PrairiePundit

Matthew Continetti: The litany has been repeated so often that it's easy to recite: The walls are closing in on Donald Trump, person x or y or z is going to bring him down, it's only a matter of time before he is caught or exposed or loses his base of support and driven from public life. The phrases sound out from our cable channels. We see them in newspaper headlines and in our Twitter timelines. This time Trump has gone too far. The end is near. Take that, Drumpf! What is forgotten is that the president has operated in this atmosphere of emergency and crisis and imminent doom since he announced his campaign. No matter how dire the outcry, he moves on. His political standing remains stable. At the end of last week, after Manafort and Cohen, after Trump found himself on the receiving end of the reality politics playbook, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal polled his job approval. There was no appreciable change. Why? The most important reason has to be the remarkable st...

Joe Concha: Where Was the Media's Praise for McCain in 2008? The media only praises GOP candidates for President after they are dead or to make unflattering comparisons to current GOP candidates for President.  They were buddies with McCain right up until he got the nomination and then set out to destroy him.

Washington Times: A federal judge ruled Friday that the DACA deportation amnesty was probably illegal when President Obama created it in 2012 — but he refused to halt the program altogether, leaving it to other courts to sort out a major legal mess. Judge Andrew S. Hanen’s ruling clashes with those of several other federal courts which said President Trump’s attempt last year to phase out the DACA program was also illegal. Taken on face, the rulings mean that the program is illegal — but so is the effort to erase it from the books. The issues are likely to speed through the circuit courts and quickly reach the Supreme Court, perhaps during its upcoming session. But for now it leaves the program mostly intact, with current DACA recipients able to renew their work permits and two-year stays of deportation, though no new illegal immigrants are able to apply. Judge Hanen said Mr. Obama exceeded his powers when he created the program, granting a broad amnesty from deportation to...

Jeff Dunitz: Mainstream Media Has To Stop Monkeying Around With Bigotry The high dudgeon attacks on a Republican for using the same phrase used by Democrats demonstrates how misleading the media is prepared to be in support of their attempt to label Republicans racists.

Washington Examiner: Reports say Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is crafting new Title IX guidelines with regard to sexual assault on college campuses. The new, as-yet-unofficial guidelines allow schools to introduce elements of traditional due process, such as cross-examination, into the quasi-courtroom proceedings many universities use for sexual assault accusations, and draw stricter boundaries around harassment claims. Feminists have been quick to paint the Trump administration as callous toward rape victims, claiming the changes would “tip the playing field towards those accused.” In reality, due process guarantees have been gutted across the country in an attempt to adjudicate ambiguous cases, in which both the alleged perpetrator and victim are often intoxicated. Examples of serious miscarriage of justice abound across the country. A James Madison University student was accused of sexual assault in 2014. After initially clearing him, the university “tried” him a secon...

Thomas Lifson: ... Propagandists and their cousins in the advertising business know that frequent "impressions" linking an idea or feeling attached to something else (a person, a product, a policy) cause the audience to automatically, unconsciously associate the two in members' own minds. That is the reason Coca-Cola has spent many billions of dollars on advertising that shows healthy, slim people alongside the Coca-Cola name or a container of the beverage. It is one of the oldest and most disreputable tricks in the propaganda business to apply this technique to politicians. Find something that sounds or looks bad that has been that way for a long time, and suggest to the audience that it is something new that the current incumbent implemented. Thanks to eagle-eyed Mike Brest, writing in the Daily Caller , we have a classic example of this technique in the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post : The Washington Post published an article about the U.S. government cho...

Daily Wire: Speaking at a townhall in Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was detailing the differences between himself and his challenger, Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, when he began, “On the Second Amendment—” prompting a gun rights supporter to interrupt, “Come and take it!” That triggered an apparent O’Rourke supporter, who had been heckling Cruz, to yell out, “Oh, we will!” Cruz then catalyzed an eruption and standing ovation from the crowd that lasted nearly 30 seconds, answering, “The best exchange of the entire election: on the Second Amendment, 'Come and take it,' and the Beto O’Rourke supporter screams, ‘Oh, we will.’ … The question is, is Texas gonna stand up and defend our freedom?” ... O'Rourke has an "F" rating with the NRA.  His supporter was reflecting O'Rourke's position on the gun rights.

Lee Smith: ... On declassification, the president is not the impulsive hothead portrayed by major media, epitomized by his "witch hunt" bluster on Twitter. Rather, he’s characterized by the sources as a deliberative, strategic executive inclined to keep his powder dry now for possible detonation later. (Because his supporters – some of whom have seen the documents – are pushing for declassification and his opponents are not, the assumption is that the documents would help the president.) Trump told Fox News last week that while he didn’t want to interfere with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, he may have no choice but to declassify. “At the right time, I think I'm going to have to do the documents," the president said. House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, for one, would be pleased with that step. Nunes told Fox recently that false “media narratives” are burying the real story of anti-Trump machinations within the government. “That's...

Michele Maulkin: In the competition of ideas, you can't win the game if you're not on the playing field. That's why Silicon Valley bigwigs' stubborn refusal to put business above their own personal partisan biases doesn't just rankle. It reeks. Equal access to social media is not just about sharing food pics, pet videos, makeup tutorials and travelogues. It's about ensuring the ability to disseminate and distribute political speech on the world's biggest platforms. Although I started in the metro newspaper industry in 1992, my years as an independent conservative blogger and internet entrepreneur have been the most journalistically enriching. I launched my first website in 1999, my namesake blog in 2004, my first group blog and video content platform HotAir.com and my YouTube channel in 2006 (where I broadcast reports from Iraq), my Twitter account in 2008, my second group website Twitchy.com in 2012, and my documentary-style web series, "Michelle...

L. Todd Wood: ... But the racial divisions, as painful and heartbreaking as they are, were not the worst of it. The abuse of power started to become clear when it was revealed the Internal Revenue Service was biased against conservatives. I still don’t understand why that woman is not in jail. She sat there and lied to the American people and to Congress with no accountability. Mr. Obama used the agencies, and the awesome power of the federal government, against his political enemies. He used the power of the state against those he didn’t like. This was full-on banana republic dictator kind of stuff. The negligence at Veterans’ Affairs, the “stimulus bill” that was simply a redistribution to unions (those “shovel ready projects” weren’t so shovel ready after all), the sale of uranium to the Russians, the lies about Benghazi, the Clinton email scandal that was not prosecuted, the appeasement of the Iranians — even sending billions in cash in the middle of the night and bragging...

Fuel Fix: Upwards of $1.4 billion in completions of oil and gas wells in West Texas' Permian Basin could be delayed or reallocated to other shale plays through 2019 due to pipeline constraints, a new report says. The completion reduction is linked to the tightening of outbound pipeline capacity in the Permian Basin, which has been filling up throughout 2018 as production in the booming oil field continues to grow. The report was compiled by Westwood Global Energy Group, a London-based global energy consultancy firm, using data from Energent Group. The Westwood report said that from the third quarter of 2018, which began July 1, through the end of 2019, 345 wells will not be completed. Also known as drilled but uncompleted or DUC wells, oil and gas companies have drilled the wells but have not hydraulically fractured, or fracked, them to begin producing oil and gas. The Department of Energy estimated that in July 2018 there were 3,470 such DUC wells in the Permian Basin,...

John Solomon: If one reads special counsel Robert Mueller ’s court filings against George Papadopoulos , it’s hard not to conclude that the former Trump campaign aide lied to FBI agents to hide some sinister plot with Russia. Now, let me be clear: I don’t condone lying to anyone, especially the FBI. But there is a much different version of events than the one spun by prosecutors in court filings, Democrats in Congress, or most reporters. An account kept from the public for more than 18 months. It comes from one of the FBI’s primary sources in the Papadopoulos case, European professor Joseph Mifsud . Documents I obtained from sources show Mifsud told the FBI in February 2017 that his contacts with Papadopoulos a year earlier, during the 2016 presidential campaign, were mostly innocuous. He made that point both in an FBI interview and a follow-up email to agents. He described the contacts as an academic exercise in pursuit of peace, not a global plot to hijack the election. And he wen...

Louie Gohmert: ... “It’s not surprising that the FBI ‘has not found any evidence’ regarding Clinton’s servers being breached. Like I stated to Former FBI Agent Peter Strzok in the House Judiciary Hearing, it was the Obama-appointed Intelligence Community Inspector General that discovered the breach. It was not the FBI that found it, so their statement was technically correct, but very deceptive in its omission. When I asked Peter Strzok about this, he said that he remembered being briefed by the ICIG investigator but did not remember what it was about. That is not credible. We know that the FBI’s head of counter-intelligence, Mr. Strzok, was doing all he could to help protect Hillary Clinton. So, when the Intel IG investigator came to report to Mr. Strzok that a specific foreign intelligence entity (which was not Russian) was receiving virtually all the emails from Secretary of State Clinton’s private server in real time, it is not remotely believable that he would not remember th...

Roll Call: Two Years Later, the Elites Are Still Disconnected From Voters For many Americans, it feels like the 2016 election never ended What I find remarkable is that most of the elites do not even comprehend why their positions are being rejected.  They act as if they demonize the President and the people who support him those people will come to agree with them, but the polling shows the opposite is happening.  They need to read more Salena Zito reporting because the mainstream media is out of touch with those voters.

Matt Vespa: ... ... In the UK, the whole system is in shambles , with patient stacking occurring on a daily basis. The New York Times had a piece on it in January: At some emergency wards, patients wait more than 12 hours before they are tended to. Corridors are jammed with beds carrying frail and elderly patients waiting to be admitted to hospital wards. Outpatient appointments were canceled to free up staff members, and by Wednesday morning hospitals had been ordered to postpone nonurgent surgeries until the end of the month. Cuts to the National Health Service budget in Britain have left hospitals stretched over the winter for years, but this time a flu outbreak, colder weather and high levels of respiratory illnesses have put the N.H.S. under the highest strain in decades. The situation has become so dire that the head of the health service is warning that the system is overwhelmed. Some doctors took to Twitter to vent their frustrations publicly. One complained of hav...

Washington Free Beacon: Blue-Collar Workers Increasingly Optimistic Under Trump New poll: 85 percent of blue-collar workers say their lives are heading 'in the right direction' Nearly two years into the Trump presidency, blue-collar workers are increasingly optimistic about their social and economic circumstances. A new survey, conducted by the Harris Poll, found that 85 percent of blue-collar workers said their lives are advancing in "the right direction." The survey, commissioned by Express Employment Professionals, took place between July 9 and July 23. Data were collected from 1,049 blue-collar workers from across the nation who are employed in professions requiring manual labor. Across the board, the results indicate America's blue-collar workforce is sanguine about the nation's current economic outlook and their own standing. Apart from the 85 percent of blue-collar Americans who said their lives are going in the right direction, 69 percent sai...

Federalist: If You Want To Know Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Media, Watch CNN Trump’s hyperbole has currency because the media often live up to conservatives' worst expectations. Watching CNN these days is like watching hate TV.  So many of their on-air "talent" hate the President and they don't bother to try to hide it that it becomes unwatchable.  I get the impression that CNN and the Washington Posts are full of people who when they are not working on reporting sit around and bitch about Trump and work up their hate for him.  They have lost all objectivity.  The case in point with CNN is their sticking by a story even after their primary source said he was wrong. Jack Hellner also critiques the masters of disaster media : Even before Donald Trump won the election, the media were attacking his economic policies and saying he isn't qualified to be president. As the good news on the economy pours in and he is winning on trade deals and other thin...

This scene from The Wind and the Lion  shows an operation ordered by President Teddy Roosevelt in response to the kidnapping of an American by a North African potentate.  A friend posted the link on facebook and I could not get enough of it.  It is a US Marine Corps to the core operation in the late nineteenth century.

Telegraph: A night out in a Caracas restaurant to celebrate a friend’s birthday was going well - until the time came to pay. We had enough money in our accounts to foot the bill, the equivalent of roughly £30, but no way to transfer the cash. Successive attempts to use our debit cards were met with a machine error. Thirty minutes later, we tried again. No luck. Our plans for a night out had been hijacked by Venezuela’s rampant hyperinflation and resulting collapse of the banking system. In a country where £30 amounted to about 56 million bolivars at the time, there was no chance of the banks handling our transaction. We should have known. ... It is a complete mystery why there are still socialists in this world.  One has to be ignorant of history and economics to support such a flawed system.

PJ Media: New Poll Shows Majority of Americans Don't Want Impeachment for Trump The Democrats have no real basis for impeachment, but they have been desperate to find one since Trump's election.  With the Russian collusion charge being a complete dud they have been looking for other excuses including campaign finance charges that are dubious.

Washington Examiner: A Democratic senator claimed Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller could mount a "credible case" against President Trump for obstruction of justice after the president confirmed White House counsel Don McGahn would be leaving the administration in the fall. "Nobody knows all of what he knows. But he's been at the president's right arm as the president has committed some acts that very plausibly amount to obstruction of justice," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said of McGahn during an interview with MSNBC. McGahn has been "in a sense" a witness as Trump potentially tried to thwart damaging federal investigations into administration officials by dismissing former FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, Blumenthal said. "There's a credible case of obstruction of justice right now against the president of the United States, and Don McGahn has been at his side, at his right arm, through all that," he a...

Fuel Fix: A crude oil transport company has signed an agreement to start rail shipments out of its West Texas facility. Vista Proppants and Logistics of Fort Wort signed the deal with JupiterMLP to ship crude oil by train from Vista's Pecos loading facility. The two companies plan to ship oil by rail through 2019 and possibly into 2020, depending upon the timing of pipeline construction. Vista said it plans to ship 400,000 barrels a month, roughly 13,000 barrels a day, from its Pecos facility. Pipeline constraints have hampered the booming Permian Basin, and oil executives and other experts have predicted that capacity will run short for some time. ... It will give some relief to producers trying to get their oil to market. It will not fill all the excess demand for transport, but it helps.

American Conservative: There’s an underlying reality lurking in the remarkable poll numbers released Monday by The Wall Street Journal and NBC News. They showed that Donald Trump’s approval rating declined by only two percentage points. That despite the fact that the president suffered what was by any measure a devastating week, with a former campaign chairman convicted on fraud charges and a former lawyer copping a plea on campaign finance violations and implicating Trump in the mess. Trump’s frenzied political enemies promptly smelled blood in the water and circled the vessel like hungry sharks. Surely, they concluded, this bolt of bad news would undermine Trump’s political standing and begin an erosion that would lead to his eventual demise, either at the next presidential election or, they could only hope, sooner. But the WSJ-NBC poll showed that 44 percent of voters approved of Trump’s presidential performance, as compared to a 46 percent approval rating just before last we...

NY Times: DeSantis Warns Florida Not to ‘Monkey This Up,’ and Many Hear a Racist Dog Whistle The Republican nominee for governor in Florida drew condemnation from Democrats for a comment about his opponent, Andrew Gillum. The left never tires of trying to twist opponents words into a racists meme.   They have made a game of it with Trump so this is nothing new.   Trump is not a racist and neither is DeSantis.  This appears to be all the Democrats have these days since they were wrong on most of the issues when Trump ran and were wrong on their predictions of doom and gloom when his policies were put in place.  All they have left is to play a tattered race card.

Business Insider: A senior official with the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara was killed in a strike on a terrorist camp in Mali involving French warplanes and commandos, the French defense ministry confirmed Monday. The lifeless body of Mohamed Ag Almouner, a senior leader for the ISIS affiliate that claimed responsibility for a deadly ambush that left four American Green Berets dead in Niger last year, was found on the battlefield by a French-led unit after an airstrike by two Mirage fighter jets Sunday, according to a report from Stars and Stripes, which cited a statement from the French military. An unidentified member of the group was also killed. In October 2017, armed Islamic State in the Greater Sahara militants ambushed US and Nigerien troops. Five Nigeriens and four Americans were killed while another ten people were wounded. During the firefight that ensued, US and Nigerien forces managed to kill nearly two dozen terrorists. The four American special operations ...

PJ Media: A new poll shows that a majority of Americans support the president's right to revoke security clearances of former government officials. According to the Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll online survey, "59 percent of registered voters felt Brennan should have lost his security clearance, while 64 percent said Comey and others at the FBI who were fired or demoted over their actions should lose their clearance." This comes after a media firestorm over Trump's decision to revoke ex-CIA Director John Brennan's security clearance culminated with a letter of condemnation from 175 former intelligence officials. It also comes after CNN's excitable intelligence analyst Phil Mudd had an embarrassing on-air meltdown when a guest stated that former government officials frequently leverage their security clearances for high-paying consulting or media gigs. Sixty percent of registered voters agree with CNN's now suspended guest Paris Dennard that "former na...

Red States: Beto O’Rourke Demanded Debates With Ted Cruz; Welches Out Of The First One Cruz is a strong debater.  I think Beto probably does better when he is not challenged on the issues.

Washington Examiner: California's state assembly passed a bill Tuesday that would require the state to generate all of its energy from renewables by 2045. Despite an intense lobbying campaign by utilities and the fossil fuel industry, the bill passed the assembly 43-32. The bill must now go back to the state Senate, but it is expected to go to the desk of Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown by the end of the week. ... This puts the state at risk of blackouts and also ties them to the least efficient energy source available.  Renewables have a history of being least dependable in extreme weather situations when they are needed most.  It will also make the state less competitive for business because of the higher rates.

Washington Examiner: Martha McSally pulls away to take home Arizona GOP Senate nod She defeated Kelli Ward and Joe Arpaio who split the more conservative vote.  The former combat pilot is currently a GOP House member.  I think she will be the favorite to defeat the Democratic nominee Kyrsten Sinema.

Erick Erickson: Google has some real biases against conservatives. You can see it in the picture I've made above of a search for pictures of the word "idiot". There is a pretty clear pattern. Google mostly shows pictures of President Trump when the word "idiot" is searched. Bing does not. ... This is just one example of Google bias that is blatant. Then there is " Facebook jail ." That the meme “Facebook Jail” has become so popular, especially among conservatives, who make up at least 90% of its inmate population, is a sad commentary on the times we live in. Many who rely on this social media leviathan for exposure and, concomitantly, a living are finding themselves blocked, banned, or censored. Some users have even had their accounts disabled for no good reason and without explanation or appeal. Now a new site has emerged that seeks to swap the roles of the jailer and jailed. Its name,   Facecrook Jail , is a riff on the meme, and it no...

Red States: The attempt to turn the Stormy Daniels unpleasantness into a campaign finance violation — a weak attempt as it tuns out — is starting to come into focus as a new Federal Elections Commission (FEC) complaint filed by The Committee to Defend the President alleges the Hillary Victory Fund (HVF) was “us[ing] state chapters as straw men to circumvent campaign donation limits and launder(ing) the money back to her campaign.” Dan Backer, the campaign finance attorney who filed the complaint, writes in Investors Business Daily that the scheme puts the conviction of filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, who was prosecuted “for giving a handful of associates money they then contributed to a candidate of his preference” to shame. HVF solicited six-figure donations from major donors , including Calvin Klein and “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane, and routed them through state parties en route to the Clinton campaign. Roughly $84 million may have been laundered in what might be the single la...

Gregg Jarrett: ... By commandeering control of the investigation, Comey and his confederates could twist the facts and contort the law to dictate the outcome they desired. Clinton was the beneficiary of what FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reportedly described as the “HQ special.” The same is true of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. The very people who cleared Clinton of crimes – despite strong evidence that she broke the law – also assumed unfettered authority over the so-called “collusion” investigation to determine if Donald Trump’s presidential campaign worked with Russia to help Trump become president. Bereft of probable cause and credible evidence, they nevertheless pursued Trump in a probe designed to damage his candidacy – and later to destroy his presidency in an effort to overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election. It was not just Comey and his abettors at the FBI who conjured this illicit scheme. There were others outside the wall...

Washington Free Beacon: One-in-three public sector workers would leaver their unions given the chance, according to a new poll. Government union members won the right to cease automatic fee payments to unions in June after the Supreme Court found that mandatory dues as a condition of employment violated the U.S. Constitution. A poll found that a large portion of workers plan on taking that option now that it is available to them following the Supreme Court's 5-4 Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees ruling overturning coercive unionism. "One-third plan to change what they are paying, with 6% saying they have already stopped paying dues and 25% saying they plan to stop paying," the poll found. ... I expect that number could grow.  I think the impact when Wisconsin ended compulsory union dues was even more significant.

Washington Times: Justice Department official Bruce Ohr told House lawmakers on Tuesday that the FBI doubted the credibility of a salacious anti-Trump dossier used to obtain a surveillance warrant for a member of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign team, according to a key Republican. “Not only did the FBI know the dossier was unverified, but they also knew there were real credibility issues where it would never end up in a courtroom,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, North Carolina Republican. The disclosure is the latest twist in the complicated saga of Mr. Ohr, a career Justice Department official with close ties to those responsible for creating and disseminating the dossier full of unproven allegations about President Trump’s ties to Russia. ... “Until today, we were not certain that the FBI knew all of the things at the time that they were making initial FISA application and subsequent renewals,” Mr. Gaetz said. “What we’ve learned today is that the FBI was absolutely in possessi...

Sara Carter: Whistleblower Exposes Key Player in FBI Russia Probe: “It was all a Set-up” Former DOD employee uncovered a long history of questionable behavior by FBI informant Key player in Russia probe appears to have significant ties to Russian government ... An investigation by SaraACarter.com reveals that the documents and information Lovinger stumbled on and other documents obtained by this news site, raise troubling questions about Halper, who was believed to have worked with the CIA and part of the matrix of players in the bureau’s ‘CrossFire Hurricane’ investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Halper, who assisted the FBI in the Russia investigation, appears to also have significant ties to the Russian government, as well as sources connected directly to President Vladimir Putin. Halper did not respond to requests for comment. ... Bigley (Lovinger's lawyer) suspects it was more than the Clinton-connected contracts adding, “Mr. Lovinger unwitting...

Victor Davis Hanson: ... Had Trump misled his base and not fulfilled his campaign promises, he would have little popular support. Had he tanked the economy and started a war, he would be polling in the 20s rather than the mid to lower 40s. Trump also polls about 85 percent among Republicans. He is even more popular among blue-collar “Trump voters,” largely because of efforts to equalize trade, restore U.S. deterrence, end illegal immigration, and jump-start the economy, as evidenced by a record-high stock market, near-record peacetime unemployment, and likely annualized GDP growth of 3 percent or more. Minority joblessness is also at a near-record low. The startling fact is that a so-called buffoonish real-estate developer hit upon a calculus to restore robust economic growth in a way that all the degreed experts of the prior administration had not. His judicial picks belie predictions that Trump would not keep his vows to appoint strict constructionists. There have been no Davi...

Bjorn Lomborg: When a “solution” to a problem causes more damage than the problem, policymaking has gone awry. That’s where we often find ourselves with global warming today. Activist organizations like Worldwatch argue that higher temperatures will make more people hungry, so drastic carbon cuts are needed. But a comprehensive new study published in Nature Climate Change led by researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis has found that strong global climate action would cause far more hunger and food insecurity than climate change itself. The scientists used eight global-agricultural models to analyze various scenarios between now and 2050. These models suggest, on average, that climate change could put an extra 24 million people at risk of hunger. But a global carbon tax would increase food prices and push 78 million more people into risk of hunger. The areas expected to be most vulnerable are sub-Saharan Africa and India. Trying to help 24 million pe...

Daily Caller: A Chinese-owned company operating in the Washington, D.C., area hacked Hillary Clinton’s private server throughout her term as secretary of state and obtained nearly all her emails, two sources briefed on the matter told The Daily Caller News Foundation. The Chinese firm obtained Clinton’s emails in real time as she sent and received communications and documents through her personal server, according to the sources, who said the hacking was conducted as part of an intelligence operation. The Chinese wrote code that was embedded in the server, which was kept in Clinton’s residence in upstate New York. The code generated an instant “courtesy copy” for nearly all of her emails and forwarded them to the Chinese company, according to the sources. The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) found that virtually all of Clinton’s emails were sent to a “foreign entity,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, said at a July 12 House Committee on the Judiciary heari...

Fox News: A top FBI special agent admitted to House committees last week that bureau officials were known to leak information to the press and then use the resulting articles to help obtain surveillance warrants. Special Agent Jonathan Moffa, who worked with controversial former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, testified last Friday behind closed doors before the House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight Committee. A source with knowledge of his testimony confirmed to Fox News that Moffa said FBI personnel would use media reports based on information they leaked to justify applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants. The source told Fox News that Moffa acknowledged this “had been a practice in the past.” ... This is another example of how the FBI abused the process for getting FI warrants and took advantage of the fact that no one was there to represent the target of those warrants.

Washington Post Op-ed: Elizabeth Warren has bold ideas about how to drain the swamp Warren is one of those intellectual lightweights liberals are drawn to in recent years.   Her suggestions for dealing with the economy are already proven failures every time they have been tried.

Washington Post: Trump administration ‘taking a look’ at whether Google searches should be regulated, Kudlow says The remark by President Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow puts the search giant squarely in the White House’s crosshairs amid wider allegations against the tech industry that it systematically discriminates against conservatives on social media and other platforms. Almost overnight after the 2016 election, Google began downgrading searches for conservative sites.  It started demonetizing YouTube sites of conservatives.  Its searches for information about President Trump provide mostly liberal criticism or worse.  It has become a hostile atmosphere for non-liberals.  Facebook and Twitter have also become hostile platforms for conservatives.  Congress should look at these abuses and reconsider laws that benefit these companies.

Craig Engle: Michael Cohen Didn’t Actually Violate Federal Campaign Laws. Here’s Why. ... Putting aside that no campaign money actually changed hands here (and it is hard to put that aside), it is not a violation of campaign finance law to cause someone else’s corporation to spend money. The corporate contribution statute Cohen allegedly violated states that it is unlawful for (1) any corporation to make a contribution in connection with a federal election, or (2) for a person to knowingly accept such a contribution, or (3) for an officer of the corporation to consent to making a corporate contribution. It says nothing about causing someone to make a contribution. In other words, the statute polices corporations, people who accept corporate contributions, and corporate officers. Cohen is none of those three. If anyone violated the law here it would be the National Enquirer and its chairman, David Pecker. They are the ones who actually wrote the check. But did the National En...

Washington Free Beacon: Iranian leaders and their European counterparts are scrambling to save the landmark nuclear deal as the Islamic Republic's ruling regime teeters on the brink of collapse amid a severe financial crunch that has sparked popular protests across the country, according to multiple U.S. officials who told the Washington Free Beacon Europe is "poisoning" its relations with the Trump administration. The European Union gifted Iran over the weekend a $21 million financial package aimed at keeping the hardline ruling regime afloat ahead of the reimposition of harsh U.S. sanctions that will choke off Tehran's access to international financial markets. U.S. officials described the aid package as foolish, saying it will fuel Iran's assassination attempts in European countries and its global terrorism operations. Top Iranian leaders held a series of phone calls with their European counterparts over the weekend to plot avenues for skirting the new U....

Washington Times: NBC’s Chuck Todd told his Sunday audience that deceased Fox News Channel chief executive Roger Ailes is to blame for the media’s sullied image across the country. The host of “Meet the Press” told his panel of guests over the weekend that culpability for America’s distrust of the media rests squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Ailes, who died in May 2017 at 77. “One of the best things going in Donald Trump’s favor — we know this — is the mainstream media,” said CBN News’ David Brody. “I hate to say it — I know I’m sitting on a ‘Meet the Press’ roundtable, but the truth of the matter is 62 percent think the media is biased. So in other words, if you look at the approval ratings of Donald Trump versus the approval rating of the media.” “The conservative echo chamber created that environment,” Mr. Todd replied, Mediaite reported. “No. No. No. It has been a tactic and a tool of the Roger Ailes-created echo chamber. So let’s not pretend it’s not anything other than th...

Washington Examiner: Lanny Davis admits to being anonymous source in CNN's Trump Tower bombshell that is now under fire CNN has not walked back what looks like an obviously false story.  It is almost like it has become determined to live down to Trump's label of it as "Fake News."  It is beyond strange that they have not explained themselves. John Nolte has more on the CNN screwup and failure to deal with it.

Washington Examiner: Justice Department official Bruce Ohr will testify behind closed doors in the House on Tuesday, and give Republicans a chance to examine how President Barack Obama's administration ultimately decided to investigate President Trump's campaign. Ohr, who at one point was the associate deputy attorney general in the Justice Department, has become the latest target of Republicans because of his connections to Christopher Steele. Republicans are convinced that Ohr was too close to Steele and used Steele's questionable analysis to launch an investigation into Trump. Steele, a former British counterintelligence agent, was commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS to prepare the Trump-Russia dossier. Fusion GPS hired Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, to help with research into Trump. ... The Nunes memo alleged that the "clear evidence of Steele's bias was recorded by Ohr at the time and subsequently in official FBI files," but was never ref...

Peter Heck: ... ...it is simply shocking to me that no one in the Democrat Party hierarchy – nationally or in Texas – has thought to put an end to the championing of O’Rourke by people who are, shall we say, not exactly cut from Texas cloth. Start with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong who decided to weigh-in by quote-tweeting O’Rourke’s now viral remarks about how protesting the national anthem is the most “American” thing he can think of. Armstrong commented: “Dear my fellow Texans, we have a choice. This guy or Ted Cruz. It’s time for reasonable and balanced talk on ALL issues – here’s one snippet. WE are for Beto O’Rourke.” First of all, Cruz’s willingness to debate and discuss issues is among the most reasonable in the Senate. I dare say you won’t find another Senator in Washington more willing to debate and discuss issues with the opposition than Cruz. What Armstrong really means isn’t “It’s time for reasonable and balanced talk” on the issues, he means it’s time for “lib...

Fuel Fix: The 25-year partnership between Royal Dutch Shell and Mexico's state oil company in Deer Park is now extended at least until 2033, ensuring for Shell guaranteed supplies of heavy crude and for Pemex a strong refining presence along the Texas Gulf Coast. Shell's nearly 90-year-old Deer Park refinery became a joint venture in 1993 when Petróleos Mexicanos, called Pemex, bought a 50-percent stake. The two companies expanded it from a facility that churned through 225,000 barrels of crude a day to 340,000 barrels today. About half of the oil processed is heavy Maya crude from Mexico, but, after 2023, the volumes will fall from about 170,000 barrels a day down to 70,000 barrels. That change will give Shell more flexibility, while still safeguarding for Pemex a steady flow of oil exports and quality gasoline production, said Sandy Fielden, director of oil and products research at Morningstar. "By extending the agreement, Pemex ensures sales of its flagship Maya...

Washington Post: Top student loan watchdog resigns, claiming the Trump administration is siding with predatory lenders Seth Frotman, who works for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, wrote in a scathing letter that he would leave his position as student loan ombudsman at the end of the week. This misses the source of the problem.  There would be no need for these lenders were it not for the excessive fees of colleges and universities whose administrators are living like the one percent on the backs of unsophisticated student borrowers.  Why in the world should Elizabeth Warren make more than many CEO's and executives who actually produce things for Americans while she teaches one class at Harvard?  Why should administrators be making over a million dollars a year?  The lenders are just feeding on the greed of the universities and colleges.  If they use abusive practices they should be dealt with but do not ignore the real source of the problem....

Julie Kelly: ... Now, think about this: Based on estimates from survey numbers rather than raw data from legitimate sources, the American news media is trying to convince us that native and naturalized citizens are more dangerous than illegals. An analysis by the Heritage Foundation last year debunked Cato’s flawed work and suggested that “it has not been proven that illegal aliens commit crimes at a lesser rate than either native-born or naturalized American citizens. In fact, existing data may support the opposite conclusion.” Heritage links to a 2011 GAO report that provides much more specific data about the criminal behavior of illegal immigrants. According to the GAO, criminal aliens (the government’s term) represent one-fourth of the total population of inmates incarcerated in federal prison. If estimates that there are about 11 million illegals in this country are correct, that’s only three percent of the total U.S. population. Further, about one-third of inmates in state a...