PrairiePundit

Washington Post:
Federal judge compels Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to be deposed in suit challenging citizenship question

States charge that Wilbur Ross added the census question to discriminate against immigrant communities. What the states really want to do is cook the books in the census to get more congressional seats for people who are not even eligible to vote. In that way, they gain an advantage over states where there are fewer non-citizens. It is cases like this one that points out who we need to have fewer liberal justices to put their thumb on the scales to help liberal politicians.

Several members of Iran Revolutionary Guard killed in shooting during parade

NY Times:
Gunmen Kill 24, Including 12 Revolutionary Guards, in Attack on Iran Military Parade Gunmen fired on a military parade in southwestern Iran on Saturday, killing 24 people, half of them members of the Revolutionary Guards, state news agencies reported, in one of the worst attacks ever on the elite force.State television said the assault, which wounded more than 60 people, targeted a stand where Iranian officials had gathered in the city of Ahvaz to watch an annual event marking the start of the Islamic Republic's 1980-88 war with Iraq. Not everyone in Iran loves a parade, especially if it is the hated troops of the ayatollahs. The rebellion against the Islamist despots is getting hot. There have been other such incidents, but this appears to be one of the worse attacks so far. The people have been demonstrating against the government ever since they learned how money from the Obama windfall was squandered on terror operations in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen while people in …

Bolton signals US counterattacks against counties who use cyber attacks against US

Bill Gertz:
White House National Security Adviser John Bolton confirmed this week that China carried out the cyber attack on the Office of Personnel Management in the theft of more than 22 million sensitive records on American government officials.

Bolton disclosed the Chinese hacking in unveiling the Trump administration's new national cyber strategy, which shifts the focus of security efforts from the passive approach of the administration of President Barack Obama to a proactive, aggressive stance against cyber attacks.

"For any nation that's taking cyber activity against the United States … we will respond offensively as well as defensively," Bolton bluntly stated at the White House Thursday.

China has been the most aggressive in conducting cyber espionage and cyber technology theft against the United States.

The National Security Agency estimated several years ago that China obtained 50 terabytes of data through cyber espionage, including details on F-35 and F-2…

The case challenging Googles treatment of conservatives

Missouri's Attorney General is looking into Google's use of its search engine to favor liberals. He is also running against an incumbent Democrat for the Missouri Senate seat in Washington and is currently leading in a tight race. He would certainly be an upgrade should he win that race.

Why the fight over the court has gotten so ugly

Steve Berman:
...
Neither Ford, nor Kavanaugh, and especially Kavanaugh's wife deserve to be hunted by evil people bent on having their political will expressed through violence.

We've already seen what political invective can do on the left: Rep. Steve Scalise and the Family Research Council "Chick-Fil-A shooting" have proved this. When someone like Ford can't make an accusation--political as it may be--without fearing for her life, and Kavanaugh's wife and family practically need to go into protective custody, that's a sign that our political climate has become too toxic.

There's only one issue capable of generating such poison. I would be willing to bet every penny I own that Ford is vehemently pro-choice (this is a matter of fact not opinion). This is simply the latest flashpoint in the culture war over people who believe unborn infants deserve the same protections as other human beings who have been born, versus those who cherish the "right&…

The Democrats have exercised bad faith in their use of Dr. Ford to attack Kavanaugh

Washington Times:
President Trump accused Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats on Friday of “very purposefully” waiting to release allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh in order to derail his nomination.

The president demanded that Congress “take the vote” on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination whether or not Christine Blasey Ford testifies to Congress.

Mr. Trump’s tweet comes just a day after Senate Democrats pressed him to order an FBI investigation into the allegations of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh.
... The Democrats' move has been a series of bad faith attempts to delay and stall a vote. If they were serious about wanting an investigation, They would have taken Ford.s letter to the FBI when they got it instead of sitting on it until after the hearings were complete.

Let me be clear, I do not think young women should be held downed and groped. But I also do not think parents are acting responsibly who allow teenagers to engage in drunken parties or parties for…

FBI was 'reluctant' to buy into Russian conspiracy theory?

Sara Carter:
The FBI had concerns with the intelligence community’s (IC) January 2017 assessment that the Kremlin interfered in the presidential election with the specific intent of electing President Trump over Hillary Clinton.

In newly obtained emails, bureau officials noted there was not enough intelligence to support the January 2017 findings by the CIA which concluded Vladimir Putin meddled in the 2016 election to help Trump, according to a numerous documents and text messages obtained by SaraACarter.com.

However, while Strzok, Comey and others were disputing the findings of former CIA Director John Brennan and former DNI Director James Clapper behind closed doors, the public perception was that the FBI agreed with the intelligence community’s assessment, as noted in news reports in late 2016 and early 2017.

Strzok, however, was a double-edged sword. Although he believed there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove Russia wanted Trump in office, text messages suggest he was still in…

The incoherence of Kavanaugh's accusers story

Fox News:
...
"There are an awful lot of questions, inconsistencies, gaps, and that's why to be fair to both, we need to know what happened," Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a key Republican vote, told reporters this week.

Among those are therapist notes from 2012 that Ford gave to the Washington Post to corroborate her claim. Those notes, though, reportedly say four boys – not two, as Ford claims -- were in the room during the alleged incident. Ford told the newspaper this was an error by the therapist.

Ford, who has acknowledged she can’t remember some details from the incident decades ago, has said she was reluctant to come forward and only did so because her hand was forced by the media.

“As you know, earlier this summer, Dr. Ford sought to tell her story, in confidence, so that lawmakers would have a fuller understanding of Brett Kavanaugh’s character and history,” Ford’s attorneys wrote in a letter to the Judiciary Committee this week. “Only after the details of her expe…

Is it a coincidence that NY Times publishes story on Rosenstein at time they are pushing a story on Russian election interference?

NY Times:
Rod Rosenstein Suggested Secretly Recording Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment In the turbulent days after the firing of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general appeared conflicted about his role and wanted to expose administration dysfunction, people around him said. It is interesting that the Times would choose this time to publish this story because one thing Rosenstein has been consistent on is that there is no evidence that the Russian interference did effect the outcome of the election.

That is inconsistent with the Times current push to try to regenerate the Russian conspiracy story, despite the obvious failure of investigations to show any collusion between the Russians and Trump. What they are still trying to do is delegitimize the President in hopes of swaying the midterm elections.

The criticism of Rosenstein on the right is that he has blocked releasing relevant data about the conspiracy within the DOJ and FBI to effect a coup attempt against the President.

T…

Pay gains under Trump surpass any during Obama administration

CNBC:
Pay gains during Trump's first year in office best since the Great Recession

The Employment Cost Index, a measure of salary and benefit costs, registered a 2.6 percent gain for the full year, tied for the best since 2007.That gives President Donald Trump the best wage gains since the Great Recession, easily topping any during former President Barack Obama's entire term. Democrats are desperate to change this dynamic and want to reverse the policies that have created these gains. If voters elect Democrats in November that may happen.

The Democrats' kangaroo court approach to allegations against Kavanaugh

Rich Lowry:
Christine Blasey Ford deserves a hearing, although at the moment she doesn’t seem to want one. What she doesn’t deserve is to be believed automatically because she’s a woman making an accusation.

When our system of justice is at its best, it judges each individual — the accuser and the accused — fairly, on the basis of the evidence, and with an adversarial process that has proved over the centuries the best way to ascertain the truth.

Ford’s charge is serious by any standard, and despite the shameful way it was handled — Dianne Feinstein sat on it for weeks, until it leaked out at the 11th hour — Republicans appropriately agreed to delay a committee vote and hear from both Ford and Kavanaugh at an open hearing.

The problem is that Ford’s accusation doesn’t seem particularly provable — an alleged incident 36 years ago, with few details to check against — and the Democratic media isn’t very interested in proving it. It wants to take Ford’s truthfulness as a given, as matter of …

'Experts' wrong about Trump's Iran policy

Jonathon Tobin:
When President Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal back in May, the foreign-policy establishment was unanimous in its opposition.

Their dismay was rooted in loyalty to Barack Obama’s legacy and personal contempt for Trump. But there was at least one point the critics made that seemed irrefutable, in warning against the re-imposition of US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports.

Trump’s unilateral move would certainly fail because of the interest of America’s European allies as well as the Russians and Chinese in continuing to do business with Iran. But if by some chance it worked, the experts were sure that would result in a severe hike in oil prices that American consumers would feel at the gas pump.

But the experts were wrong. Reports in Bloomberg News, echoed by The New York Times, tell us that three months into the new sanctions — and less than two months before the Trump administration plans to implement even more far-reaching restrictions on doing b…

The failed Russian election plot

NY Times:
The Plot to Subvert an Election: Unraveling the Russia Story So Far For two years, Americans have tried to absorb the details of the 2016 attack: spies, leaked emails, social media fraud — and President Trump’s claims that it’s all a hoax. The Times explores what we know and what it means. When Trump talks about the Russian hoax, he is really talking about the allegations of collusion between his campaign and the Russians for which there has been no evidence produced despite million spent in trying to corroborate it. The DOJ has on more than one occasion in discussing the Russian effort made it clear that there is no evidence that it impacted the election.

The leaks emails had little to nothing to do with the Trump campaign and merely showed what a shame the Democrat primary was because the fix was in for Hillary Clinton. If similar emails had been leaked showing the GOP did the same thing to get Trump nominated I am sure the NY Times would be eager to report it and collec…

Lessons of the Flores upset win in the Texas state senate race

Newt Gingrich:
...
Flores had run four years earlier and lost by 20 points. Now he is the first Hispanic Republican state senator in Texas (yet another reason the liberal media is avoiding talking about the race). Since Flores defeated former Democratic U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego, his victory has some extra punch to it.

Patrick said this race was a classic example of a big-choice campaign. He had read my recent paper, The Republican Choice for 2018: Win or Lose, which outlines the importance of big- choice campaigns over small-choice campaigns and said this was a perfect example of the potential for a big-choice campaign to overwhelm the media bias (a point Brooke Rollins had also made to me).

The big choices in this 17-county border district were:

Right to life versus tax-paid abortion. As Catholics, many Hispanic voters simply won’t vote for liberals who are for tax-paid abortions. Of course, every Democrat who is campaigning for free government-run health care is campaigning for tax-pai…

Data shows US winning trade war with China

CNBC:
The U.S. and China fired their latest billion-dollar shots in the escalating trade war this week.

One market watcher is ready to declare a winner.

"You vote with your dollars and you look at the U.S. markets since the start of the trade war and it's done quite well. China really hasn't," Steve Chiavarone, portfolio manager at Federated, told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Wednesday.

The S&P 500 and Dow broke records on Thursday, while the Shanghai composite was stuck in a bear market. The Chinese stock market index has fallen 24 percent since its highs set in late January.

The monetary impact of tariffs also tips the trade war in favor of the U.S., said Chiavarone.

"When we add up all the impact of tariffs, they come up to just a fraction of the stimulus being added into the economy in the U.S. and I think the market is really starting to ferret that out," he said.

By Chiavarone's calculation, the sum of tariffs over the next three y…

O'Rourke slanders law enforcement?

Red States:
Beto O’Rourke Labels Police As Racist, Claims They Are The New Jim Crow

...
... This continued narrative by the hard left that claims police are evil has always been one that promotes the false narrative that police are just out to get minorities.

What’s more, these narratives are completely untrue and generate unnecessary outrage and place blame on innocent people. These false narratives grow and end up starting riots like the kind seen in Ferguson and Baltimore after legitimate police actions that are easily spun into believed tales of oppressors unfairly targeting groups.

People are hurt, businesses are destroyed, and lives are ruined because of narratives like this spread like wildfire, fueled by the media and politicians like Beto O’Rourke.
... O'Rourke made his comments to a predominately black audience. It looks like he appealing to liberal stereotype more than to the intellect of his audience.

US UN ambassador critical of Kerry talks with chief state sponsor of terrorism

Washington Examiner:
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Thursday former Secretary of State John Kerry's private meetings with Iranian officials were irresponsible and disrespectful.

Kerry's actions aren't "in the same vein" as those of Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state for the Nixon and Ford administrations, Haley said during an interview with Fox News.

"Dr. Kissinger, even when he goes and speaks with any country leader, he lets us know before and he lets us know after," said Haley. "Dr. Kissinger is the responsible way to do it. What we saw with John Kerry was not only disrespectful, but it was hurtful to America."
...
Haley's comments follow Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Wednesday that Kerry "can't seem to get off the stage."
... Kerry seems like he is more in tune with the state sponsor of terrorism than he is with those who oppose it.

Liberal head winds in Texas?

Silvio Cantu, Jr.:
What happened?

We learned on Tuesday that Senator Cruz is up 9 in the latest poll. It shows Mr. Cruz at 44% with Hispanics, winning big with men and losing women to Mr. O'Rourke.

The early reaction is that Mr. O'Rourke's NFL remarks and idiotic comments about AR-15s may finally be catching up with him. On Friday, the two men will meet for a TV debate, and we will watch it.

Down in South Texas, the GOP flipped a state Senate seat held by Democrats for 139 years. This is a rather remarkable story...
... One of the clear messages in the special election is that Democrats cannot take the Hispanic vote for granted. It was something the folks a Google found out as they pushed the Hispanic vote in 2016 and were distraught that many of them wound up voting for Trump. They should not be that surprised. The Trump economy has raised the Hispanic standard of living more than any other group.

Did Mueller team collude with media on grand jury leaks?

True Pundit:
Recently released emails from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office show his team members cavorting with mainstream media reporters outside the office.

Peter Carr is the chief spokesman for Mueller’s team. Emails obtained from the Special Counsel and released Tuesday by Freedom Watch reveal Carr’s out-of-the-office rendezvous and text conversations with the media elite in D.C.

Likewise, Carr admits he is not allowed to use his private cell phone in the office but freely communicates with reporters off hours and weekends on his iPhone, according to texts. But Carr’s cell phone is not listed as an official contact number for the Special Counsel’s media relations office. And according to texts, Carr has only divulged the number to select media clientele.

And is his phone secure? Is discussing details about Mueller’s sensitive and classified Trump investigation in a Starbucks secure?

Carr has made a career as Mueller’s media flack since May 2017, when Mueller was appointed …

Democrat hypocrisy watch

Power Line:
“CONCERNED” DEMS AREN’T CONCERNED ABOUT PAST SEXUAL ASSAULTS BY DEMS

It’s amusing, in a sickening sort of way, to hear Senate Democrats say it’s unacceptable to have on the Supreme Court someone “credibly” accused of assaulting a woman 36 years ago, when he was in high school. Who among these “outraged” Senators has complained about serving with Democratic colleagues credibly accused of, and in at least two cases admitting to, assaulting women?

Sen. Sherrod Brown’s ex-wife claimed that Brown threw her up against a wall and showed “physical violence and abusive nature.” This allegation is contained in court documents. According to this source, Larke Brown told the court, “I am also intimidated by the Defendant and am in fear for the safety and well-being of myself and our children due to the Defendant’s physical violence and abusive nature.” A judge reportedly granted her request for a restraining order against Sherrod Brown.

Brown’s alleged assault occurred in 1986, around …

Google accused of cooking search results to help the left and hurt Trump

Wall Street Journal:
Days after the Trump administration instituted a controversial travel ban in January 2017, Google employees discussed ways they might be able to tweak the company’s search-related functions to show users how to contribute to pro-immigration organizations and contact lawmakers and government agencies, according to internal company emails.

The email traffic, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, shows that employees proposed ways to “leverage” search functions and take steps to counter what they considered to be “islamophobic, algorithmically biased results from search terms ‘Islam’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Iran’, etc.” and “prejudiced, algorithmically biased search results from search terms ‘Mexico’, ‘Hispanic’, ‘Latino’, etc.”

The email chain, while sprinkled with cautionary notes about engaging in political activity, suggests employees considered ways to harness the company’s vast influence on the internet in response to the travel ban. Google said none of the ideas discussed …

Who is threatening the life of Brett Kavanaugh's wife?

Washington Examiner:
The wife of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, has received a host of vulgar threats since a California professor accused him of sexual assault.

The volume of threats Ashley Estes Kavanaugh, a town manager in a Maryland suburb, has received has risen this week, a senior Trump administration official told the Washington Examiner.

Emails sent to Ashley Kavanaugh are currently being investigated by the U.S. Marshals Service, the official said.

In one email Ashley Kavanaugh received to her work email account this week, the person wrote, “Please tell your rapist, lying, cheating, corrupt bitch of a husband to put a bullet in his ugly fucking skull.”

“My condolences to you for being married to a rapist. Although you probably deserve it,” the email, obtained by the Washington Examiner, continued.

A second email sent had the subject line, “Did you know your husband is a rapist?????”

“Hey bitch, did you know your husband was a rapist…

Democrats willing to toss out the Constitution when it comes to GOP nominations to Supreme Court

David French:
Do Democrats Really Believe Christine Blasey Ford Doesn’t Have to Prove Her Claims? Democrats who are making this claim have no business holding office and they should be condemned by others all who want to uphold the rule of law and fairness to the accused.
...
At the foundation of our system of justice is the notion that accusers don’t just have to state a case against the accused, they have to prove their case. The burden of proof varies depending on the situation. At one end is the proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a criminal trial. At the other is the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard of civil court. But in virtually any court, when a person first states their case against an accused, that is just the beginning of the process of proof.
... Her lawyer has to know this is how the system works so it appears she and those who supporter are just practicing bad faith politics.

Instead, they are demanding a Soviet-style show trial and trying to flip the burden of proo…

Tracing the travels of Russian hit men?

Telegraph:
The Russian hitmen accused of poisoning Sergei Skripal have been linked to the plot to assassinate the Montenegrin Prime Minister.

The cover passports of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were issued in the same batch as the passport of Col Eduard Shishmakov, the GRU officer accused of masterminding the failed coup in October 2016.

The findings suggest that the passports have been issued to aliases by a special authority to a group of military intelligence officers.

Research by the investigative journalist organisation Bellingcat and The Insider Russian has also shown that Petrov traveled extensively through Western Europe before the Novichok attack on Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.

It is unclear whether he was accompanied by Boshirov, whose travel data have not been obtained by the group.

Almost as soon as he was issued with his cover passport, Petrov drove to Minsk, in Belarus, before flying to Amsterdam just days after the referendum on Ukraine's …

Hispanics are flourishing in Trump's economy

The Hill:
President Trump's economy is the rising tide that is lifting all boats. This is especially true for Hispanics, who were among the biggest victims of the low-growth, high-regulation economy under President Obama.

Last week, the Census Bureau announced new household income numbers, which showed that median income for Hispanic households grew by 3.7 percent, adjusted for inflation, last year. That’s more than double the increase seen by all households. More Hispanics moved into the upper-income brackets, and fewer remained in the lower ones. That’s welcome news as the nation celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month.

Contrast this to the Obama economy. It took until 2015 for Hispanic household incomes to finally get back to their 2006 levels. For the population as a whole, household incomes remained flat between 2010 and 2014, as President Obama rolled out one job-killing policy after the next.

In addition to rising incomes, there are more job opportunities than ever today for Hispani…

The Democrats new McCarthyism--They find a racist behind every time their agenda runs into opposition

Washington Post:
Why do all these racists keep joining the GOP? I am an active conservative who has attended several large gatherings of conservative Republicans and to my knowledge, I have never run into a racist. People from all ethnic groups are welcomed. What I think is happening is that Democrats are fearful of losing their grip on the black vote and they try to frighten them away from the GOP even though the GOP policies are doing more to improve their lives than did Democrats under Obama.

Black and Hispanic unemployment are at all time lows and income growth of these groups has been significant since Trump was elected. That is what really scares Democrats. Lifting these people out of dependency has to be a scary thing for Democrats.

Media is missing the story of Democrat problems this election

Jack Hellner:
...
What we don't see in these predictions is actual support for Democrat policies. People are not clamoring for higher taxes, more regulations, and a more powerful government. The people generally support enforcing immigration laws and do not support sanctuary cities and states. I do not believe that most people actually believe that college will be free or that socialism is better than capitalism.

We were told that if Trump was elected, the economy would collapse, and yet the economy is growing much faster than anyone said was possible. We were told manufacturing jobs were gone for good, and yet there has been substantial growth. It is clear that the great results are because Trump lowered taxes and reduced regulations, yet we are told Republicans will be slaughtered because people don't like Trump. That seems illogical since people routinely vote their pocketbook.

We know the following:

Trump won around 85% of counties in 2016. Republicans held a 47-sea…

Media dishonesty about Kavanaugh nomination exposed

Becket Adams:
CNN, MSNBC, Politico, Elizabeth Warren push dishonestly edited video of Kavanaugh Dishonesty has become a way of life for some in their oppostion to a good man.

The anti-democratic left in California

Washington Free Beacon:
Farm Workers Voted 5-1 to Leave Union

Regulators withheld results of 2013 election until a federal court order The workers should be able to sue the union and the regulators for the return of any dues collected from them since the decertification vote. The union is still whining about why it lost the election.

The Democrat's totalitarian conduct in dealing with the Kavanaugh nomination

Sohrab Ahmari:
If Senate Democrats and their media allies manage to destroy Brett Kavanaugh, they will bring America one step closer to a new, liberal style of totalitarianism.

I don’t use the “T”-word lightly. I’ve spent years pushing back against those who fling it about in free societies like ours. But totalitarianism doesn’t require cartoonish, 1984-style secret police and Big Brother. The classical definition is a society where everything — ethical norms and moral principles and truth itself — is subjugated to political ends.

By that measure, the Democratic campaign to block Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, based on a hazy, uncorroborated, decades-old assault allegation, tends toward the totalitarian. Certainly, it has many of the elements of abusive politics that Americans normally associate with foreign lands untouched by the light of liberty and reason:

An (initially) anonymous accusation, surfaced at the 11th hour, seemingly calculated to strike terror into the he…

Comey pushed to include discredited Steel dossier in intelligence files

Rowan Scarborough:
The FBI pushed in 2016 to include the discredited dossier into the official intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in the election to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton, two former senior officials said.

The officials told The Washington Times that as the historic ICA, as it is known, was being drafted, the FBI wanted to fold in allegations and observations from dossier writer Christopher Steele.

One source said then-FBI Director James B. Comey directly advocated inclusion. A second source said FBI officials definitely wanted Mr. Steele’s charges on Kremlin behavior included but could not single out Mr. Comey as the main driver.

The sources said James R. Clapper, then director of national intelligence, and John O. Brennan, then director of the CIA, objected on grounds that the dossier remained largely unconfirmed information from a former British spy, not vetted U.S. intelligence.

“The IC assessment was corroborated intelligence that involv…

The media cohorts of the Democrats continue to throw away their ethics

Eddie Scarry:
You could ask why the media are helping Democrats in their attempt to wreck Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, but that’s like questioning a mother who stays home from work to care for her sick son.

That’s what family do for each other.

Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation that Kavanaugh, some 30 years ago when they were both teens, held her down and attempted to rape her at a high school party is the fishiest story since “The Little Mermaid.” Yet, the entire media are playing along, calling for an indefinite halt on Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote until we can get to the bottom of things — which would conveniently prove impossible.

The timeline suggests it's possible Ford’s claim was solely made for the purpose of getting Kavanaugh to withdraw his name.

First, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said last week that she knew of the allegation, but wouldn’t share Ford’s name.

Kavanaugh denied he had done anything wrong, so that didn’t work.

Next, the Washingt…

The Democrat's playbook and their media cohorts

Michael Walsh:
Who really can be surprised by the Democrats’ latest antics surrounding Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court? As the sands of the hourglass pour over what once seemed like their inevitable ideological triumph, and leftists across America and around the world realize that their Glorious Revolution will not be completed in their lifetimes, the agitators, true believers, and committed cultural Marxists have grown increasingly desperate as they try to stave off their imminent discomfiture and defeat.

Still, the tactics they’re now employing against Kavanaugh, while extreme, are nothing new for them. They’ve always shot from the hip and aimed for the heart, hoping to sway public opinion by means of passion rather than reason. The more convinced they are of the righteousness of their cause—call it their “higher loyalty” to the arc of history—the more antic they get, like chimps in the zoo at feeding time, moving from whingeing servility to outright viciousne…

Sec. Rick Perry pushing US energy deals to replace Russian supplies in Europe

Washington Examiner:
Energy Secretary Rick Perry worked this week to cement a new partnership with Central European countries to push more U.S. natural gas into the European Union, while countering Russian energy dominance there.

Perry announced, in a tweet Wednesday, the creation of the U.S.-led "Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation" at the Three Seas Initiative Summit in Bucharest, Romania.

The partnership will help enable the nations of Central Europe to "work together to meet collective challenges while charting their own energy futures," he said.

Perry closed the meeting with a speech that discussed "cutting dependence on Russia and the importance of diversifying energy sources," the Energy Department said in a readout from the summit. Perry also met with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to discuss energy security.

Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette also held talks earlier this week with State Secretary Walter Lindne…

Texas should profit from exports that replace Iranian oil

Fuel Fix:
Falling Iranian oil exports from U.S. sanctions open the door for U.S. oil and gas producers to fill a void in Asia for a niche oil market.

Texas shale is beginning to produce more ultra-light condensate oil and there's growing demand in Asia, said Sandy Fielden, director of oil and products research at Morningstar, in a new report this week. Iran has served as a major source for condensate in Asia.

Condensate is an ultra-light oil used for crude blending, petrochemical feedstock and more. About half of all U.S. condensate production comes from Texas, especially South Texas' Eagle Ford shale and West Texas' booming Permian Basin.

"Regardless of how much Iranian condensate remains available for export, the current tight conditions represent an opportunity for U.S. producers to gain valuable market share," Fielden argued.
... There are other competitors who also want to fill the void. What seems clear is that Iranian oil is not needed in the marketplace.

Democrats push to stop strict enforcement of immigration laws leads to new influx

Daily Mail:
Border Patrol break record for their single biggest apprehension after finding 170 illegal immigrants who were abandoned by smugglers and trying to sneak into Texas
Agents surveying the Mexico-United States border point near McAllen, Texas were totally outnumbered when the encountered 170 undocumented immigrants early Tuesday morning These people did not get their money's worth when they paid the Coyotes to bring them into the US. There has been a huge new influx since Democrat caterwauling led to the termination of a strict enforcement policy. The people coming in now are creating another costly problem for the US to have to deal with.

The media is responsible for its own loss of credibility

Julie Kelly:
...
Some of the lowlights featured MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough, claiming Trump has done more damage to the country than the 9/11 terrorists; the editorial board of a major newspaper blaming Trump for Hurricane Florence; the wholesale acceptance of a highly flawed paper about hurricane deaths used to bash the president; and a despicable crusade not just to quash Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, but to destroy his reputation and damage his young family.

And it wasn’t just the dependable lunatics on the Left pushing trash commentary. Bret Stephens, the NeverTrump “conservative” columnist for the New York Times, compared Trump to a drug addict. Washington Post “conservative” blogger Jennifer Rubin warned that if Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted to confirm Kavanaugh, their names would be, “as was the case with [Nazi-era traitor] Vidkun Quisling—synonymous with ‘sellouts,’ ‘collaborators,’ or, to use a Trumpism, ‘pho…

Democrats have lost all sense of decency

John Kass:
Watching the slow, public evisceration of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh by Senate Democrats —on the strength of one unsubstantiated charge of alleged sexual aggression 36 years ago when Kavanaugh was in high school — a question comes to mind:

Have you no sense of decency, Sen. Feinstein?

Decency was once an important feature of the Democratic Party’s story. Long before Bork became a verb, long before Clarence Thomas was dragged through the mud because a conservative black man proved a profound threat to Democrats, the party held fast to the notion of decency.

A lack of decency was something to be feared, something to be avoided for the health of the country.

You’d hear about it in tales told by history teachers to frighten children, about Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy and his wild, unsubstantiated charges without evidence, of communists hiding under America’s beds.

Such charges ruined reputations and careers, and took advantage of public opinion that had been wh…

The Deep State exposed

Project Veritas:
Project Veritas has released the second installment in an undercover video series unmasking the deep state. The first report in this series featured Stuart Karaffa, who admitted to engaging in political activism on behalf of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) while working at the Department of State. The Department of State issued a response to the video stating that they are investigating the matter.

Today’s video features Department of Justice paralegal Allison Hrabar reportedly using government-owned software and computers to push a socialist agenda. Also featured is Jessica Schubel, the former Chief of Staff for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the last Obama administration.

Both Schubel and Hrabar make admissions revealing that federal employees appear to be using their positions inside our government to resist or slow the Trump administration’s policies. It appears some laws have been broken in the process.

As a member of the Democra…

Republican wins Texas State Senate race in district that was won by Democrats for the last 139 years

San Antonio Express-News:
Voters elected political newcomer Pete Flores to the Texas Senate on Tuesday, flipping a Democratic district red for the first time in 139 years and bolstering Republicans’ supermajority in the chamber ahead of the November elections.

A retired game warden, Flores defeated former state and U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego for the Senate District 19 seat after receiving backing from some of the state’s most prominent politicians, including Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and U.S. Sens John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

“We conservatives are conservative in the way we make approaches. The gunfight’s not over until the last shot’s fired,” Flores told the Express-News after Gallego conceded in a phone call just before 9 p.m. “The last shot’s been fired.”

According the Secretary of State’s website, Flores won with 53 percent of the vote to Gallego’s 47 percent with 44,487 ballots cast.
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Flores’ win marked an incredible upset in a district that political observers said sho…

The opposition to disclosure in the DOJ and FBI