critics say mouthpieces for the president, and The Wall Street Journal, which editorially has been generally supportive of the president's policies, last week went on the attack.
In a lengthy commentary, Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto directly addressed the president, noting he had "promised to drain the swamp, but you are muddying the waters." The reference was to Trump's admission that he authorized a $130,000 payoff to adult film star "Stormy Daniels" to secure her silence about an alleged one-night stand she had with him. This after vehemently denying the incident ever happened. Cavuto also cited numerous other false claims, comments, charges and accusations made by the president.
A lead editorial in last Friday's Wall Street Journal addressed those who say they don't care about the president's personal life, but are only interested in his policies, which they see as working: "But Mr. Trump's public deceptions are surely relevant to his job as president, and the attempted cover-up has done greater harm than any affair would have. Mr. Trump asked Americans, not least his supporters, to believe his claims about the payments. They were false and conveniently so in putting the onus on attorney Michael Cohen. Now, as more of the story has emerged, he wants everyone to believe a new story that he could have told the first time."
Does Trump sound like Chicken Little, who cried, "the sky is falling" so many times that no one believed him when the sky actually did fall?
The Journal ends on this disturbing note: "Mr. Trump is compiling a record that increases the likelihood that few will believe him during a genuine crisis -- say, a dispute over speaking with special counsel Robert Mueller or a nuclear showdown with Kim Jong Un. Mr. Trump should worry that Americans will stop believing anything he says."
This is all so unnecessary. So many good things are happening. For the first time since December 2000, the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen below 4 percent, black and Hispanic unemployment rates hit record lows in April, there is rising consumer confidence, the forthcoming meeting with Kim Jong Un and a new Rasmussen Reports poll showing the president's approval rating at 51 percent.
Conservatives can argue with some credibility that the media and the rest of the establishment hate the president and want to see him impeached, but he is increasingly giving them the rope to hang him.
Will this matter to hardcore Trump supporters? And what about the evangelicals who so strongly supported -- and mostly continue to support -- the president? These were the ones who said character matters. I'm betting their hatred of Washington, the media and Democrats will remain virulent. How do I know this? Because whenever I have criticized them for their blanket pardon of anything and everything the president has done or remark that their support runs antithetical to their core religious beliefs they write to criticize me.
Will it make a difference in the coming midterm elections? It didn't in 2016, but this time liar-Hillary Clinton won't be on the ballot for conservatives to vote against. And Democrats, don't forget, thought they had that election in the bag for her, as they do this upcoming election cycle and in 2020.
For some, though, the exhaustion factor may be setting it. When Fox News and The Wall Street Journal effectively call out the president for lying to the American people, where do Trump supporters go for their red meat?
by Richard Goldberg
by Pat Buchanan
{ townhall.com } ~ If Donald Trump does not wish to collaborate in the destruction of his presidency, he will refuse to be questioned by the FBI, or by a grand jury, or by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his malevolent minions.
Should Mueller subpoena him, as he has threatened to do, Trump should ignore the subpoena, and frame it for viewing in Trump Tower.
If Mueller goes to the Supreme Court and wins an order for Trump to comply and testify to a grand jury, Trump should defy the court.
The only institution that is empowered to prosecute a president is Congress. If charges against Trump are to be brought, this is the arena, this is the forum, where the battle should be fought and the fate and future of the Trump presidency decided.
The goal of Mueller's prosecutors is to take down Trump on the cheap. If they can get him behind closed doors and make him respond in detail to questions -- to which they already know the answers -- any misstep by Trump could be converted into a perjury charge.
Trump has to score 100 on a test to which Mueller's team has all the answers in advance while Trump must rely upon memory.
Why take this risk?
By now, witnesses have testified in ways that contradict what Trump has said. This, plus Trump's impulsiveness, propensity to exaggerate, and often rash responses to hostile questions, would make him easy prey for the perjury traps prosecutors set up when they cannot convict their targets on the evidence.
Mueller and his team are the ones who need this interrogation.
For, after almost two years, their Russiagate investigation has produced no conclusive proof of the foundational charge -- that Trump's team colluded with Vladimir Putin's Russia to hack and thieve the emails of the liar-Clinton campaign and DNC.
Having failed, Mueller & Co. now seek to prove that, even if Trump did not collude with the Russians, he interfered with their investigation.
How did Trump obstruct justice?
Did he suggest that fired NSC Advisor Gen. Mike Flynn might get a pardon? What was his motive in firing FBI Director James Comey? Did Trump edit the Air Force One explanation of the meeting in June 2016 between his campaign officials and Russians? Did he pressure Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Mueller?
Mueller's problem: These questions and more have all been aired and argued endlessly in the public square. Yet no national consensus has formed that Trump committed an offense to justify his removal. Even Democrats are backing away from talk of impeachment.
Trump's lawyers should tell Mueller to wrap up his work, as Trump will not be testifying, no matter what subpoena he draws up, or what the courts say he must do. And if Congress threatens impeachment for defying a court order, Trump should tell them: Impeach me and be damned.
Will a new Congress impeach and convict an elected president?
An impeachment battle would become a titanic struggle between a capital that detests Trump and a vast slice of Middle America that voted to repudiate that capital's elite, trusts Trump, and will stand by him to the end.
And in any impeachment debate before Congress and the cameras of the world, not one but two narratives will be heard.
The first is that Trump colluded with the Russians to defeatliar-Hillary Clinton and then sought to obstruct an investigation of his collusion.
The second is the story of how an FBI cabal went into the tank on an investigation of liar-Clinton to save her campaign. Then it used the product of a liar-Clinton-DNC dirt-diving operation, created by a British spy with Russian contacts, to attempt to destroy the Trump candidacy. Now, failing that, it's looking to overthrow the elected president of the United States.
In short, the second narrative is that the "deep state" and its media auxiliaries are colluding to overturn the results of the 2016 election.
Unlike Watergate, with Russiagate, the investigators will be on trial as well.
Trump needs to shift the struggle out of the legal arena, where Mueller and his men have superior weapons, and into the political arena, where he can bring his populous forces to bear in the decision as to his fate.
This is the terrain on which Trump can win -- an us-vs-them fight, before Congress and country, where not only the alleged crimes of Trump are aired but also the actual crimes committed to destroy him and to overturn his victory.
Trump is a nationalist who puts America first both in trade and securing her frontiers against an historic invasion from the South. If he is overthrown, and the agenda for which America voted is trashed as well, it may be Middle America in the streets this time.
by David Limbaugh
{ townhall.com } ~ Michelle Wolf is not the first so-called comic to maliciously insult conservatives and Republicans at a White House Correspondents' Association dinner, but she was intentionally mean-spirited, and even after the blowback, she's unrepentant.
Members of the liberal mainstream media have expressed disapproval over some of Wolf's comments, saying she went too far. But I'm not buying it. This is what passes as liberal humor these days. Just watch Jimmy Kimmel, Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert and tell me their humor is less malevolent.
But hold on, you say. There's a difference between late-night TV and a formal dinner pregnant with self-important dignitaries of the Washington press corps. Perhaps, but the point is there is a receptive constituency for this kind of bile. The organization had to have known what to expect from Wolf, and she admits she was just being herself that night. "If you've seen any of my comedy, you know that I don't -- I'm not nice," said Wolf. "I don't pull punches. I'm not afraid to talk about things."
Revealingly, comedian Tina Fey said, "When you invite a comedian into that place, where that tone is set, they're going to give it to you straight, and I think that's pretty much what she did." Whoa! In one line, Fey defends Wolf's nastiness, confirms that the association should have known what it was getting with her and fixes her stamp of approval on Wolf's calling White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders a liar.
The unapologetic Wolf, however, denies she was ridiculing Sanders' looks. But in her indignant denial, she admitted something just as damning: "I think if you listen to the joke, you'll understand that it's about the fact that she lies, and if it's taken another way, I think you should go back and listen to it again."
Oh, OK, Michelle. You are not a bad guy after all. You only vaguely hinted at Sanders' appearance, but you admittedly called her a liar outright -- right to her face in front of a large crowd present in the room and an exponentially larger one watching on television. Now that's virtuous. Bless you, you crusader for truth and all that is good and decent.
It is shocking that anyone would think her disparaging slander was funny. But it is not surprising that she would assume that calling Sanders a liar would be well-received or socially acceptable. This is the way far too many leftists think these days. How else do you explain the popularity of their comedians who routinely traffic in this bilge?
Indeed, no one really cares what Wolf thinks. If she had made these remarks in a smoky nightclub, who would know or care? It's what it says about the left that makes it newsworthy.
Based on my own interactions with people of this mindset, I think many of them are so consumed with their contempt for conservatives -- and especially President Donald Trump -- they believe that almost anything goes if it advances the cause of denigrating them.
Their thinking seems to be that conservatives and Trump are so evil that ordinary rules of decorum can be suspended to speak "truth to power" -- as if they're not themselves powerful and as if they are speaking truth. See Tina Fey's comments, above. It's the same thought process driving their rationalization that free speech can be denied to conservatives who express ideas they find repugnant. With every passing year, leftists gain more recruits to serve alongside them as mini-ministers of truth. The level of self-deceit they possess that twists their minds and darkens their sensitivities is alarming, and it's getting worse.
I assume that many of you will think I am hyperventilating or exaggerating -- blowing this way out of proportion and making unwarranted generalities.
I understand you believe that, but I've witnessed this growing hostility on the left for years, which leads even mainstream liberals to reflexively brand conservatives as racists, sexists and homophobes simply by virtue of their conservatism. You can't oppose illegal immigration or criticize Barack liar-nObama on policy without being called a racist. The smear has worked, which I dare say is why such a disproportionate percentage of minorities vote Democratic when Republican policies benefit them more -- and why Democrats are losing their minds over Kanye West's praise of Trump and his assertion that African-Americans should be free to think for themselves and not be pressured into identity groupthink.
I could cite examples all day of liberals condemning conservatives as evil because of their political views and consequently justifying their mistreatment. Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for liar-nObama, snidely defended Wolf's remarks, mocking complaints about her tone and civility. He was not alone; all kinds of leftist figures defended Wolf, as you can verify with a quick Google search.
Actor jerk-Robert De Niro doubled down on Wolf's invective, not only defending her but also castigating the White House Correspondents' Association for distancing itself from her. "Shame on them! Stand up and strap on your balls and deal," said jerk-De Niro. jerk-De Niro justified Wolf's vitriol because Trump and Sanders and company are "liars and bullies." What did I tell you? Anything goes as long as you're attacking evil conservatives.
ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, hardly an outlier on the left, took to Twitter to chide the media for not defending Wolf, who "was FUNNY."
Wolf put the elite leftist media in a box when she so openly attacked a woman in public while they were conspicuously present, but this is how far too many of them think, and this is why they invited her to the event and why they invited the equally offensive Wanda Sykes and Stephen Colbert in the past. Please spare us the feigned disapproval, guys. This is what you do.
by Political Editors: President Trump announces withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal (Associated Press)
by JACK CROWE
{ tommclaughlin.blogspot.com } ~ Perhaps the most-quoted poem in the English language is “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats. For nearly a century different writers have cited one or more of its 22 lines written ninety-nine years ago which begins with:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
The second and third lines resonate most for me:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
Dona Donadio is running as a Candidate for Queen Anne’s County Republican Central Committee in Maryland, she’s 18 years old.
Dona Donadio is the youngest Candidate for political office in Queen Anne’s County, Maryland for the 2018 election.
On February 8th 2018, she filed Candidacy and has been campaigning ever since. She has no business cards to give out when meeting voters, she only gives them a smile, handshake and a soft voice with some conversation.
Dona is the daughter of Queen Anne’s County Republican Politician, Barry Donadio. He entered the race to serve as a County Commissioner in District 3 for this election cycle. On February 14th he endorsed Dona by labling her as a “Good Republican”.
Dona is a prolife conservative Republican. She supports keeping taxes low and promoting Republican values.
A resident of Queen Anne’s County for over 13 years, she enjoys appearing in theatrical plays, videography and still photos. She has worked on projects for Mothers Against Drunk Driving in the county.
She will be seen on the ballot during the county primary election for early voting from June 14th to June 21st and on June 26th.
Destroying America, One Miseducated Student After Another
by Arnold Ahlert: Last Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported that Venezuela’s inflation rate rose from an astonishing 4,966% to an almost incomprehensible 18,000% in the months of March and April alone. If the trend holds steady, the annualized rate could top 100,000%. The same day, liar-Hillary Clinton opined that being a capitalist hurt her election chances because “41 percent of Democrats are socialists or self-described socialists.” The day before that, the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s (NAEP) 2017 test results released by the U.S. Department of Education revealed that 65% of eighth graders lacked proficiency in reading and 67% lacked proficiency in math. In short, a corrupt public school system indoctrinates semi-literate cannon fodder for a Democrat Party that now clamors for the same socialism devastating Venezuela. How corrupt is the current system? “The atrocious NAEP performance is only a fraction of the bad news,” explains columnist Walter Williams. “Nationally, our high school graduation rate is over 80 percent. That means high school diplomas, which attest that these students can read and compute at a 12th-grade level, are conferred when 63 percent are not proficient in reading and 75 percent are not proficient in math. For blacks, the news is worse. Roughly 75 percent of black students received high school diplomas attesting that they could read and compute at the 12th-grade level. However, 83 percent could not read at that level, and 93 percent could not do math at that level.”
Such machinations are nothing less than outright fraud, which continues in large part because of collective bargaining.
Collective bargaining has recently manifested itself a series of teachers’ strikes that began in West Virginia on Feb. 22, and spread to Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arizona and Colorado. What are these strikes about? With the exception of Kentucky, where the primary issue was pension reform, they were about teacher pay. To be fair, teachers in Arizona, West Virginia and Oklahoma have salaries that rank near the bottom nationally, even when cost of living is factored into the equation. Yet many of those same teachers get pension benefits that dwarf comparative private-sector benefits, and many get retiree health coverage that has become virtually nonexistent in the private sector.
As American Enterprise Institute education expert Frederick Hess explains, the mediawould like to blame “stingy taxpayers” for stagnant teacher pay. Yet he notes per-pupil spending actually grew by 27% between 1992 and 2014. “Between 2003 and 2014, even as teacher salaries declined, per-teacher average benefits spending increased from $14,000 to $21,000 — much of which goes to paying down pension debt rather than benefits for current teachers,” Hess reveals. On top of that, there’s been a substantial increase in the number of non-instructional staff precipitating “top-heavy bureaucracies that add nothing to students’ learning, but do add to union membership rolls and make teachers’ jobs easier,” as Investor’s Business Daily puts it.
They also add to the inconvenient reality that funding the current system has pushed many states to the brink of insolvency.
Moreover, while pay raises may be the teachers’ impetus for striking, their union leaders have other ideas in mind. “What do all of these strikes and protests have in common?” asks columnist Kevin Boyd. “They are taking place in states where Democrats are either trying to make gains or consolidate their power in this fall’s elections.”
Columnist Jenni White takes this assertion further, insisting school officials used the strikes as a pretext for promoting the Democrat agenda. One parent reported that her child was required to write a paper on her feelings about the walk-out, and another student told her mother that teachers were offering pupils extra credit if they attended a student rally in support of the teacher strike.
And then there’s American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten. Last month, Weingarten made a phone call during a train ride to New York. Unfortunately for her, she was overheard plotting a teachers’ strike in Puerto Rico.
Why? Because Gov. Ricardo Rosselló signed legislation aimed at increasing the number of charter schools and voucher programs that pose the greatest threat to union hegemony. “We never use the word strike,” Weingarten said. “We are a human shield for the kids … teachers are doing this in the stead of parents and kids.” Weingarten also referenced the strikes in Oklahoma and West Virginia, saying the union’s goal should be “cloaking” their efforts. “Let everyone call in for a personal day so they can’t open schools,” she said. “Let them call in for a sick day. They’re sick to death about the schools. They’re so anxiety ridden about the schools.”
When she realized she’d been outed Weingarten remained defiant, insisting support for school choice and vouchers was tantamount to “feeding Wall Street vultures,” and a “perversion of priorities.”
Whose priorities? Charts of 2017’s eighth grade reading and math proficiency rankings in 27 large urban districts published by the DOE reveal the most successful districts sport a 41%, proficiency rate in math, and a 36% proficiency rate in reading.
In a better nation, “success” rates that condemn six in 10 children to compromised futures would be considered appalling. In this one, they are union priorities. And since Democrats are more than willing to march in lockstep with those priorities, it should surprise no one that the worst performing districts are all Democrat strongholds.
“Teachers’ unions have immense political clout, and can demonize anyone who disagrees with their agenda,” Investor’s Business Daily explains. “They’ve been tremendously successful, becoming one of largest contributors to Democratic and left-wing political candidates to get their generally hard-left union agenda past local legislatures and through our nation’s Congress.”
OpenSecrets.org, a website dedicated to tracking campaign contributions, translates that clout into monetary terms revealing that from 2004 to 2016 political donations by teachers’ unions “grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million — an all-time high.”
Such clout has real-world consequences. A 2017 Investor’s Business Daily editorial asks if we’re becoming “too ignorant” to save our constitutional republic. A Rasmussen survey released April 30 suggests a highly disturbing answer: 46% of Americans favor government-guaranteed jobs for all.
In 2001, Venezuela was the richest county in Latin America. Seventeen years later, the nation that embraced “21st Century Socialism” stands on the brink of total collapse. The Democrat Party and its unionist education allies, “socialists or self-described socialists” asliar-Hillary Clinton describes them, endeavor to put America on a similar path to self-destruction.
Every political war currently occurring in this nation is secondary to this one. Yet it remains the only one where only one side is doing the fighting.
If this dynamic remains unchanged, American exceptionalism will cease to exist — one mis-educated student after another. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55791
Judge Smacks Down Mueller's 'Unfettered Power'
by Thomas Gallatin: Federal Judge T.S. Ellis blasted Robert Mueller’s special investigation during a Friday hearing in its case against President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort. Ellis, a Ronald Reagan appointee, took Mueller team lawyer Michael Dreeben to task for prosecutorial overreach, lecturing, “If I look at the indictment [against Manafort], none of that information has anything to do with links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Donald Trump. So I don’t see what relation this indictment has with anything the special prosecutor is authorized to investigate.” Manafort was indicted by the Mueller investigation on 18 counts of tax- and bank-fraud-related changes, none of which are directly tied to any Trump/Russia collusion conspiracy. Ellis made it clear that he saw through the special prosecution’s ruse, asserting that the charges raised against Manafort were obviously intended as a means “to exert leverage on a defendant so that the defendant will turn and provide information on what is really the focus of the special prosecutor.”
Dreeben insisted that the charges against Manafort were within Team Mueller’s “investigatory scope.” Ellis merely scoffed, however, firing back, “My question to you was, how does bank fraud and these other things that go back to 2005, 2007 — how does that have anything to do with links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Trump?” In reply, Dreeben once again referenced the scope of investigation granted by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein: “We are not limited in our prosecution authority to crimes that would fit within the precise description that was issued in this public order.” Ellis retorted, “I have that right here, and I’m glad you raised it because 75% of it is blocked out, redacted. Why don’t I have a full copy of it?”
Dreeben said that the judge only needed to see the scope of Rosenstein’s memo that was pertinent to Manafort. But Ellis rejected that answer and accused the special prosecution of seeking “unfettered power” in a quest to target Trump: “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud. You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment or whatever. That’s what you’re really interested in.” Bingo. Ellis then ordered Dreeben to return in two weeks with an unredacted Rosenstein memo or provide a better explanation of why not.
If the judge throws out the charges against Manafort, it would throw a major wrench into Mueller’s efforts to build a collusion case against Trump. It already shines the spotlight on the Justice Department’s concealment practices that have been justified as necessary in order to protect national security and ongoing investigations. However, all the recent unredacted documents have shown an agency with leadership keen on protecting themselves from public scrutiny rather than any actual national security issues. It will be interesting to see if Mueller’s team meets the demands of Judge Ellis, who very effectively called out this charade for what it is. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55802
hanoi-John Kerry Goes Nuclear, Secretly Negotiates With Iran
by Nate Jackson: After the blockbuster revelations of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week — that the Iran nuclear deal was truly built on a foundation of lies — the looming May 12 deadline for President Donald Trump to reconfirm the deal is all the more important. It appears likely that he will withdraw. “The president laid out some pretty clear stakes in ground for what he wanted from the Europeans,” said James Carafano, a defense policy expert at The Heritage Foundation who worked on the Trump transition. “He’s already across the Rubicon. He’s decided the deal’s not working, and a fix that doesn’t fix anything is not acceptable.”
It’s against that backdrop that a man with extensive experience negotiating with America’s enemies without the authority to do so is working behind the scenes to save the deal. Former Secretary of State hanoi-John Kerry has reportedly held numerous secret meetings with officials and leaders from Iran, Germany, France and the European Union to salvage the nuclear agreement, whichhanoi-Kerry spent years negotiating for Barack liar-nObama.
Democrats wanted to hang former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn out to dry for supposedly violating the Logan Act, a 1799 law that prohibits private citizens from conducting unauthorized foreign policy, because Flynn had conversations with Russians during the transition into power for the Trump administration. Of course, they’re silent on hanoi-Kerry. No one has ever been prosecuted under the Logan Act, but hanoi- Kerry’s “shadow diplomacy” is serious — he’s actively working to undermine the current administration to save a horrible deal in which he has a personal stake.
Former Demo Sen. Joe Lieberman weighed in, saying, “In my opinion, what he’s doing is inappropriate and he shouldn’t be doing it. [The Trump administration] is a duly elected administration so I hope hanoi-John Kerry stops.”
It’s arguably treason, and if anyone knows how to get away with treason, it’s hanoi-John Kerry, who negotiated with the North Vietnamese in 1970, giving aid and comfort to the enemy at a time of open war. He then delivered communist propaganda and slander of American troops in congressional testimony. For nearly 50 years,hanoi-Kerry has been a disgrace to his country and it’s well past time he faced the consequences.
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55801
by Political Editors: White House requests Congress rescind $15 billion in spending (The Daily Signal)
{ americanthinker.com } ~ How the heck do they do it, Comey and scum-Schiff? Each can deliver a string of half-truths, contradictions, outlandish obfuscations, distortions, misrepresentations, and even preposterously self-serving whoppers in a way – and here's the monkey trick – that makes him seem, on balance, and taken as a whole...reasonable.
Anderson Cooper dinged Comey pretty hard, and then Brett Baier absolutely hammered him, but if you don't know the underlying facts, the contradictory things previously said; if you don't know the history of vicious predation; if you don't realize that the narrative is rife with holes and implausibilities; in short, if you are not paying very close attention, it all comes off as a guy reading off the latest baseball statistics or offering a favorite recipe for shrimp and grits – what sounds remarkably like the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but which is fully, completely, shrewdly exsanguinated. There is no blood, no guts, no there. A recitative... It's as if, rather than being a participant in the events under discussion, they are reviewing a movie, each a dispassionate critic passing aesthetic rather than moral judgment from the vantage point of a merely observing and therefore unaccountable audience member.
Weirdly, it seems to work: they come off as reasonable guys, giving reasonable answers in good faith and with innocent intention. Somehow, the fact that none of it hangs together and all of it is self-serving fails to register. As such, they get a pass.
Here's the way Jonah Goldberg put it in a tweet:
I don't think people appreciate scum-Adam Schaff's [sic] incredible talent to sound above the fray, non partisan and more in sorrow than in anger, while being hyper partisan.
It's odd, even a bit creepy. How could stuff that tendentious, that self-serving, that shaded, slanted, and purposefully obfuscatory, come off as so...not that?
It isn't just rhetorical gymnastics and sleight-of-hand, although that's part of it. "That's not my understanding"; "That's not my recollection"; and "That's a fair point, but I don't see it that way" are all useful dodges to get nettlesome accusations and implications to ricochet off into more comfortable pastures. But it's actually something else: look closely, and you'll see that the primary ingredient is – no ingredient. That is, no emotion. That is, no human emotion. That is, not reacting as you and I would if we were caught in a lie, an exaggeration, a deflection, or an obvious contradiction.
You and I would get indignant and defensive, even if we tried to hide it. Our voices could rise a pitch. Our body language would reveal our discomfort; we might even squirm a tad. So, too, if things were going the other way, if we were making an accusation, pointing out a wrongdoing; if we were attempting to imply malfeasance, mendacity, or criminality on someone else's part, we might appear, at the very least, chagrined if not aggressive. "J'accuse!" There would be some hint of humanity in our behavior, some revelation of our inner shock or contempt or indignation, our humanity.
But watch Comey and scum-Schiff. Nothing. Emotional flatline. Only well saddled and judiciously inserted regret, a kind of ruefulness that their high-throned fealty to truth-telling requires them to reveal things that, yes, others would no doubt find upsetting, even shocking, but they, Spock-like, merely report. "I never could have imagined saying this, but..." is a phrase designed to mask one's feeling about the behavior itself while crafting theatrics of disappointment that one has unfairly, but who's complaining? been put in the position of having to reveal it.
But since they, themselves, have no dog in the fight, only the obligation of duty, their posture, demeanor, voice intonation, and anodyne rhetoric accurately reflects the neutrality of their purely public-service motivations. This allows them to employ – which they both do constantly – the incredibly weaselly technique of invoking their access to privileged, classified information to imply without actually saying it that they have seen the goods on their opponent, things you can't see but they can, or have, but then, at the same time, due to their vaunted commitment to honorable behavior, "I can't talk about that." As in: "Yes, I know whether Joe Blow is a wife-beating, drug-addicted child predator – but I can neither confirm nor deny it." Guess how Joe Blow is faring in that little exchange!
It's a trick. It works, and it's a lot harder to do than they make it look. If you can convince people you are not involved in what you are saying, merely a messenger whose internal ethical rudder compels fealty to truth-telling with disregard for the consequences those truths might engender, your words will tend to be taken at face value, rather than as a calculated attempt to implement a particular strategy such as exonerating yourself or incriminating an opponent. That's the irony: it's all about emotion, or the lack of it, rather than substance. If you can say it in way where you can convince people you don't care about the implications, or, at least, you don't care to manipulate those implications, you come off as righteous.
It's unclear how the two of them got so good at it, but they certainly are. As Comey's day in the spotlight approached, did he take note of scum-Schiff's technique, on display incessantly as scum-Schiff eagerly galumphed from one friendly camera-op to another?
If Comey did, the chances are he's starting a chain. There will be others, because it works, and people are taking note. Watch for it. We may be witnessing the ascendancy of the robo-politician, and the only way to derail it might be a degree of determination to hold their feet to the fire that most of the mainstream media have no desire to do, even if they had the ability, which, these days, they don't. Gee, thanks, Columbia Journalism School!
All of this recalls, somehow, and maybe incongruously, the day in 1958 when Yankees manager Casey Stengel was summoned to give testimony in Congress. The issue was whether baseball should be allowed to keep its monopoly status, but no matter. Stengel was considered by many to be a crackpot and by many others to be a crackpot genius. He was asked one question. One. He proceeded to give an early clinic on how to appear cooperative and sound sincere while serving up a completely incomprehensible word salad designed to avoid even a scintilla of actual responsiveness or accountability. It was a meandering, soaring masterpiece of rhetorical acrobatics. Every time he began to teeter on the high-wire, threatening to fall and crash to earth, he somehow regained his balance and instead surged forward with increased momentum. This went on until, finally, he arrived at not so much a conclusion as a random stop in mid-sentence, nevertheless, apparently, done. The room sat in stunned silence, utterly incapable of figuring out what to do with all this. Finally, the chairman regained enough presence of mind to ask the next witness, Mickey Mantle, if he had anything to add. The Mick leaned into the microphone and said what was perhaps the only thing that could possibly be called for. "My views are just about the same as Casey's."
Believe me: Casey and The Mick have absolutely nothing on scum-Adam and James.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/05/did_comey_learn_his_monkey_trick_from_adam_schiff.html
by conservativeinstitute.org
{ conservativeinstitute.org } ~ In a startling revelation earlier this week, The New York Times published what it claims are 49 questions that special counsel Robert Mueller sent to lawyers for President Donald Trump. The questions are apparently a road map of inquiry that Mueller and his prosecutors and FBI agents plan to put to the president if the president agrees to sit down for an interview with them.
I have been arguing for months that the president should not agree to an interview with Mueller. My reasons are fairly boilerplate: It is nearly impossible to talk prosecutors who are determined to seek an indictment into changing their minds.
As well, the person being interviewed cannot possibly know as much about the case as the team doing the interview, and he will be prone to error.
In the interview environment, one small lie can result in one big headache of an indictment, even if the lie is about an extraneous matter. When federal prosecutors question a potential defendant, who appears voluntarily and is not under oath, the questioners can lie to the person being interviewed, but he cannot lie to them without risk of indictment.
Just ask Martha Stewart. This is exquisitely unfair, but it has been federal law for generations.
The Supreme Court has ruled that federal prosecutors and FBI agents can use trickery, deceptions and outright falsehoods — even disguises, verbal traps and fraud — to help them extract information from a witness or person they are investigating.
Given the president’s well-known propensity to talk at length on many disjointed matters and to think both aloud and unfiltered — witness his 30-minute unannounced telephone interview on live cable television with my colleagues on Fox & Friends last week — there is a very serious danger that he would contradict himself and even contradict facts for which the special counsel has hard evidence.
Donald Trump is the subject of a criminal investigation. When prosecutors interview a person they are investigating, it is to help the investigation, not the subject of it.
As if all of this were not enough to dissuade a self-confident Trump from sitting down with an all-knowing Mueller and his crew, now come the 49 questions Mueller has told Trump’s lawyers he wants to ask the president.
Though many of these at first blush appear not to challenge the president’s memory or command of facts, consider a deeper analysis.
There are two species of questions here. One set of questions is intended to get the president off on a disjointed monologue to see whether he — as he did on Fox & Friends — will admit to something without actually being accused or even asked about it.
The others are questions to which Mueller already knows the answers and for which he has irrefutable hard evidence — and the quest is to see whether the president will be truthful.
As well, both types of questions are mere starting points — intended to lull Trump into a comfortable but false sense of security — which would then be followed with curveballs he would have great difficulty trying to hit.
One of Mueller’s questions is profound, and I have not seen anything like it in all the literature and legal arguments preceding the Times‘ revelation this week: “What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?”
Prosecutors need a factual or good-faith basis to trigger their questions. This question goes to the heart of the so-called collusion issue.
I say “so-called” because “collusion” is a media and a political word; it does not describe anything in the law. What Mueller is looking for is a conspiracy, which is the easiest crime for prosecutors to prove because the crime need not have been successful.
The late Justice Robert Jackson, himself a former U.S. attorney general, famously called conspiracy prosecutors’ favorite crime.
The essence of conspiracy is an agreement — here, an agreement to accept campaign assistance from a foreign person, entity or government, which is illegal, even if the assistance never arrived. The essence of the crime is the agreement, not the receipt of something of value.
The conspirators need not have met together or even be known to each other, providing at least one of them took at least one material step — such as a phone call or a meeting with Russians offering help — in furtherance of the agreement.
If there is truth underlying this question — if Mueller has hard evidence that the true answer is “yes” — it could only have come to Mueller from Rick Gates, Manafort’s former business partner and co-defendant and now Mueller’s star witness.
Gates could have told Mueller in return for Mueller’s dropping charges against him that Manafort reached out to the Russians, in which case Mueller would want to test Trump’s knowledge, understanding and truthfulness on this white-hot issue.
If Trump were to answer “no” and Gates told the grand jury that Trump did know of this, Mueller could claim Trump lied and ask the same grand jury to indict Trump for that.
If Trump were to answer “yes,” that would be the end of his presidency. If he were to give a rambling non-answer, Mueller would make the most of it.
Are prosecutors fair? Many are, but their common view is that they need not always be fair because they are after bad guys who don’t play by the rules. To the prosecutorial mind, it is for judges and juries to be fair.
What should Trump do? He should go about the business of being president. He should do what is most difficult for him: stay silent.
Don’t trust a man who owns a grand jury. Don’t help him undo your presidency.
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By Craig Andresen – Right Side Patriots on American Political Radio
I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that liberals have way too much time on their hands, because the nature of their arguments against sane people have grown disproportionally obtuse.
Take that porn actress for instance…the one that the mainstream media thinks is above reproach…she’s suing President Trump for…of all things…defamation of character. If she wore panties, she’d have them in a bunch over what the President tweeted after she released a sketch of some dude she claims “threatened” her.
According “She Bangs a Lot,” some random man walked up to her in 2011 and told her…“Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.”
That’s a threat? Sounds like something between an opinion and advice to me but being a liberal with time on her hands, and sans working brain cells…to her…that’s a threat. Anyway, President Trump tweeted…“A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!”
That’s not defamation of character…
by Kerry Lear
{ punchingbagpost.com } ~ President Donald Trump has selected Gina Haspel as his nomination for the Central Intelligence Agency director. She will be facing a confirmation hearing on May 9 and, if nominated, she will be the first woman CIA director.
"In a long career with the Central Intelligence Agency, Gina Haspel has held senior positions around the world supervising covert action, managing U.S. spies’ collection of human intelligence and working on counterterrorism efforts, according to a biographical summary of her career declassified by the agency on Tuesday," writes The Wall Street Journal.
33 years ago, Haspel started her career with the agency as a young case officer in Africa. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, she worked in Africa and Europe as a case officer. She then became an intelligence-operations officer in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, where she rose up in the ranks.
In 1996, she was the chief of station in the "Central Eurasia Division" and was a station chief three times after.
Then in 2001, she worked in counterterrorism in response to the September 11 attack. Between 2001 and 2004, she was the deputy group chief of the Counterterrorism Center and then she became a senior-level supervisor.
"Over the course of her career, Ms. Haspel four times served as chief of station—the top CIA official in a country responsible for all the agency’s operations there. Three of those postings were in Europe or Central Asia, and one location remains classified," writes WSJ. "In recent years, Ms. Haspel served in several top roles in the division of the CIA responsible for covert options, clandestine operations and the collection of on-the-ground intelligence. She also was the deputy chief of the National Resources Division, a CIA officer charged with gathering intelligence from U.S. residents about their travels abroad and recruiting foreign visitors to become intelligence assets when they return home."
If confirmed, this would make her the second person to spent their entire career at the agency before becoming director.
Haspel currently is the agency's acting director, but will be subjected to a hearing where she will have to answer tough questions about her events in career.
The CIA has release limited details on her background, which some lawmakers are disappointed with.
"Ms. Haspel is not an undercover operative, she's the deputy CIA director seeking a Cabinet-level position. It's unacceptable for the CIA to hide her behind a wall of secrecy, particularly when such secrecy is unnecessary to protect national security," wrote Sens. Ron Wyden, (D-Or,) Heinrich, (D-NM,) and Fein-stein, (D-CA) last week.
Then last month, it was revealed that she was on the team that ordered the destruction of tapes from an interrogation program that has been criticized as being a "torture program." Waterboarding, a torture technique that simulates drowning, was allegedly shown on the tapes. But her supervisor ordered that the tapes be destroyed.
“We know Ms. Haspel was a willing participant in one of the darkest episodes in the CIA’s history—an episode that degraded our standing in the world, put U.S. captives at great risk of similar torture and failed at obtaining significant intelligence gains,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) last week. “While Congress has been denied access to the full extent of her involvement, she was sufficiently involved to be disqualified to lead the agency.”
It appears as though Haspel will receive bipartisan support from the Senate Intelligence Committee and then a bipartisan confirmation.
Former CIA director Michael Hayden believes there is no one better for the job than Haspel.
"I certainly concur that it ought to happen, and I’ll defer to the senator. And that is really good news, because I know how contentious–unfairly contentious–this has been for Gina," Hayden said. "Hugh, she is the absolute best choice to be the director of CIA. And when people want to bring up the past, I’m happy to relitigate that if they like. But I want to talk about the present and the future."
The former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also said that she is a "tremendous intelligence officer."
Author's note: Haspel seems more than qualified for this role and since she has bipartisan support, it looks like she will be the new CIA Director.
