The Front Page Cover
The Events of the Week -- Featuring:
The Federal Bureau of Political Investigation
by Judge Andrew Napolitano
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Hate Crime Hysteria Is Way Off Base 
As usual, the devil is in the details, so let's point out a few that drastically change the narrative.
Louis DeBroux: Fresh off the election of Donald Trump, the nation was greeted by news of the stunning rise in "hate crimes," as detailed in the FBI's latest iteration of its Hate Crimes Statistics report. At first blush, it offers frightening prospects for the safety of various minority groups across America. At second blush, not so much.
New York Magazine writer Eric Levitz breathlessly begins his article, "Hate Crimes Against Muslims Increased by 67 Percent Last Year," with the angst-ridden declaration that these crimes had reached "their highest levels since the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, according to FBI data released on Monday."
From the fainting couch, he continued, "In 2015, there were 257 reported crimes rooted in anti-Muslim bias, up from 154 incidents the previous year. Notably, this uptick coincided with a GOP presidential primary in which a candidate who decried the Justice Department's concern with violent, anti-Muslim rhetoric finished second to one who proposed banning all Muslims from
the country."From the fainting couch, he continued, "In 2015, there were 257 reported crimes rooted in anti-Muslim bias, up from 154 incidents the previous year. Notably, this uptick coincided with a GOP presidential primary in which a candidate who decried the Justice Department's concern with violent, anti-Muslim rhetoric finished second to one who proposed banning all Muslims from
As usual, the devil is in the details, so let's point out a few that drastically change the narrative.
For example, the FBI analyzes incidents reported in 2015, but it wasn't until late in the year that Trump's candidacy really took off, so one would be hard pressed to explain why the increase could be attributable to Trump. Other factors are far more plausible, including the series of deadly Islamic terror attacks (Paris and San Bernardino among the targets), or the contention fomented by Barack liar-nObama's attempt (with the help of the Rainbow Mafia) to force Americans to allow grown men to share bathrooms with women and little girls, or violent protests led by Black Lives Matter thugs. Is it possible that maybe, like Newton's Third Law of Motion, these actions triggered opposite reactions?
Another critical point to understand is that the number of these incidents is incredibly small, and the threshold by which an action qualifies as a "hate crime" is ludicrously low.
Of all hate crimes reported in 2015, two-thirds did not involve any form of physical violence. And of those that did, nearly 70% involved only simple assault, which the FBI defines as an incident where no weapon is used and no serious injury occurred. This category of crime includes intimidation (including verbal threats or name-calling), which accounted for 41% of all "assaults." And considering how many privileged, weak-spined snowflakes roam America — grown adults reduced to sobbing when their "safe space" has been violated by the presence of "offensive" Halloween costumes — this number should be taken with a truckload of salt.
Simple assaults, including slapping, shoving, or spitting on, accounted for 39% of "hate crimes." In other words, only a small fraction of hate crimes — the kind that spring to mind when we hear the phrase, like aggravated assault (18.7%), rape and murder (well under 1% each) — actually include significant physical violence.
Keep all this in mind as you read back over that headline of a 67% increase in hate crimes against Muslims. The total number of reported "hate crimes" against Muslims in 2015 was 257, and using the aforementioned percentages as a guide, that means that 51 Muslims were seriously assaulted in 2015, out of a total American Muslim population of roughly 3.3 million. So one out of every 64,706 Muslims suffered physical violence as a result of a hate crime in 2015, and one out of every 1,079,823 blacks. In fact, there were almost as many black-on-black murders in the city of Chicago in 2015 as there were total "hate crimes" against blacks in the entire United States the same year. Again, assuming these crimes were specifically motivated by hateful bigotry.
It should go without saying that unprovoked attacks against ANY individual, regardless of race, sex, religion, or any other factor, are completely unacceptable. At the same time, it is dishonest to portray America as a place where blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, homosexuals, transgenders, and women are living in constant fear of attack. That's the narrative Democrats like Harry dinky-Reid despicably advance, though.
Another thing to consider is that these numbers are based on crimes reported to law enforcement authorities. Yet when there are numerous examples of hate crime hoaxes being perpetrated — like the Muslim woman claiming she was beaten by white male Trump supporters as they screamed racial slurs, who now admits she made it all up — even the reported numbers become suspect.
Oh, and by the way, Jews are more likely to be the victims of hate crimes than Muslims. But that doesn't fit the narrative. Not when even criticizing Islam is a "hate crime" to some people.
The bottom line is that each and every violent criminal deserves to be prosecuted and jailed, and no decent, honest American should ever be subjected to this kind of abuse. But categorizing name-calling and being offended as "hate crimes," or lying about these kinds of attacks, makes it harder for true victims to be believed and protected, and it instills in some of us an unjustified fear of fellow Americans, whom some erroneously believe to hate them. This serves no one except those who profit from social, racial and political discord. ~ The Patriot Post
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Trump And Romney Meeting Sunday To
Discuss Major Role In Trump Administration
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Some things seem almost too outlandish at first to be believed and this news fits into that category rather nicely... According to CNBC, Mitt Romney will be sitting down with Donald Trump this Sunday to discuss his possible appointment to be Secretary of State in the Trump administration. It’s bizarre given that, outside of liar-Hillary Clinton, Romney was arguably Trump’s most vocal and visible foe during the election. It’s also worth remembering that Mr. Trump labeled Romney a choker for his loss to liar-nObama and that he has deep connections to the same establishment that Trump has vowed to eradicate. Unless it’s some sort of odd variation on the Pulosi “you have to vote for the bill to see what’s in it,” logic, a Trump “you have to fill the swamp before you can drain it” theory, something else is at play. Maybe he’s the best man for the job. The smart guys at CNBC think it’s a great idea, that Romney is certainly capable and that patching things up will go a long ways towards making the Trump presidency effective. It could be that Mr. Trump is adapting, having recognized that a certain amount of marsh land is needed in order to make the former swamp inhabitable and to provide a more firm footing... http://rickwells.us/trump-romney-meeting-sunday-discuss-major-role-trump-administration/
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Trump "Protests" Manufactured by Leftist Elites and Manned by Professional Protesters
by C. Mitchell Shaw
http://www.thenewamerican.com/media/k2/items/cache/583493b9158a3ee947d07b33ba905080_M.jpg" unselectable="on" />{thenewamerican.com} ~ The radical resistance against Trump — funded and manned by the Left throughout his campaign — has shifted into high gear in the wake of his electoral victory... The “protests” against candidate Trump have turned into riots against president elect Trump. In cities all across America, large crowds — many violent — have taken to the streets since the election results came in. In city after city, they are all carrying the same signs and shouting the same slogans. Who is behind these “spontaneous” protests? Within a day of Donald Trump’s election, protests and riots began in cities as far apart as New York and Los Angeles and almost everywhere in between. In some of the protests, participants can be seen carrying larger-than-life Donald Trump heads on large sticks. In all of the protests, professionally-made signs bearing the same images and slogans can be seen. Since the “spontaneous” uprising began less than a day after the election results were known, it seems odd that the protesters already had signs and Trump heads all ready to go. Given that even a rush print job of that magnitude would be both hard to fill and quite expensive, the questions which need to be asked are:... http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/item/24649-trump-protests-manufactured-by-leftist-elites-and-manned-by-professional-protesters
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Trump Has Huge Opportunity To Kill NAFTA
by Steve Byas
{thenewamerican.com} ~ The globalist modus operandi of handing over to the president immense powers to act unilaterally without Congress may now come back to bite them... During the recent presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump often railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), charging that it was hollowing out American industry, costing hundreds of thousands of Americans good-paying jobs, and promising to do something about it were he to be elected. Turns out, the provisions of NAFTA may very well allow President Trump to act on his own to change tariff rates, force negotiations to modify the pact, or even withdraw the United States from it. With NAFTA blamed for job losses in the industrial Midwest, Trump was able to crack the so-called Blue Wall of the Democrats, taking the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio in the election. It is the best a Republican candidate has done in this area, sometimes referred to as “the Rust Belt,” since Ronald Reagan was on the ballot... http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/north-america/item/24645-trump-has-huge-opportunity-to-kill-nafta
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Justice Sotomayor: 'We Can't Afford Despair,'
So Oppose Trump
by Paul Bois
{truthrevolt.org} ~ Following her Freudian slip about how she occasionally fantasized about going all Joe DiMaggio on Justice Scalia with a baseball bat, Justice Sotomayor now tells her followers to oppose Trump or risk facing despair... Speaking in Washington at the Old Naval Hospital, Justice Sotomayor advised those present that they "can't afford for a president to fail" and should seek to support that "which is right and help guide him to those right decisions in whichever way we can find to do that." After throwing that Easter egg of national unity, Sotomayor was asked by moderator Bill Press if she felt "apprehensive about what happened in this nation last Tuesday." Donning her leftist robe, the lady Justice then made a call to protest by dressing it up under the guise of people "being heard."...She can be removed as others in the Court. http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/justice-sotomayor-we-cant-afford-despair-so-oppose-trump
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LA Times Lists Several Reliable Conservative
Outlets as Fake News Sites to Avoid
by Trey Sanchez
{truthrevolt.org} ~ The liberal media is having a tough time coming to grips with liar-Hillary Clinton losing the election. Some looked inward to see how they could’ve been so wrong about the electorate... Others are blaming “fake news sites” for spreading false information and influencing voters. Facebook is taking a lot of the blame for disseminating this so-called false information. But the sources of some of this “misinformation” are really a problem for Big Media because they are conservative websites and blogs. The Los Angeles Times published a list of “false, misleading, clickbait-y and satirical ‘news’ sources” to avoid which was compiled by Melissa Zimdars, Assistant Professor of Communication at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, according to Legal Insurrection — you know, one of those "fake" conservative sites that are simply passing along what the LA Times is publishing. Reliable conservative outlets like The Blaze, Breitbart, James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, and RedState all made the list. Also making the cut is The Onion, a well-known and actual fake news site. So, you can see why Zimdars wanted the conservative outlets next to The Onion... http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/la-times-lists-several-reliable-conservative-outlets-fake-news-sites-avoid
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The Federal Bureau of Political Investigation
by Judge Andrew Napolitano
{townhall.com} ~ When liar-Hillary Clinton delivered a campaign post-mortem to her major supporters in a telephone conference call late last week, she blamed her loss in the presidential election on FBI Director James Comey. She should have blamed the loss on herself. Her refusal to safeguard state secrets while she was secretary of state and her failure to grasp the nationwide resentment toward government by the forgotten folks in the middle class were far likelier the cause of her defeat than was Comey.
Yet it is obvious that law enforcement-based decisions in the past four months were made with an eye on Election Day, and the officials who made them evaded the rule of law.
Here is the back story.
The statutory obligation of the FBI is to gather evidence to aid in the prosecution or prevention of federal crimes or breaches of national security. The process of complying with this obligation necessarily involves making some legal judgments about the relevance, probity and even lawfulness of the gathered evidence. These judgments are sometimes made on the streets in an emergency and sometimes made after consultation and consensus. But the whole purpose of this evidence-gathering and decision-making is to present a package to the Department of Justice, for which the FBI works, for its determination about whether or not to seek a prosecution.
In cases in which subpoenas are needed, the FBI must work in tandem with the DOJ because subpoenas in criminal cases can be issued only by grand juries and only DOJ lawyers can ask grand juries to issue them. Usually, the FBI and the DOJ work together to present what they have to a grand jury in order to build a case for indictment or to induce a grand jury to issue subpoenas and help them gather more evidence.
Federal judges become involved when search warrants or arrest warrants are needed. These are often emergent situations, as the evidence to be seized or the person to be arrested might be gone if not pursued in short order. They require the presentation of evidence to a judge quickly and in secret. It is the judge's role to decide whether the DOJ/FBI team has met the constitutional threshold of probable cause. Probable cause is met when the prosecutorial team shows the judge that the evidence the team seeks from the execution of the warrant more likely than not will implicate someone in criminal behavior.
Having issued many search and arrest warrants myself, I know that judges need to be curious and skeptical. After all, only one side is appearing before the judge, and the whole appearance is often quick, unorthodox and in secret. A healthy curiosity and skepticism will cause a prudent jurist to ask whether the grand jury really needs what the search warrant seeks. If the reply is that there is no grand jury, most judges will terminate the application and conclude that it is a fishing expedition -- or going "sideways," as law enforcement says -- not a serious criminal investigation worthy of judicial involvement.
All of this is commanded by law to be kept secret so as to preserve evidence, avoid tipping off a potential defendant capable of flight and preserve the reputation of a person not indicted.
That is at least the way these things are supposed to work. Yet none of this happened in the recently reopened and re-terminated investigation of the misuse of emails containing state secrets by liar-Clinton.
In that investigation, the DOJ did not present evidence to a grand jury. Thus, it did not obtain any subpoenas. And it did not seek any search warrants. It cut deals left and right, promising not to prosecute those from whom it sought problematic evidence. After accumulating a mountain of evidence of liar-Clinton's guilt, the FBI did not present it to the DOJ.
Rather, Director Comey held a news conference on July 5, at which he declared that he and his colleagues in the FBI -- not the DOJ -- had concluded that "no reasonable prosecutor" would take the case; so liar-Clinton would not be prosecuted. He then proceeded to outline in detail the gathered evidence (SET ITAL) against (END ITAL) liar-Clinton.
He endured a firestorm of criticism for his public presentation of the gravity of the evidence in the case and his unilateral determination of no prosecution. The firestorm was generated largely by his own FBI agents who had become convinced of liar-Clinton's guilt of the failure to safeguard state secrets (espionage), as well as their collective belief that someone somewhere had told Comey what to do.
Then, just 11 days before the 2016 presidential election, Comey saw a chance to redeem himself with his critics. He unlawfully announced the unexpected discovery of a treasure-trove of 650,000 emails that he and his team had not then examined but that they thought might affect the decision not to prosecute. This caused a second firestorm, in which this writer and others accused Comey of profound violations of federal law, not the least of which was an assault on liar-Clinton's right to due process.
Knowing this announcement -- not the resumption of the investigation but the announcement of it -- was unlawful, Attorney General Loretta Lynch did nothing to prevent it.
liar- Clinton began to sink in the polls. Her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, now the president-elect, began to gloat and celebrate. Then, two days before the election, Comey announced that the FBI had reviewed all 650,000 recently discovered emails in a week and concluded that none of them affected the decision not to prosecute liar-Clinton. Shortly thereafter, a DOJ official announced that the email investigation was closed -- for a second time.
What have we here?
We have the gross mismanagement of the nation's premier law enforcement agency. We have a DOJ uninterested in the truth and willing to shield a target of a criminal investigation for political reasons. We have the improper and unlawful revelation of matters the law quite properly commands be kept secret.
We have the dangerous injection of the FBI into elective politics, which can do ruinous harm to the rule of law.
And we had a candidate who should blame only herself for the whole controversy.
Yet it is obvious that law enforcement-based decisions in the past four months were made with an eye on Election Day, and the officials who made them evaded the rule of law.
Here is the back story.
The statutory obligation of the FBI is to gather evidence to aid in the prosecution or prevention of federal crimes or breaches of national security. The process of complying with this obligation necessarily involves making some legal judgments about the relevance, probity and even lawfulness of the gathered evidence. These judgments are sometimes made on the streets in an emergency and sometimes made after consultation and consensus. But the whole purpose of this evidence-gathering and decision-making is to present a package to the Department of Justice, for which the FBI works, for its determination about whether or not to seek a prosecution.
In cases in which subpoenas are needed, the FBI must work in tandem with the DOJ because subpoenas in criminal cases can be issued only by grand juries and only DOJ lawyers can ask grand juries to issue them. Usually, the FBI and the DOJ work together to present what they have to a grand jury in order to build a case for indictment or to induce a grand jury to issue subpoenas and help them gather more evidence.
Federal judges become involved when search warrants or arrest warrants are needed. These are often emergent situations, as the evidence to be seized or the person to be arrested might be gone if not pursued in short order. They require the presentation of evidence to a judge quickly and in secret. It is the judge's role to decide whether the DOJ/FBI team has met the constitutional threshold of probable cause. Probable cause is met when the prosecutorial team shows the judge that the evidence the team seeks from the execution of the warrant more likely than not will implicate someone in criminal behavior.
Having issued many search and arrest warrants myself, I know that judges need to be curious and skeptical. After all, only one side is appearing before the judge, and the whole appearance is often quick, unorthodox and in secret. A healthy curiosity and skepticism will cause a prudent jurist to ask whether the grand jury really needs what the search warrant seeks. If the reply is that there is no grand jury, most judges will terminate the application and conclude that it is a fishing expedition -- or going "sideways," as law enforcement says -- not a serious criminal investigation worthy of judicial involvement.
All of this is commanded by law to be kept secret so as to preserve evidence, avoid tipping off a potential defendant capable of flight and preserve the reputation of a person not indicted.
That is at least the way these things are supposed to work. Yet none of this happened in the recently reopened and re-terminated investigation of the misuse of emails containing state secrets by liar-Clinton.
In that investigation, the DOJ did not present evidence to a grand jury. Thus, it did not obtain any subpoenas. And it did not seek any search warrants. It cut deals left and right, promising not to prosecute those from whom it sought problematic evidence. After accumulating a mountain of evidence of liar-Clinton's guilt, the FBI did not present it to the DOJ.
Rather, Director Comey held a news conference on July 5, at which he declared that he and his colleagues in the FBI -- not the DOJ -- had concluded that "no reasonable prosecutor" would take the case; so liar-Clinton would not be prosecuted. He then proceeded to outline in detail the gathered evidence (SET ITAL) against (END ITAL) liar-Clinton.
He endured a firestorm of criticism for his public presentation of the gravity of the evidence in the case and his unilateral determination of no prosecution. The firestorm was generated largely by his own FBI agents who had become convinced of liar-Clinton's guilt of the failure to safeguard state secrets (espionage), as well as their collective belief that someone somewhere had told Comey what to do.
Then, just 11 days before the 2016 presidential election, Comey saw a chance to redeem himself with his critics. He unlawfully announced the unexpected discovery of a treasure-trove of 650,000 emails that he and his team had not then examined but that they thought might affect the decision not to prosecute. This caused a second firestorm, in which this writer and others accused Comey of profound violations of federal law, not the least of which was an assault on liar-Clinton's right to due process.
Knowing this announcement -- not the resumption of the investigation but the announcement of it -- was unlawful, Attorney General Loretta Lynch did nothing to prevent it.
liar- Clinton began to sink in the polls. Her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, now the president-elect, began to gloat and celebrate. Then, two days before the election, Comey announced that the FBI had reviewed all 650,000 recently discovered emails in a week and concluded that none of them affected the decision not to prosecute liar-Clinton. Shortly thereafter, a DOJ official announced that the email investigation was closed -- for a second time.
What have we here?
We have the gross mismanagement of the nation's premier law enforcement agency. We have a DOJ uninterested in the truth and willing to shield a target of a criminal investigation for political reasons. We have the improper and unlawful revelation of matters the law quite properly commands be kept secret.
We have the dangerous injection of the FBI into elective politics, which can do ruinous harm to the rule of law.
And we had a candidate who should blame only herself for the whole controversy.
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