PrairiePundit

Guardian: Isis wife reveals role in helping CIA hunt for Baghdadi Umm Sayyaf, sentenced to death in Iraq, tells how she exposed fugitive’s secrets ... In February 2016 she identified a house in Mosul in which Baghdadi was believed to have been staying. However, according to Kurdish officials, US commanders balked at calling for an airstrike on the home, only to later acknowledge the world’s most wanted man had probably been inside – his life spared by hectic activity in the skies over Iraq that night and a fear of civilian casualties in the densely packed neighbourhood. “I told them where the house was,” said Umm Sayyaf. “I knew he’d been there because it was one of the houses that was provided for him, and one of the places he liked the most.” Her marriage, and jihadist pedigree – her family had been an integral part of the Isis leadership – had given her more proximity to Baghdadi than nearly all other Isis women. As one of the organisation’s most important wives, she had ...

National Review: Attorney General William Barr said Friday that the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign “crossed” a “serious red line” and should be “carefully looked at.” “The use of foreign intelligence capabilities and counterintelligence capabilities against an American political campaign to me is unprecedented and it’s a serious red line that’s been crossed,” Barr said in an interview with CBS. ... “There were counterintelligence activities undertaken against the Trump campaign, And I’m not saying there was not a basis for it, that it was legitimate, but I want to see what that basis was and make sure it was legitimate,” he added. ... Barr has also said that what he has been told does not hang together.  He is not satisfied with the answers he has been given to date.

Washington Post: Top Democrats tell intelligence chiefs they must help monitor Barr’s review of Russia probe The House Intelligence Committee chairman sent letters to the heads of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, demanding in-person briefings to discuss what materials the attorney general has sought thus far. That is like putting the perps in charge of the investigation.  Why would you let Brennan and Clapper investigate themselves?  Both are clearly implicated in the Russian collusion hoax and have no business being anything other than a witness.

Issues & Insight: ore than half of California’s roughly 105 million acres are owned by the federal and state governments. It is on these sprawling parcels that the wildfires tend to rage before devouring private land, homes, and businesses. Public lands “have proved far more vulnerable to forest fires than properties owned by private groups,” Hoover Institution scholar Richard Epstein wrote in California’s Forest Fire Tragedy. “Private lands are managed with the goals of conservation and production. The management of public lands has been buffeted by legislative schemes driven by strong ideological commitments.” The loudest voices assign blame for the fires to man-made climate change. But the human activity primarily responsible for the destructive spread of wildfires is public policy favoring burned timber over harvested timber. While maybe well-intended, laws inspired by the 1970s environmentalist movement, which is determined to make sure saw blades and trees never meet, h...

Adriana Cohen: Special Counsel Robert Mueller should be censured, if not disbarred, for violating Department of Justice rules and turning the legal system upside down for political purposes -- to "get Trump." His malpractice was on full display this week with his unnecessary press conference to smear the president's character and reputation by inferring he committed crimes -- without bringing charges. Our legal system doesn't work that way. The accused is either innocent or guilty based on factual evidence -- not nuance or smoke and mirrors. If prosecutors have insufficient evidence and can't bring charges against someone, the case is dropped. And prosecutors aren't supposed to damage a person's reputation for spite. But that's exactly what Mueller did in violating Department of Justice rules and protocols. In the U.S. justice system, Americans are afforded the presumption of innocence, and the burden to proof is on law enforcement -- not t...

Washington Free Beacon: Pelosi Attacks Facebook As ‘Willing Enabler’ of Russia, Still Owns Up to $1 Million In Company Stock Pelosi family has owned Facebook stock since 2012, increased investment in 2018 The Russian investment in Facebook ads after the 2016 election had no impact on the vote and if were before the vote was insignificant in comparison to the millions spent by Clinton.  It was basically trolling on the cheap and the Democrats fell for it.

Telegraph: A senior Israeli doctor treating child victims of the Syrian civil war has said that snipers in the war-town country are aiming for the spine to cause maximum trauma. Dr Yoav Hoffman, a doctor at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, is one of many doctors who has been treating severely wounded Syrians at the Western Galilee Medical Centre in Nahariya, northern Israel. Having examined the patients, 40 per cent of whom have been women and children, he came to a disturbing conclusion. “I am sure that the snipers hit the spine on purpose,” he said this week after noticing the same gunshot wound “at this very same point” several times in the children he had treated. At least five of the children were left partially or fully paralysed as a result of the injuries. “You know by the hit it was by a sniper and it was on purpose,” he said. “If you want to kill a man, or you want to kill a child, you put a bullet in his head or his heart. They purposefully put the bullet in ...

Legal Insurrection: Israel destroys largest, deepest and most sophisticated Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnel “The tunnel, which took Hezbollah several years to dig, also contained railroads to transport equipment and garbage, and was equipped with lighting equipment, air-conditioning and ladders.” The tunnel was deep into the ground requiring 22 flights of stairs.  It is a testament to Hezballah's rejection of the UN truce it had agreed to which prohibits such activity.

Fox News: A mid-August 2016 counterintelligence briefing for the Trump campaign did not specifically warn officials about Russian outreach to the Trump team, nor did it warn that two campaign aides, Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos, were already under FBI investigation, Fox News has learned. The new details about the so-called “defensive briefing” have emerged from congressional letters, text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page, and sources familiar with the matter. Such briefings are designed to warn the candidate and his team about national security threats. “There was a defensive briefing of candidate Trump on Aug. 17 of 2016,” Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said Thursday on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.” “And I can tell you what he wasn't told: He wasn't warned about a Russia investigation that Peter Strzok had opened 18 days earlier.” Strzok, who was later removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller...

NY Times: Black Voters Challenge House Members: Why Is Trump Still in Office? While House Democratic leaders agonize, black voters want President Trump impeached, and their ardor on the subject is driving their representatives. It seems like an irrational move by black voters.  Trump's policies have lifted more blacks out of poverty and dependency than any President in history.  He has also signed legislation to reverse the policy of Democrats that resulted in huge numbers of blacks being incarcerated.  A recent Rasmussen poll showed that 30 percent of blacks now approve of Trump.  That is the highest number for any Republican President.  Those blacks who do oppose Trump can't seem to articulate what high crimes and misdemeanors they think he might be guilty of.  By now they have to know that the Russian collusion allegations were a hoax concocted by Hillary Clinton, Fusion GPS and some rogue FBI officials. It looks like a totally irrational mo...

Washington Times: They defeated bills expanding abortion rights in New Mexico and Rhode Island, backed tough restrictions on abortion access, and voted to pass infanticide bills in Montana and North Carolina. And they’re not Republicans. In one of the biggest surprises of the 2019 legislative session, dozens of Democratic state legislators have defied their party on abortion, emerging as a decisive force on pivotal votes in what may signal a fraying of the Democratic consensus on a signature issue. Perhaps the biggest moment came when Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, announced Wednesday that he would sign a fetal-heartbeat bill after it passed the House by a vote of 79-23. He wasn’t alone: The bill received 17 Democratic votes in the House and seven in the Senate. “I am proud to stand with the people of Louisiana in defense of the unborn and against the abortion mills that are waging war on the next generation,” said Democratic state Sen. John Milkovich, who sponsor...

Daily Mail: Footage reveals hydrogen-powered 120mph 'drone' that’s a cross between an aircraft and SUV that its creators say will form a 'fleet' of flying taxis, cargo carriers and ambulances  US-based firm Alaka'i Technologies revealed its Skai vehicle which is inspired by current drones and powered by hydrogen fuel cells. It can take off and land vertically and has a range of 400 miles. Competitors are using batteries which limits their payload and range.  If approved these craft could also be potential life savors although they could not carry some of the equipment used in more traditional ambulances.  I suspect that some of the wealthy in L might want one to avoid traffic delays.

Fox News: ... "I dare [Mueller] to testify," Giuliani said. "I'd love to see [Rep. Mark] Meadows and [Rep. Jim] Jordan cross-examine him on when did he find out there was no collusion? Exactly why would you hire Andrew Weissmann, who is the most notorious and unethical prosecutor of the last 20 to 30 years?" he continued. ... "When I conclude as a prosecutor and I'm not confident that a person committed a crime, that's called exoneration," the former New York mayor said. "The person is innocent until proven guilty. That's not a slogan, it's not a joke, it's a basic fundamental of our Constitution, of the Magna Carta, of elemental fairness," he continued. ... If Jordan and Meadows don't get a shot at Mueller cross-examination then the Senate should subpoena and let Republicans like Sen. Lindsay Graham, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Sen.John Cornyn cross-examine him.

Sean Davis: Mueller Just Proved His Entire Operation Was A Political Hit Job That Trampled The Rule Of Law At a hastily arranged Wednesday press conference, Special Counsel Robert Mueller proved that he was never interested in justice or the rule of law. It also explains why his investigation was such a shoddy effort that ignored the real Russian collusion behind the Steele dossier.

Alan Dershowitz: The statement by special counsel Robert Mueller in a Wednesday press conference that “if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said that” is worse than the statement made by then FBI Director James Comey regarding Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. Comey declared in a July 2016 press conference that “although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive highly classified information.” Comey was universally criticized for going beyond his responsibility to state whether there was sufficient evidence to indict Clinton. Mueller, however, did even more. He went beyond the conclusion of his report and gave a political gift to Democrats in Congress who are seeking to institute impeachment proceedings against President Tru...

Silvio Cantu: ... First, Cuba can buy food or anything else from any other country.  Why doesn't it?  There are lots of countries who are agricultural exporters who love to sell their tomatoes and potatoes to Cuba.  The embargo won't stop Brazil, for example, doing that.  It won't stop Argentina or Uruguay from selling beef. Second, the real problem is that nobody wants to sell anything on credit to Cuba.  It's "no cash, no tomato" because the regime has  a long history of failing to pay its debts .  It's not the embargo; it's a socialist economy that could never sustain itself without a sugar daddy in Moscow or Caracas. Blame Trump?  Nothing new.  We've been hearing that for a long time.  The solution is for Cuba to reform rather than pretend change is happening. Cuba continues to be run by communist deadbeats.  It is too bad Bernie Sanders and AOC won't donate their royalties fro...

Power Line: ... Here is my question. (I know it has been asked before, but it can’t be repeated too often.) If Mueller’s charge was to investigate “Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election…[including] investigating any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign,” why didn’t he look into the possibility that the false information fed by alleged Russian insiders to an agent of the Clinton campaign was a disinformation effort by the Russian government, meant to interfere in the 2016 presidential election–an effort in which the Clinton campaign colluded? There is strong circumstantial evidence that the Steele dossier was exactly that, while there never was any evidence at all that the Trump campaign colluded in any way with Russians. So why was Mueller’s investigation confined to the wrong campaign? The question answers itself. Mueller’s mission was the same as Christopher Steele’s mission, and Glenn Simpson’...

John Solomon: One of the deepest, darkest secrets of Russiagate soon may be unmasked. Even President Trump may be surprised. Multiple witnesses have told Congress that, a week before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, Britain’s top national security official sent a private communique to the incoming administration, addressing his country’s participation in the counterintelligence probe into the now-debunked Trump-Russia election collusion. Most significantly, then-British national security adviser Sir Mark Lyall Grant claimed in the memo, hand-delivered to incoming U.S. national security adviser Mike Flynn’s team, that the British government lacked confidence in the credibility of former MI6 spy Christopher Steele’s Russia collusion evidence, according to congressional investigators who interviewed witnesses familiar with the memo. Steele, of course, was the political opposition researcher-turned-FBI-informant whose dossier the FBI and Obama Justice Department used to justif...

Bloomberg: Roughly 5 million Americans move from one state to another annually and some states are clearly making out better than others. Florida and South Carolina enjoyed the top economic gains, while Connecticut, New York and New Jersey faced some of the biggest financial drains, according to a Bloomberg analysis of state-to-state moves based on data from the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Census Bureau. Connecticut lost the equivalent of 1.6% of its annual adjusted gross income, as the people who moved out of the Constitution State had an average income of $122,000, which was 26% higher than those migrating in. Moreover, “leavers” outnumbered “stayers” by a five-to-four margin. ... Florida posted a net income influx of nearly 3% of the state’s adjusted gross income in 2016. South Carolina, Idaho and Oregon were also among the largest gainers in the interstate shuffle. “Florida’s powerhouse economy continues to churn out new jobs, retiree migration to Florida is on ...

Houston Chronicle: The Houston region saw the third-highest job creation rate among the nation's 12 largest metropolitan areas in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. The Houston, The Woodlands and Sugar Land area saw robust year-over-year job growth of 2.8 percent in April. The region now employs 3.1 million people. Nationwide, job growth was 1.8 percent. ... The Dallas Fort Worth region had 3.2 percent job growth.  The Texas economy remains strong with growth of manufacturing and the energy sector.

Byron York: It's not unusual to hear House Democrats vow to "get to the bottom" of the Trump-Russia matter — as if the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, with 500 witnesses, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search-and-seizure warrants, and nearly 300 records of electronic communications, was somehow unable to fully probe allegations that the Trump campaign and Russia conspired to fix the 2016 election. What really concerns Democrats is that Mueller's investigation, conducted with law enforcement powers that Congress does not have, failed to establish any Trump-Russia conspiracy or coordination. And in doing so, Mueller exposed the fatal flaw of the Trump-Russia matter: It was driven entirely by the conspiracy/coordination allegation, which turned out to be false. The backdrop of conspiracy and coordination made every Trump-Russia episode, including routine political activities, look sinister. The Trump Tower meeting looked ominous in the context of conspiracy ...

Steve Cortes: ... Again, none of these advancements prove that racism does not exist in our imperfect world. But the reality of present-day America totally contradicts the propaganda scare tactics of race hustlers in the media and politics. Those activists want us to fear racists around every corner and Klansmen under every bed. In actuality, a roundup all of the neo-Nazis and KKK members in America would scarcely fill a high school gymnasium. For example, linking to a news story about a white supremacist rally over the Memorial Day weekend in Dayton, Ohio, actress Alyssa Milano tweeted out, “I don’t recognize my country anymore.” The collection of degenerate racists that so worried Ms. Milano: a grand total of nine hateful malcontents seeking attention. Why, then, does the left insist on this racist smear? First, they view minority communities as political captives. For example, Donald Trump’s comparative success in 2016 among Hispanics, besting Mitt Romney’s Latino vote ...

Washington Post: Four Pinocchios for Planned Parenthood claim that ‘thousands’ of women died every year before Roe The figures were debunked 50 years ago. There’s no reason to use them today. They push the false numbers for political reasons.  I was in high school before Roe V. Wade and in my school, I am aware of only one girl who got pregnant and she went to live with relatives while she had her baby and put it up for adoption.

Washington Post: Trump faces new attacks from Democrats over military deferments Presidential hopefuls and military veterans Pete Buttigieg and Seth Moulton accused President Trump of faking a condition to avoid service. The attacks could test whether Trump’s coalition, which includes military families, can be cracked. I was an executive officer of a rifle company of Marines in Northern I Corps.  One of the benefits of leading Marines in combat was that they were all volunteers.  One of the reasons the current military is more effective is the volunteer nature of its recruits.  Combat can be difficult enough without having to deal with people who don't want to be there.  I am glad Bill Clinton was not in my unit, but I would not be surprised if Buttigieg supported him anyway.  This looks like a desperate attempt by Democrats to separate Trump from his base of support.  But the military knows he is a stronger supporter of their efforts than Democrats wo...

Jeff Dunetz: Talk about being a hypocrite! New Mexico Democrat Governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, is asking the Trump administration to send her federal money to help solve the crisis on her southern border, only four months after she told the feds she was removing the NM national guard from the border. This past February, Gov. Grisham removed her state’s National Guard troops from our southern border to protest what she told NPR was President Trump’s, “charade of border fear-mongering. Adding, “I reject the federal contention that there exists an overwhelming national security crisis at the Southern border,” Lujan Grisham said, adding that the area has “some of the safest communities in the country.” After she pulled the National Guard from the border in February, Grisham went on MSNBC and yet again dismissed the notion that there was a crisis along the border. She also took shots at former Republican New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez for allowing the National Guard to help at the...

Sharyl Attkisson: ... If you were a person of some authority and murdered someone, and prosecutors set out to investigate, and if you spoke publicly against the investigation, proclaiming your innocence and calling the probe a “witch hunt,” and if you worked behind the scenes to use your influence to fire the lead investigator on the murder case — that would seem to be a pretty clear case of obstruction of justice. You, as a guilty man, would be trying to stop authorities from finding out the truth. But imagine, on the other hand, that you are innocent — accused of a murder you didn’t commit. Not only that, imagine you knew there was no murder to begin with because you saw the victim walking around after the supposed murder. Then, imagine you found yourself the target of the murder investigation by a team that included people who had declared you to be their sworn enemy and expressed strong desires to take you out. Then, imagine this team that included biased investigators began l...

Rachel Bovard: Nationwide injunctions—when a single district court judge can halt the enforcement of a law or policy across the country—have been stymying President Trump’s agenda from the get-go. And Attorney General William Barr is getting fed up. In a speech on Tuesday to the American Law Institute, Barr railed against national injunctions, noting that 37 of them have been issued against President Trump—more than one a month—compared to just two that were issued against President Obama during his first two years in office. According to Justice Department statistics cited by Barr, only 27 national injunctions were issued in all of the 20th century. Barr is right to complain. The judiciary—which, it should be pointed out, the Framers envisioned as the weakest branch—has asserted breathtaking and unprecedented control over the policy process. One judge can now effectively cancel a policy with the stroke of a pen. As Barr put it, these injunctions give “a single judge the unpreced...

Charles Lipson: The skies are growing dark and increasingly ominous for dirty officials at the top of Obama-era law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Leading the “I’m really worried” list are James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch, and their senior aides, all political appointees. They expected Hillary Clinton to win in 2016 and bury any traces of malfeasance, just as they had buried hers. It didn’t work out that way. Now they need protection themselves. House Democrats and anonymous leakers are busy providing it. Many are delicately called “current and former senior officials” by the New York Times , Washington Post , and other legacy media. Gee, I wonder who they are? These defenders of the old guard are sliming Attorney General Bill Barr, who heads the investigation into their actions. They have good reasons, if not clean hands, for their attack. First, they want to keep as much secret as they can. Exposure can only harm them. Their main argument is that ...

Marc Thiessen: A Harvard-Harris poll finds that 65 percent of Americans say Congress shouldn’t begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Sixty percent agree with Attorney General William Barr that “the facts and public actions of President Trump did not amount to obstruction of justice, especially since there was no underlying collusion.” And 58 percent believe “we should turn the page on investigations of President Trump.” To put that in perspective, Trump’s job approval averages 42.9 percent. So there are millions of Americans who don’t approve of Trump but also don’t approve of the Democrats’ endless investigations. Yet the Washington Post reports that “at least five members of [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s leadership team pressed Pelosi in a closed-door leadership meeting to allow the panel to start an [impeachment] inquiry.” Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky, chairman of the House Budget Committee, declared: “I think there is a growing understanding that an impeach...

Red States: The Columbia Journalism Review reports that a newly released document indicates the Obama DOJ’s spying operation was far more comprehensive than had been thought. CJR writes, “In 2013, the Justice Department launched a brazen attack on press freedom, issuing sweeping subpoenas for the phone records of The Associated Press and several of its reporters and editors as part of a leak investigation. At the time, the subpoenas were widely seen as a massive intrusion into newsgathering operations. Last month, we learned that they told only part of the story.” The spying was triggered by an AP report “on a thwarted Yemen-based bomb plot , which contained classified information about the CIA operation.” The DOJ conducted a search for the leaker by gathering two-months of phone records on 21 different lines. AP Chief Gary Pruitt stated that the information “collected could reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken...

DiGenova says the matter is much broader than the FISA court abuse and includes illicit access to the NSA database to spy on political enemies of the Obama administration. You can find more on this subject at Conservative Treehouse.

NY Times: Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science In a significant escalation, policymakers are seeking to undermine or discard research showing the most dire risks of inaction on climate change. Predictions of future climate have a poor history .  The UN has been forecasting that the earth has 10 years to make changes for over 30 years.  Al Gore got his Oscar for predictions that have not happened.  New York City is still not under water and the North Pole still is iced over.  Snow has not disappeared.  When projections are made that are not met it is always because one or more of the underlying assumptions was invalid.  The problem with the climate change crowd is that they can't tell you which of their assumptions was invalid.  I suspect it has to do with an overestimation of the impact of CO2.

Daily Mail: Texas Senate approves controversial bill that would allow any Texan who can legally own a firearm to carry handguns for a week after a natural disaster to protect themselves from looters The Texas Senate has approved a bill that would allow Texans to carry handguns for a week after natural disasters. The bill will now head to Gov Greg Abbott's desk for his signature or veto. Opponents of the bill fear it would lead to armed gangs roaming the streets after a natural disaster.

BBC: Man dies on plane after ingesting 246 cocaine bags

Kurt Schlichter: ... Hypocrisy, thy name is “Democrat,” and Trump has this amazing way of making them demonstrate it to the world that no one else has ever been able to pull off. Look at what we’ve seen just in the last week. With his declassification move, Trump has maneuvered them into publicly asserting that providing you more information about what occurred is now a “cover-up” of what occurred for some reason. Don’t think about it – just go with it. They’re rolling. We have the lib poohbahs and their mainstream media Renfields in full spazz effect because Trump proposes to declassify info attesting to the antics of the Deep State moles who tried to spur the failed soft coup in part by…leaking classified info. Wait, so now exposing classified info is…bad? Didn’t Hollywood just make an eponymous movie about the brave firefighters of the WaPo defying the government to bring the people the truth by publishing the classified Pentagon Papers? Well, maybe – I don’t know because I don...

Texas Monthly: ... As of March 2019, the largest port in the United States is no longer the Port of Los Angeles but rather the Port of Laredo. Laredo, which is a primary port of entry for trade with Mexico, saw its trade spike by nearly 10 percent from February to March, while Los Angeles’s dropped by a similar figure over that same time, according to Forbes. Laredo had more than $20 billion in trade pass through its port of entry, while in L.A., they were down to $19.66 billion. The key takeaway surely ought to be much more about how this reflects the changing shape of global trade more than a year into a trade war between the world’s two largest economies than it is about Texas’s ongoing cold war with California—but let’s leave that all aside, because Los Angeles just lost out to Laredo, and we’re here to celebrate it. Los Angeles, as the nation’s second largest city, is a complicated place. So much of American culture comes from the city, the weather is perfect, and nobody is...

Zero Hedge: ... Even so, the bad faith of his antagonists exceeds even Mr. Trump’s defects and vices. The plot they concocted to get rid of him failed. And, yes, it was a plot, even a coup. And they fucked it up magnificently, leaving a paper trail as wide as Interstate-95. Now all that paper is about to fall over the District of Columbia like radioactive ash, turning many current and former denizens of rogue agencies into the walking dead as they embark on the dismal journey between the grand juries and the federal prisons. Hence, the desperate rage of the impeachment faction, in direct proportion to their secret shameful knowledge that the entire RussiaGate melodrama was, in fact, a seditious subterfuge between the Hillary Clinton campaign and a great many key figures in government up-to-and-including former president Barack Obama, who could not have failed to be clued-in on all the action. Even before the declassification order, the true narrative of events has been plainly und...

Joe Messina: Harrison Floyd, a patriotic Marine veteran running as a Republican for Congress from Georgia, has said he intends to fight socialism and is now being attacked by leftists who falsely claimed he threatened Democrat Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with actual gunfire. “I’m a fourth-generation military veteran, and a former United States Marine,” he said in a video announcing his candidacy. “I’m running for Congress because my family and I didn’t fight for our freedoms to allow our country to fall to socialism.” “I’ll fight socialists in Congress the same way I fought terrorists in the desert. So help me God,” he added. Floyd’s video highlighted his three tours as a machine gunner and his family, which has served in the U.S. military for four generations. But Democrat opponent Carolyn Bourdeaux, naturally, thinks this man’s service is a bad thing and accused him of being aggressive and violent. “Violence has absolutely no place in our public discourse, and I de...

Washington Post: Hopes dim that Trump will reach infrastructure deal with Congress Business leaders and communities nationwide fear that the impasse in Washington is paralyzing efforts to revamp aging bridges, crumbling roads and tunnels in dire need of repair. Democrats need to get over losing the 2016 election and focus on what they can do to improve US infrastructure rather than what they can do the harass the President with bogus investigations of things already looked into by Mueller and others.  The only good news to come out of the current Democrat posture is that it is likely to make them lose the 2020 elections.  They are on the wrong side of the voters on impeachment and the more they focus on it the more likely they are to lose more voters.

Daily Mail: From Russia with mugs: How British spies smuggled secrets about Putin's new supersonic bomber out of country in pilots' box of loose leaf tea British spies stashed Russian defence secrets about upgrades to their Blackjack bombers in a packet of loose leaf tea on board the plane travelling to Venezuela in an audacious plot. The tea packets were thrown in the trash upon arrival in Caracas and then gathered up and taken to CIA agents in the city.  It was then taken to the US for analysis and then shared with the Brits and NATO.

Washington Post: For Pelosi, the biggest test to come is the question of impeachment President Trump has certainly put the Democrats in a difficult position. The administration has further inflamed things by blocking virtually all requests from congressional committees for documents for investigations into various Trump-related matters. It is the kook base of the Democrat party and radicals in Congress who are responsible for putting the Democrats in this position.  There is no viable case for impeachment.  The Democrats may not like Trump but he won fair and square and he has been successful at implementing an agenda which has improved the circumstances of many Americans including those who were on the bottom.  The Democrats have pushed one false narrative after another attacking the President.  They are the ones who should be driven from office and hopefully will be in 2020.

Roger Kimball: ... Perhaps the best way of summarizing my disagreement is by suggesting an alternative to the word “hoax.” It’s not a novel suggestion. On the contrary, it’s often been used in concert with or as a synonym for “hoax.” But I think it is a better word in this context because it expresses the malign intention behind the multifarious activities directed against candidate Trump and then President Trump. The word I have in mind is “coup.” Again, I know that that is a dramatic, maybe a melodramatic, word. But I think it accurately expresses the deliberate effort by actors in the Obama Administration, including by President Obama himself, to assure Hillary Clinton’s victory by destroying the reputation of Donald Trump. “Most Presidents leave office,” the commentator L. J. Keith recently wrote, “and essentially step back from public life. Not Barack Obama. Shellshocked by Hillary Clinton’s loss, Obama, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and Clinton set in motion a series of events ...

Michael Goodwin: ... But Pelosi’s “coverup” remark changed everything because of the inevitable consequences it carries. If she really believes the president is committing a crime, she has left ­herself no logical course except ­impeachment. So Trump delivered his counterpunch, along with a volley of insults. Democrats are not alone in being furious about the coming release of the documents. Their media handmaidens suddenly are all for keeping the secrets secret. The New York Times reached a new low by declaring in a news story that Trump is using “the intelligence to pursue his political enemies.” The article, by David Sanger, never entertains the possibility that Barack Obama weaponized the FBI and CIA to block Trump from becoming president, or that Comey, Brennan and others aimed to depose him. To consider that possibility would be to practice journalism. The Times doesn’t do that anymore. Instead, the Gray Lady has become the errand boy for the deep state. Reporters ...

Sam Younnokis: ... A liberal friend of mine frequently quotes a saying that when you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.... But liberals are accustomed to preferential access, and they aren't getting it. Not only have they lost their privilege, but they believe that it was unfairly reassigned to us riffraff. They feel cheated, and they are howling for justice. Every judge legislating from the bench to promote his favored policies is striking a blow for justice in liberals' quest to rule us. Every ill mannered celebrity ranting about Trump's supposed deficiencies is a bold prophet, speaking truth to power. Every journalist twisting facts to support the leftist narrative is a warrior in the Left's disinformation army, participating in a surge of lying that all of them hope will overwhelm us so we return to being their pawns. So my friend's favorite quote is true for liberals, at least. They are so addicted to the privilege of the...

PJ Media: ... According to OANN's Jack Posobiec, Power was targeting calls made about Israeli settlements. "When she found Gen Flynn making calls she opposed, she passed information to Sally Yates who opened Logan Act investigation," Posobiec reported on Twitter.... According to Posobiec, the documents will show that Power was on a “one-woman crusade” for the Palestinians and against Israel in 2016. ... "Obama WH was so incredibly hostile to Israel that they used extraconstitutional surveillance powers to spy on pro-Israel advocates to make sure they could thwart efforts to defend Israel," wrote Conservative Review's foreign policy expert Jordan Schachtel on Twitter. "Gross abuses of power & they got off scot-free, for now at least." During the transition period in 2016, incoming Trump officials disagreed with the Obama administration's policy on Israeli settlements and made phone calls to world leaders regarding an upcoming vote...

Bloomberg: Americans’ Life Savings Disappear From Mexican Bank Accounts Americans say money they had at Monex is gone and the bank isn’t helping them. In late December, Kathy Machir called Marcela Zavala Taylor, her banker of nine years at Mexico’s Monex Casa de Bolsa, to get cash for contractors building her retirement home in San Miguel de Allende. Typically, Zavala would wire money or dispatch her assistant, Juan, on his motorcycle with an envelope full of pesos. Monex, with $5.2 billion in assets and operations in the U.S., was woven into the lives of Machir and the 10,000 other Americans who’ve moved to San Miguel de Allende. The transfer didn’t happen. Juan didn’t show, Zavala didn’t return calls, and Kathy and Jim Machir discovered that their nest egg was gone. When the Machirs and other San Miguel expatriates met with Monex officials in early January, the bankers told some of them that about $40 million was missing from as many as 158 accounts, many belonging to English...

NY Post: City Department of Education brass are targeting a “white-supremacy culture” among school administrators — by disparaging ideas like “individualism,” “objectivity” and “worship of the written word,” The Post has learned. A presentation slide obtained by The Post offers a bullet-point description of the systemic, supposedly pro-white favoritism that Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza claims must be eradicated from the DOE, and provides just one insight into his anti-bias training efforts. The list — derived from “Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups” by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun — names more than a dozen hallmarks of “white-supremacy culture” that school administrators are expected to steer clear of. “They include such dynamics as “paternalism,” a “sense of urgency” and “power hoarding,” according to the slide, which an insider said was part of mandatory training sponsored and funded by the department’s Office of Equity and Access and recently ad...

Forbes: ... On the economic front, since the end of the recession in June 2009, Texas’ private sector seasonally adjusted job growth through April 2019 was 27.2% compared to California’s slightly weaker 23.9%. But California shed a far larger proportion of jobs during the recession than did Texas, so it had a deeper hole to climb out of. Extending the horizon by five years to January 2004 shows a far different story, with Texas adding 38.4% more private sector jobs, compared to California’s 21%—an 83% growth rate advantage for Texas. Texas’ more rapid job growth is likely due in some measure to its tax and regulatory policies. According to the Tax Foundation, California’s business tax climate ranked 49th in the nation in 2018, compared to Texas at 15th. A key component in California’s weak ranking is that it features America’s highest individual income tax rate, 13.3%, making California’s the second-most burdensome income tax in the nation behind New Jersey. Texas has no individua...

John Sexton: Svetlana Lokhova is a British academic who works at Cambridge. Lokhova was born in Russia but has a British passport. Today she sued Stefan Halper, the Wall Street Journal, the NY times, the Washington Post, and MSNBC over stories which suggested she had contact with Gen. Michael Flynn on behalf of Russia. From Politico : Svetlana Lokhova filed the suit Thursday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., seeking more than $25 million in damages from longtime University of Cambridge academic Stefan Halper as well as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and MSNBC. Lokhova alleges that Halper and the news outlets conspired to spread a false narrative that she approached then-Defense Intelligence Agency Director Michael Flynn on behalf of Russian intelligence at a seminar dinner in England in 2014 and that Flynn and Lokhova had an intimate relationship. Over time, as public attention focused on links between the Trump campaign and Russia — and a...