This is a weekly summary of news that the legacy media and Democrats have obfuscated for partisan political reasons.
1. Let’s start off with an article about two Senators who state that the DoJ Inspector General’s report on FISA abuse misled the public:
[T]he inspector general’s report on FISA abuse was misleading and that redacted information contained in four footnotes contradicted sections of the lengthy expose on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson dropped that bombshell in a letter delivered to Attorney General William Barr that requested Barr declassify the information hidden in the redacted footnotes. While the declassified version of the Grassley-Johnson letter did not identify the four footnotes at issue, a detailed analysis of the IG report suggests the redacted information concerned Christopher Steele’s sources and potentially the FBI’s purported predication for the launch of Crossfire Hurricane. These conclusions come from a deep-dive into the IG report read in tandem with the Grassley-Johnson letter.
Without Barr declassifying the information contained in these footnotes, as well as other material, such as the complete FISA applications, we’ll just have to take Grassley and Johnson’s word that the redacted information contradicts other portions of the IG report, making “certain sections of the public version of the report” “misleading.” However, given the accuracy and honesty of Rep. Devin Nunes’ memo on FISA abuse, I’m inclined to trust the Republican senators.
Read the rest here. Whoever is responsible for this needs to go to jail. Period.
2. The 2021 budget proposal is on the street. Naturally, it is being panned by the big-spenders.
President Trump’s fiscal 2021 budget set for release on Monday was written with an eye on the 2020 election, with boosts to programs the public support, cuts in those that, for years, conservative presidents have promised but never delivered on, and a long-term promise to cut the deficit.
In briefings Secrets attended and documents from the administration, Trump, for example, is the first president to make good on decades of pledges to cut foreign aid and spending on the United Nations.
Officials said that the cut to the U.N. would be “a lot,” and foreign aid trimmed $170 million, or 21%, by targeting wasteful and sometimes silly funding to programs that would, for example, “support the Muppet Retrospectacle in New Zealand.”
On the positive side, Trump wants another $2 billion for the border wall. That is far less than in past years, but officials said it is because the administration has secured enough money, $18 billion, to pay for 80% of the wall.
He would also increase spending for the Veterans Administration by 13%, NASA by 12%, and Homeland Security by 3%.
Read the rest here. This will be a great election-year topic to debate.
3. In case you missed it, Hollywood’s hypocrisy was on full display Sunday night, as summarized here.
The Academy keeps surprising us, doesn’t it? Keeps finding new stuff to be ashamed of, embarrassed about and regretful of. They won’t be revoking the 600 Oscars they gave Harvey Weinstein while every single person in town was talking about his depredations, you understand. But they’re very worried about — I’m not making this up — species-ism. You see, humankind has just been discriminating in favor of humans too much, and it needs to stop.
One clunky joke after another proved that PC is the enemy of comedy. Josh Gad mentioned his movie “‘Frozen 2,’ or as climate change deniers call it, ‘Not Frozen 2.’” Best Supporting Actor Brad Pitt threw away his cool factor with the sub-Jimmy Kimmel line, “They told me I only have 45 seconds up here, which is 45 seconds more than the Senate gave John Bolton this week.” At least Pitt is a big name, unlike the parade of semi-obscure introducers evidently hired to add diversity (Mindy Kaling, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Zazie Beetz).
Read the rest here. Does anyone watch this leftist virtue-signaling nonsense anymore? Not me!
4. The President boots 70 Obama hold-overs from the National Security Council (not just the Vindman twins).
President Trump is making good on his promises to “drain the swamp” and cut Obama-era holdovers from his staffs, especially the critical and recently controversial National Security Council.
Officials confirmed that Trump and national security adviser Robert O’Brien have cut 70 positions inherited from former President Barack Obama, who had fattened the staff to 200.
Many were loaners from other agencies and have been sent back. Others left government work.
Read the rest here. What took so long? These clowns should have been shown the door long ago (there would have been a lot fewer leaks of classified information over the past three years!).
5. Kurt Schlichter opines that President Trump needs to declare war on the political mobsters in his administration.
With Democrat dreams of a soft coup now a heap of smoldering wreckage, and no need to play Mr. Nice Guy to please prissy softcons on Capitol Hill, President Trump is finally free to channel his inner Michael Corleone. It’s about time to re-christen Don Jr., and use that opportunity to take out the heads of the five families.
Trump already tossed mealy-mouthed ambassador Gordon Sondland out on his Nadler. Then military Twitter started buzzing with delight – well, not Blue Falcon Twitter but the one with vets who aren’t half-stepping weasels – at the news of “That’s Lieutenant Colonel to You Bratwurst” and his brother Other That’s Lieutenant Colonel to You Bratwurst being marched out of the West Wing with their all stuff, probably mostly Doritos and Mounds bars, in bankers’ boxes. About time – these doofuses may fool the establishment civilians but not the vets. We all served with their likes, and the fact these guys get celebrated by our feckless elite is not unrelated to the fact that our military has not decisively won a war in 30 years.
This long overdue purge needs to be just the beginning.
Clean house. Ruthlessly. And if you can’t find them because of our archaic civil service laws, well, Nome needs bureaucrats too.
No president would tolerate treachery, and now Trump is free to punish it too.
Read the rest here. Long, long overdue! That will cut down on most of the illegal leaking, too.
6. Speaking of sweeping out the trash, Judicial Watch has set their sights on Adam Schiff.
Judicial Watch announced it today filed a lawsuit against Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and the House Intelligence Committee for the controversial subpoenas issued for phone records, including those of Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer. The phone records led to the publication of the private phone records of Giuliani, Congressman Devon Nunes, journalist John Solomon, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow, attorney Victoria Toensing, and other American citizens.
Read the rest here. This is a good first step in identifying Schiff’s criminality, including violation of Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights. I smell a lawsuit coming from those affected.
7. AG Barr announced that DoJ is going after leftwing sanctuary cities. This is YUUUUGE!
Charging that so-called “sanctuary” cities that protect illegal immigrants are jeopardizing domestic security, Attorney General Bill Barr announced a slew of additional sanctions that he called a “significant escalation” against left-wing local and state governments that obstruct the “lawful functioning of our nation’s immigration system.”
Speaking at the National Sheriff’s Association 2020 Winter Legislative and Technology Conference in Washington, D.C., Barr said the Justice Department would immediately file multiple lawsuits against sanctuary jurisdictions for unconstitutionally interfering with federal immigration enforcement, and implement unprecedented national reviews of left-wing sanctuary governments and prosecutors.
“Let us state the reality upfront and as clearly as possible,” Barr began. “When we are talking about sanctuary cities, we are talking about policies that are designed to allow criminal aliens to escape. These policies are not about people who came to our country illegally but have otherwise been peaceful and productive members of society. Their express purpose is to shelter aliens whom local law enforcement has already arrested for other crimes. This is neither lawful nor sensible.”
Read the rest here. This is also long overdue. I suspect we will see more counter-attacks on a whole host of simmering issues now that the President has been acquitted for life.
8. Mueller’s prosecutors were caught out lying about their sentencing recommendations for Roger Stone.
Prosecutors in charge of the federal case against Roger Stone may have lied to the Department of Justice about their lengthy prison sentence recommendation for Stone.
Sources told The Federalist that Timothy Shea, who was recently appointed to take over as the top federal prosecutor in D.C. earlier this month, was bullied into agreeing to the sentence recommendation by Adam Jed and Aaron Zelinsky, who were originally tapped by Mueller to investigate whether Donald Trump treasonously colluded with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton.
Read the rest here. This is the latest set-up to try to take out the President for alleged “political corruption of the DoJ” because he tweeted about the excessive sentencing recommendation.
9. The truth about Democrat-run cities and top-down government solutions is exposed in a new documentary. The Democrat-media complex doesn’t want you to see it.
[A]ccording to a groundbreaking new film, the true answer to urban decay, broken families, and ballooning debt from dependence on social programs isn’t more government but a return to the traditional sources of meaning: faith, family, work, and community.
Filmmaker Christopher Rufo traveled to three crumbling American cities — Youngstown, Ohio; Memphis, Tenn.; and Stockton, Calif. — and documented the deep human struggles of communities left behind as the 1950s industrial boom yielded to a new kind of economy in the 21st century. America Lost explains why top-down government solutions fail to address this urban decay and the film suggests a better path forward.
Read the rest here. This is the dirty little secret of Democrat hegemony at the local level: disaster and dependency.
10. California keeps slip-sliding away, and Republicans and businesses want to get out before it’s too late.
[O]ne study indicates California is unlikely to turn red anytime soon.
Half of the state’s registered voters said they have either given serious or some thought to leaving the state, according to a recent survey from the University of California Berkeley’s Institute of Government Studies. And it’s Republicans and conservatives who are three times as likely to be considering leaving than their liberal and Democratic counterparts.
The top reasons for their discontent were high housing costs – a complaint felt across the political divide – followed by high taxes and the state’s political culture, which were largely cited by Republicans.
Read the rest here. More evidence that the “rats” in “Democrats” means something (rats foul their own nests).
11. And lastly, Daniel Greenfield opines that the Democrats are for sale to the highest bidder.
Michael Bloomberg is making headlines for spending $300 million on advertising to buy third place. That doesn’t include the $10,000 spent on sushi, $250,000 on furniture, and six figure staffer salaries. With a $61 billion net worth, the billionaire just decided to buy the primaries. And his buying spree is working.
The Dems claim to hate billionaires, but two of them successfully bought into the race, Bloomberg and Steyer, while completely lacking the populist appeal that propelled Trump to the top. The Bloomberg-Steyer spending sprees have set off a dieback in the Dem 2020 race where only those candidates with lots of cash can even compete. Warren’s campaign is crumbling along with her financial prospects.
Steyer is cutting off Biden at the knees in South Carolina and Bloomberg will probably finish him on Super Tuesday. That will leave Buttigieg and Sanders as the only non-billionaires with a real shot.
What makes a socialist from Vermont and the failed mayor of a midwestern city competitive? Money. Lots and lots of money. Bernie Sanders raised $25 million in January. Buttigieg put together almost $3 million after Iowa.
If Biden collapses, the Democrats risk going into the 2020 race with a candidate who doesn’t appeal to black voters. That description covers Sanders, Bloomberg, and Buttigieg to varying degrees. And, without vigorous black turnout, the odds of a Democrat winning the White House are longer than long. You can buy the nomination, but you can’t buy enthusiasm outside your narrow fanbase.
What does it say about Democrats that they’re being bought? All the billionaire bashing, the attacks on Wall Street and Silicon Valley, the small donor qualifiers for the debate stage and the PAC virtue signaling were meant to establish that they weren’t about money, but about ideas and principles. But much of the party, in poll after poll, appears to be willing to vote for anyone who will stop Trump. It doesn’t matter if he’s a socialist or a plutocrat, or a guy with hair plugs deep in his brain. Democrats have shown that they have the same set of standards as any gold digger: a lot of money and a pulse.
Billionaires are trying to buy the nomination because the Democrats prostituted their party. They put themselves up for sale to the highest bidder in a desperate effort to stop President Trump.
Read the rest here. Despite what the Democrats’ Star Wars bar scene bleat about progressive values and socialism, it’s all about the money. And their base could care less. Hypocrites all.
Here are this week’s “honorable mention” articles:
The Trump juggernaut rolls on, DoJ is sifting through Rudy Giuliani’s mountain of evidence on Ukraine corruption, the Democrat presidential candidates are a hot mess, the US attorney for Washington DC has been replaced (with investigations into past prosecutorial abuse just getting started), DoJ is finally getting serious about sanctuary cities, and the Vindmans and as many as 70 other Obama holdovers have gotten their pink slips at the National Security Council. And there’s a LOT more in the queue! Stay tuned….
The end.
