Category: President Trump’s Actions

Donald Trump: He’s Different (Duh!…..)

April 11, 2019
In my quest to understand the vast gulf between Liberal and Conservative political thinkers, I have struggled to find a plausible explanation. I am a researcher: I read and “look” constantly for nuggets of truth and explanations. In that quest to grasp explanations for the demonizing of Conservatives by the Left under this President, I came across a really good explanation for my dilemma. This was first attributed to a former mayor of Livermore, California. Alas, as often happens in this instant news America, that mayor did NOT write this. Rather it was written by Evan Sayet and published (under the title “He Fights”) on the “Townhall” website on July 13, 2017.  After reading this, I think I get it.

He Fights

My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.” Here’s my answer: We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.

We tried statesmanship.

Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as did John McCain?

We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?

And the results were always the same. This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality, and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob. I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatred because racial hatred serves the Democrat Party. I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.

I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent. Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”

The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery, and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – till today.

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality, and propriety. With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America ’s first wartime president in the Culture War.

During wartime, things like “dignity” and “collegiality” simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming. Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today. Lincoln rightly recognized that “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”

General George Patton was a vulgar-talking soldier. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum then, Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich.

Trump is fighting. And what’s particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel’s, he’s shouting, “You magnificent bastards, I read your book!”

That is just the icing on the cake, but it’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, but he’s also defeating the Left using their own tactics. That book is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a book so essential to the Liberals’ war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis. It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.

Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, instead of going after “the fake media” — and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri — Trump isolated CNN.. He made it personal.

Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as “the most powerful weapon of all.”… Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. They need to respond.

This leaves them with only two choices. They can either “go high” (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery. The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive.

Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama’s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s church. Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration’s weaponizing of the IRS to be used against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration’s cover-up.

So, to my friends on the Left — and the #NeverTrumpers as well — do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial” and “dignified” and “proper?” Of course, I do. These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.

So, say anything you want about this president – I get it – he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights for America!

Summary

(This is from TruthNewsNet staff)

Here’s the biggest problem in understanding and acceptance of the way the U.S. government functions. The government does NOT operate as a smoothly running machine. It operates more like an ancient Model T that requires constant surveillance to keep it running. Members of Congress are like family members. Mom wants Dad to slow down. She is constantly telling him he’s not paying attention to the road. Kids need to stop every 3 miles for a bathroom break. Meanwhile, they have a flat tire and the engine overheats.

Does that sounda little like the U.S. Government?

Somebody has got to be the “designated driver.” That’s President Trump — at least for the next 2 years. There will be some who are riding in the car that can’t stand the windows down, hate his driving, but they go ahead and ride with him because that’s the only way to get where they need to go.

And the driver — President Trump — always gets them there. That’s really the only thing that matters.

“MAGA” — There are those that try to spin what that stands for into racism, hatred, elitism, etc. But what it stands for is all the promises made by Candidate Trump that he would fulfill if voters elected him President. His promise was “if” he won the presidency, and “if” he was given the opportunities, and “if” Congress would pass applicable laws and fund as necessary, he would “Make America Great Again.” Despite many who detest Mr. Trump, every member of his family, his Cabinet, and Republican leadership in D.C., he’s pretty much accomplished all that he possibly could so far. And most Americans realize that he would have accomplished far more “if” the laws and resources necessary for the other parts of his platform had been made available.

Few can argue that on almost every front, America is much greater in 2019 than it was in 2016. (Oh, they can argue, but not justifiably or truthfully.)

Where does the nation go from here? That’s up to Americans. He’ll be in the driver’s seat for another couple of years. And every day he gets behind the wheel and starts driving down the road. Even with all the complaining and unnecessary pit stops and the occasional flat tire, that Model T keeps moving down the road pretty well.

As far as this American is concerned, that’s the way it’s supposed to happen!

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Democrat Attack: The Rule of Law

April 5, 2019

Americans are growing numb to the Trump attacks at the hands of Congressional Democrats. That numbness we are experiencing is real, but its impact is lessening everyday because its use by Dems is incessant and just morphs into a newer version almost daily. That is a dangerous thing: it’s much like the frog and the pot of boiling water. Put a frog in a pot of boiling water and the frog quickly jumps to safety. Put that frog in a pot of cold water and slowly increase the water’s heat and the frog will stay in the pot until it’s too late. For Americans, the pot contained cold water at the beginning of the Trump Administration, but Dems have steadily turned up the heat.  Their attacks are obviously all aimed at Mr. Trump. But in doing so, we are watching a planned and coordinated attack against the Rule of Law. And conservative Americans are ALL in their sights with the President.

What is The Rule of Law?

The rule of law is a framework of laws and institutions that embody four universal principles:

1. Accountability
The government, as well as private actors, are accountable under the law.

2. Just Laws
The laws are clear, publicized, stable, and just; are applied evenly; and protect fundamental rights, including the security of persons, contract and property rights, and certain core human rights.

3. Open Government
The processes by which the laws are enacted, administered, and enforced are accessible, fair, and efficient.

4. Accessible & Impartial Dispute Resolution
Justice is delivered timely by competent, ethical, and independent representatives and neutrals who are accessible, have adequate resources and reflect the makeup of the communities they serve.

Before we move forward in this conversation, it is important for us to break-down the specifics of Law so we can relate them directly to today’s United States legal operations by our government and exactly what House Democrats are really up to.

  • Constraints on Governments Powers measures the extent to which those who govern are bound by law. It comprises the means, both constitutional and institutional, by which the powers of the government and its officials and agents are limited and held accountable under the law. It also includes non-governmental checks on the government’s power, such as a free and independent press. Governmental checks take many forms; they do not operate solely in systems marked by a formal separation of powers, nor are they necessarily codified in law. What is essential, however, is that authority is distributed, whether by formal rules or by convention, in a manner that ensures that no single organ of government has the practical ability to exercise unchecked power.
  • The absence of Corruption measures the absence of corruption in a number of government agencies. The factor considers three forms of corruption: bribery, improper influence by public or private interests, and misappropriation of public funds or other resources. These three forms of corruption are examined with respect to government officers in the executive branch, the judiciary, the military and police, and the legislature, and encompass a wide range of possible situations in which corruption – from petty bribery to major kinds of fraud – can occur.
  • Open Government measures open government defined as a government that shares information, empowers people with tools to hold the government accountable, and fosters citizen participation in public policy deliberations. The factor measures whether basic laws and information on legal rights are publicized, and evaluates the quality of information published by the government. It also measures whether requests for information held by a government agency are properly granted.
  • Fundamental Rights measures the protection of fundamental human rights in the United States. It recognizes that a system of positive law that fails to respect core human rights established under the U.S. Constitution is at best “rule by law,” and does not deserve to be called a “rule of law” system.
  • Order and Security measures how well society assures the security of persons and property. Security is one of the defining aspects of any rule of law society and a fundamental function of the state. It is also critical in the realization of the rights and freedoms that the rule of law seeks to advance.
  • Regulatory Enforcement measures the extent to which regulations are fairly and effectively implemented and enforced. Regulations, both legal and administrative, structure behaviors within and outside of the government. Strong rule of law requires that these regulations and administrative provisions are enforced effectively and are applied and enforced without improper influence by public officials or private interests.
  • Civil Justice measures whether ordinary people can resolve their grievances peacefully and effectively through the civil justice system. The delivery of effective civil justice requires that the system be accessible and affordable, free of discrimination, free of corruption, and without improper influence by public officials.
  • Criminal Justice evaluates the criminal justice system. An effective criminal justice system is a key aspect of the rule of law, as it constitutes the conventional mechanism to redress grievances and bring an action against individuals for offenses against society. Effective criminal justice systems are capable of investigating and adjudicating criminal offenses successfully and in a timely manner, through a system that is impartial and non-discriminatory and is free of corruption and improper government influence.

Clear Enough?

It certainly should be. Each area detailed in the above simple explanation of the Rule of Law is critical for the process of government that sets the U.S. apart from every other country on Earth is critical and MUST exist in tandem with the others. Without each and every one of them in force and adhered to in every area of government, NO government can truly be a democratic republic that promises “equal justice under the law.” 

Folks, we’re not in danger of losing that justice, IT’S ALREADY GONE!

How can I say that? It hasn’t been hidden very well. Its demise began decades ago while we benignly sat by and allowed it. We turned our eyes away from day-to-day government operations in D.C. We trusted our lawmakers to do the right things. As we watched, a seedy group of unscrupulous politicrats (Who together invented the perpetuity in positions of power that they solely control) quietly enacted a “new” legal system totally controlled by that group of elites. And it is in full operation.

Have you wondered how the FBI senior staff could almost en masse collude to perpetrate a coup against this sitting President who was duly elected? And they did it with impunity! Have you wondered why it has been so difficult for the “white hats” in Congress to obtain — even through subpoenas — documents, testimony, and other evidence of the “alleged” wrongdoing by many of those elites? How have people like Susan Rice, Samantha Powers, James Clapper, James Comey, John Brennan, Andrew McCabe, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Peter Strozk, Lisa Page, and dozens and dozens of others skated through the most egregious non-military takeover of the American government while we Americans simply slept while they did it? And that doesn’t even take into account the “leaders” of that coup — the only ones that could have originated the idea, built the operation, put it in motion and managed it to its end: Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. THEY ARE IN THIS THING UP TO THEIR EYEBALLS!

Summary

Our only hope is that enough of the 60+ million Americans who were awakened during the Trump campaign, had their eyes opened (at least to some small degree) to the horrors and illegalities that were underway right before our eyes and voted to keep that “cartel” from completing the government takeover began by the Clintons during their 8 years, and put in full gear during Obama’s 8, are still watching this horror as it is revealed one page at a time. (Yes there was a momentary pause in their plan during Bush 43)

Is there still time? I believe there is. But I’m not certain of that. Fortunately, Americans are in large part still a creative lot. There are enough free-thinkers that refuse to swallow the Leftist Koolaid of Socialism being peddled by the Democrat Party to right the ship, IF the “white hats” (the “good guys”) are allowed to continue the digging up and exposing those wrongdoers.

What can go wrong? Plenty! If this Democrat Party has its way, their attempted coup which is with total impunity attacking EVERY part of the Rule of Law we detailed above will take this country down. Even right now — today — the U.S. has lost a large part of its freedom. And they want to steal the balance. How?

  • Democrat hypocrisy in governing. Remember their glorification of their “savior” Robert Mueller? They even attempted to pass legislation to keep Trump from interfering with or even firing Robert Mueller. Then his report (though we haven’t seen it yet) apparently exonerates President Trump. And now those same Dems want Mueller’s head!
  • They seriously intend to force President Trump to release his tax returns. There is absolutely NO law that allows them to do that! Can you imagine a United States in which someone — ANYONE — can petition the IRS to release YOUR tax returns? Yet these Democrats are doing just that. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-Cortez actually tweeted a threat to the President today about that, saying “We didn’t ASK you to release your returns.” In other words, she was saying they TOLD the President to do so. As if Congress has such authority!
  • They are more and more loudly shouting and demanding the release of the FULL, unredacted Mueller report, saying they will take it all the way to the Supreme Court. They do that when it is already clear: there IS American law contained within the Special Counsel statute THAT PROHIBITS DOING SO! It is imperative to protect the hundreds of Americans whose grand jury testimony could potentially damage the reputations of those who were NOT indicted in that investigation. Remember: 500 witnesses testified; only 37 people were indicted. But Democrats don’t care!

If these attacks and Democrats intentions are allowed to be carried out, privacy of working class Americans will be gone: FOREVER! Once that liberty is taken by Big Brother, he will NEVER give it back.

There are enough guys who wear the “white hats” to take this on who are willing to “take one for the team” if necessary. Chief among them is Donald Trump. Let’s face it: I cannot think of one other Republican who ran that if elected, would have had the staying power this President has. It is simply amazing to watch how he refuses to cave even with the non-stop harassment he and his family sustain every day.

Encourage all you know to ferret out the truth in everything they hear spewed by each arm of the Democrat Party: The House of Representatives, and the Mainstream Media. Every conservative needs to turn up the volume in conversations with those with whom they interface when discussing these political matters. Remaining silent will allow the Rule of Law to be killed — permanently.

”Pray for all those who are in authority over you.” That is NOT instructions from TruthNewsNetwork. That’s from the Bible. I encourage all to make that a daily practice — including EVERYONE in authority. You cannot skip those with whom you disagree when you pray. In doing so, hold on to this:

”The effective and continual prayer of my people will bring to pass what is asked for in those prayers.”

How Powerful Is Congress?

March 31, 2019

It depends on who you talk to. Right now, Democrats in the House of Representatives are acting like they have supernatural powers over everything and everybody — especially over this presidential administration and all its members. Since taking control of the House, Democrats heads of multiple committees have hire dozens of added investigatory attorneys for one reason and one only: they are hell-bent on attacking the Trump Administration and everyone in it. Why? One would think doing so would be the result of serious criminal wrongdoing and an effort to find those guilty parties and bring them to justice. But in this case the massive investigations that have already begin at the hands of Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Congressman Jerold Nadler (D-NY) who have assumed the joint roles of “Investigators in Chief.” What are they investigating? Which crime are they investigating? All things Trump are the subject of investigations but there’s NO crime. Their hope is simple: they go to bed every night and get up every morning praying that they find something sufficient to run Donald Trump out of D.C.

Robert Mueller’s investigation was the one thing all these Democrats and their minions just knew would bring their quest to dump Trump to fruition. And when Mueller’s findings apparently proved Dems were wrong, many thought the battle was over. But it has just begun.

81 members of the Trump team have already been subpoenaed for personal appearances along with voluminous production of documents, many of which were already turned over to the Mueller investigators. For these 81 people, answering these subpoenas could easily be the beginning of the end of their personal and professional lives. Certainly, retaining legal representation sufficient to defend them throughout these Congressional probes will be devastating. Just look at General Michael Flynn. His defense cost him is home, all of his savings, and almost cost his son jail time. It is estimated the minimum cost of representation in these cases is $500,000 to $800,000! Not many people have that kind of “extra” money laying around.

Can Congress Legally Take Such Action?

Yes, Congress can. But what has come into question is the legality Congress does or not have in these investigations. And, believe it or not, The U.S. Supreme Court has weigh-in in previous cases that are similar in nature to what is unfolding now.

The principle target of Congress of course is Donald Trump. Word has it they are going after the President for potential wrongdoing on his part and of those who have worked for him for things from before he even campaigned for President! One would think any of that would have nothing to do with any liability for any president. This just illustrates how desperate Democrats in the House are to discredit the President and to get him ousted at all costs.

Can Congress take this approach? What do those people already under Congressional subpoena have to do? Can they thumb their noses at Congress? What happens if they ignore Congressional subpoena and simply refuse to appear and refuse to provide requested documents? The SCOTUS has a few things to say about that.

SCOTUS

Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178 (1957), is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the power of the United States Congress is not unlimited in conducting investigations and that nothing in the US Constitution gives it the authority to expose individuals’ private affairs.

John Thomas Watkins, a labor union official from Rock Island, Illinois, was convicted of contempt of Congress, a misdemeanor under 2 U.S.C. § 192, for failing to answer questions posed by members of Congress during a hearing held by a subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities on April 29, 1954. Watkins was born in July 1910 and ended his formal education in the eighth grade. At the time of his testimony, he had four children and was working on behalf of the United Auto Workers (UAW) to unionize workers at a division of Firestone Tire and Rubber in Illinois. The UAW underwrote his legal expenses. Watkins was asked to name people he knew to be members of the Communist Party. Watkins told the subcommittee that he did not wish to answer such questions and that they were outside the scope of the subjects on which he was summoned to testify and of the committee’s jurisdiction. He said: “I am not going to plead the fifth amendment, but I refuse to answer certain questions that I believe are outside the proper scope of your committee’s activities. I will answer any questions which this committee puts to me about myself. I will also answer questions about those persons whom I knew to be members of the Communist Party and whom I believe still are. I will not, however, answer any questions with respect to others with whom I associated in the past. I do not believe that any law in this country requires me to testify about persons who may in the past have been Communist Party members or otherwise engaged in Communist Party activity but who to my best knowledge and belief have long since removed themselves from the Communist movement.

“I do not believe that such questions are relevant to the work of this committee nor do I believe that this committee has the right to undertake the public exposure of persons because of their past activities. I may be wrong, and the committee may have this power, but until and unless a court of law so holds and directs me to answer, I most firmly refuse to discuss the political activities of my past associates.”

His conviction carried a fine of $100 and a one-year suspended prison sentence. Watkins first won a 3–2 decision on appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia but then lost, 6–2, when that court heard the case en banc. The Supreme Court heard arguments on March 7, 1957, and announced its decision on June 17, 1957.

Decision

The Supreme Court decided 6–1 to overturn Watkins’ conviction. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the majority. Warren noted that it is an offense for a witness to refuse to answer any question “pertinent to the question under inquiry” in testifying before a Congressional committee, but he wrote that the Court was unable to ascertain the nature of the Congressional inquiry with reasonable precision:

“There are several sources that can outline the ‘question under inquiry’ in such a way that the rules against vagueness are satisfied. The authorizing resolution, the remarks of the chairman or members of the committee, or even the nature of the proceedings themselves, might sometimes make the topic clear. This case demonstrates, however, that these sources often leave the matter in grave doubt.

The New York Times commented: “The Supreme Court has placed fundamental restrictions on a Congressional investigatory power that in recent years has been asserted as all but limitless.”

Senators James Eastland and William E. Jenner, who played principal roles in investigating left-wing activities, issued a statement accusing the Court of contributing to “the trend of the past year of undermining our existent barriers against Communist subversion.”

The decision’s impact was limited in that the Court limited the application of the principles it espoused in Watkins.

The power of Congress to hold hearings is an integral part of the powers of the legislative branch. Once a person is called to be a witness, Congress has contempt powers to compel him or her to answer questions. If the person refuses, then he or she can be held in contempt and sentenced to a fine or jail or both.

However, the power to hold a hearing comes from Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. This is the Necessary and Proper clause, which states that Congress has the power to do what is necessary and proper to carry out its function as a legislative power. Thus, the power to hold a hearing has to come from the authority to pass laws.

As a result, the scope of the inquiry must be related to the legislative authority of Congress, and any question must be related to that purpose. Further, the statute used to convict Watkins limited his punishment for failing to answer only questions that were pertinent to the question under inquiry.

Finally, the Supreme Court held in United States v. Rumely (1952) that the Bill of Rights is invoked upon any questioning of a witness, and in the face of such rights, Congress had to clearly define the nature of its inquiry and consider a balance of rights the same way it would if passing a law. Why? Because its authority to ask questions at a congressional hearing stems from its enumerated legislative powers, which always must consider the constitutional rights of those affected by the law.

Summary

Why is it that no one talks about the tax dollars Congress spends on these senseless investigations? Remember all the hoopla from Democrats and Republicans alike regarding any interference in the Mueller investigation by President Trump? Mueller was the savior of Washington and was empowered by God himself to bring President Trump down for his wrongdoing. Mueller screwed up. How? He did not provide House Democrats the ammunition they needed to draft Articles of Impeachment to throw Trump out of the White House. The “spend-o-meter” began spinning as U.S. tax dollars are being spent in the millions as Democrats have launched their “payback” prosecution of anyone who has ever even smiled at President Trump. American taxpayers are paying these millions not because of any wrongdoing. We are paying it because of one thing and one thing only: Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election an Hillary is not President.

What’s going on folks is NOT the power of the Congress. I suggest all of those subpoenaed so far and any who are subpoenaed going forward in unison send Congress packing.

The Rule of Law in America works this way: everyone — including private citizens as well as public servants — are innocent until PROVEN guilty, not just charged. Why should any of these people be forced to pay one dime for defense from any of these sham investigations? They shouldn’t.

Let’s make a deal: if I was one of these people, I would get a group of those others who have received these subpoenas together for a press conference. In it, I would publicly call out Adam Schiff, Jerold Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, and tell them all not until they provide actual evidence of wrongdoing will any of these appear before Congress or provide any answers to their subpoenas. Doing so would be unnecessary and illegal according to findings in previous cases of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Further, I would publicly call them out for not pursuing actual investigations of the wrongdoers who have already been exposed during the Mueller investigation of felony violations of misuse of classified information and other federal crimes.

It’s time for every American to abide by the Rule of Law. And members of Congress are simply Americans. None of them — especially Democrat Party House committee leaders — are NOT above the law, no matter what they think.

Tell them all to pound sand.

How Significant Are Trump’s Accomplishments?

March 18, 2019

I certainly don’t need to tell you that the President has achieved much in his first two years in office. Unfortunately, the Leftist media have a propensity to forget about the significant accomplishments of this president, concentrating instead on the negative things they can  talk about, many of which are not even negatives.

At the completion of his first year in office, TruthNewsNetwork published here a complete list of those things that have already improved the lives of Americans while reclaiming and resetting  positive relations with our partner nations abroad. Today, we do the same thing.

Why not grab a cup of coffee or hot tea, and peruse the list below? If you want to pull the “official” list this represents, click on the link and go straight to the website where it originated. I encourage you to download, print it and make some copies to share with those who you feel should see it. 

I promise you this: for those of our friends and family members who lean left, they probably get their news from CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or one of the broadcast news channels. If that’s the case, you can bet IF they have seen or heard any of these accomplishments, it will just be a few. They’re the ones who need most to get this list!

Enjoy.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/the-historic-results-of-president-donald-j-trumps-first-two-years-in-office/?utm_source=link

Trump Accomplishments

IGNITING HISTORIC ECONOMIC GROWTH President Trump’s growth policies are unleashing economic growth and providing opportunities to workers across the country.

  • Due to President Trump’s pro-growth policies, real gross domestic product (GDP) growth exceeded 3 percent over the last four quarters.
    • Real GDP grew at annual rates of 3.4 percent in the third quarter of 2018 and 4.2 percent in the second quarter.
  • More than 5 million jobs have been created since President Trump’s election and the unemployment rate remains below 4 percent.
    • This is the eighth time this year that the unemployment rate has been below 4 percent.
    • Prior to this year, the unemployment rate had fallen below 4 percent only five times since 1970.
    • The unemployment rate for African Americans in May fell to 5.9 percent, which is the lowest rate on record.
    • Asian and Hispanic-American unemployment rates have reached record lows this year.
  • Initial weekly jobless claims have hit a nearly 50-year low under President Trump.
  • Under President Trump, job openings outnumber the unemployed for the first time on record.
  • Recently, more than two-thirds of Americans rated “now” as a good time to find a quality job, tying a record high in a poll by Gallup.
  • Americans are seeing more money in their pockets thanks to the booming economy.
    • In recent months, workers have seen their largest nominal year over year wage growth in nearly a decade.
    • In 2017, real median household income rose to a post-recession high.
  • President Trump’s policies are helping to lift Americans out of poverty.
    • African-American and Hispanic-American poverty rates reached record lows of 21.2 percent and 18.3 percent, respectively, in 2017.
    • Since the election, 4.6 million Americans have been lifted off of food stamps.
  • Consumer confidence has soared under President Trump, recently reaching an 18-year high.
  • President Trump is delivering on his promise to bring back American manufacturing.
    • The National Association of Manufacturers’ Outlook Index had the highest annual average in its history over the past year.
    • Manufacturing added 284,000 jobs in 2018, the most added in a year since 1997
  • Small Business optimism jumped to a record high under President Trump, according to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).
    • The NFIB’s Small Business Optimism Index broke a 35-year record in August.
  • President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law, ushering in the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history.
  • These tax cuts are delivering real results for American families and workers.
    • More than 6 million workers received tax cut bonuses and benefits.
    • More than 100 utility companies have announced lower rates.
  • President Trump is ensuring American workers receive the training and education they need to compete in today’s economy.
    • President Trump signed an executive order establishing the National Council for the American worker.
    • More than 185 companies and associations have signed our “Pledge to America’s Workers,” promising more than 6.4 million new training and career opportunities.
    • The President signed legislation that reauthorized the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, making more than $1 billion available for career education programs.
  • President Trump has prioritized the economic empowerment of women.
    • The women’s unemployment rate recently reached its lowest rate in 65 years.
    • The Small Business Administration lent approximately $500 million more in capital to women-owned businesses in 2017 compared to 2016.
    • The Administration helped launch the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, which could leverage more than $1 billion to support women entrepreneurs.

ROLLING BACK RED TAPE: President Trump is rolling back costly regulations that have burdened hardworking Americans and stifled innovation.

  • President Trump has followed through on and exceeded his promise to roll back two regulations for every new one created.
    • President Trump’s Administration surpassed the 2:1 ratio in 2018, eliminating 12 regulations for every new one in 2018.
    • In 2017, the Trump Administration eliminated 22 regulations for every new one.
  • Since taking office, President Trump’s deregulation efforts have achieved $33 billion in regulatory savings.
    • In 2018, these efforts alone delivered $23 billion in benefits to American families and business owners.
  • President Trump has signed 16 Congressional Review Act resolutions into law, eliminating burdensome Obama-era rules and regulations.
  • President Trump announced U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, which would have harmed America’s economy and cost American workers millions of jobs.
  • President Trump signed an executive order to streamline the permitting process for infrastructure projects with a goal of cutting approval time from up to 10 years to an average of 2 years.
  • President Trump signed legislation to roll back burdensome Dodd-Frank regulations that harmed community banks.

NEGOTIATING BETTER DEALS FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: President Trump is negotiating fair and balanced trade deals that protect American industries and workers.

  • President Trump negotiated a new trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico to replace the disastrous and outdated North American Free Trade Agreement.
    • Once enacted by Congress, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) will better serve the interests of American workers and businesses.
    • USMCA will incentivize billions of dollars in auto and auto parts production in the United States and create a freer and fairer market for American agriculture.
    • USMCA also includes the strongest-ever provisions on labor, environmental, digital, and intellectual property protections to reflect the realities of the 21st century economy.
  • The President renegotiated the United States–Korea Free Trade Agreement to preserve and grow jobs in the American auto industry and increase American exports.
  • The United States and Japan are set to begin negotiations on a United States–Japan Trade Agreement.
  • President Trump is establishing a new trade relationship with the European Union (EU), working toward the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to transatlantic trade.
  • President Trump has established a Trade and Investment Working Group to lay the groundwork for post-Brexit trade with the United Kingdom (UK) and has notified Congress of his intent to negotiate a free trade agreement with the UK.
  • This year, President Trump filed a withdrawal notification with the Universal Postal Union, launching a one-year negotiation to secure fair international postal rates for American mailers.
  • President Trump has expanded market access for American agricultural producers.
    • Argentina has opened to American pork and beef, Brazil to American beef, Japan to lamb and Idaho chipping potatoes, South Korea to American poultry, and more.
    • The Administration authorized $12 billion to aid farmers affected by unfair retaliatory tariffs.
    • The Trump Administration has begun the process to expand the sale of E15, or gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol, to year round.
  • Under President Trump, the United States will no longer accept bad trade deals and unfair trade practices that harm American workers and industries.
    • One of the President’s first actions after taking office was withdrawing the United States from the terrible Trans-Pacific Partnership, which incentivized outsourcing.
    • In 2017, the Administration oversaw 82 antidumping and countervailing duty investigations.
  • President Trump is holding China accountable for its unfair trade practices, such as the theft of intellectual property, by imposing tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods.
    • Following President Trump’s successful meeting with President Xi in Buenos Aires, both agreed to conduct negotiations over 90 days to address the United States concerns.
  • American steel and aluminum jobs are coming back following President Trump’s tariffs to protect domestic industries that are vital to national security.
  • President Trump imposed tariffs to protect American-made washing machines and solar products that were hurt by import surges.

UNLEASHING AMERICAN ENERGY: President Trump is rolling back costly and burdensome regulations to unleash America’s incredible energy resources.

  • After years of stifling regulation under the last Administration, President Trump is unleashing America’s energy potential.
  • America is the largest crude oil producer in the world and production has hit a record high.
  • President Trump’s policies are helping to boost American energy exports.
    • The Administration has streamlined Liquefied Natural Gas terminal permitting.
    • In 2017, the United States became a net natural gas exporter for the first time in 60 years.
    • American coal exports increased by more than 60 percent in 2017.
  • President Trump is expanding access to our country’s abundant natural resources.
    • The President signed legislation to open up energy exploration in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.
    • In July 2018, the Department of the Interior announced it would hold the largest oil and gas lease sale in history.
  • In 2017, the Administration approved construction of the Dakota Access pipeline and the cross border permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
  • The Administration issued permits for the New Burgos Pipeline that will export American petroleum products to Mexico.
  • The President has ended the war on coal, cutting Obama-era regulations such as the “Stream Protection Rule” which was estimated to cost industries $81 million a year.
  • President Trump is replacing the Clean Power Plan, a flawed Obama-era regulation that the Supreme Court ordered halted.
  • President Trump rescinded the hydraulic fracturing rule, which was expected to cost the oil and gas industry $32 million per year.
  • The Trump Administration curbed the burdensome Obama-era rule on methane, saving American energy developers hundreds of millions of dollars in regulatory costs.

EXPANDING OPTIONS FOR QUALITY AND AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE: President Trump is expanding access to affordable healthcare choices and taking action to lower drug prices.

  • President Trump’s Administration is working to provide Americans with affordable alternatives to Obamacare.
  • The Administration expanded short-term, limited duration health insurance plans that are expected to be nearly 50 percent cheaper than unsubsidized Obamacare plans.
  • President Trump has expanded association health plans, allowing more employers to join together across State lines and affordably offer coverage to their employees.
  • The Administration proposed a reform to Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) regulations that will give consumers more freedom to purchase benefits that fit their needs.
    • Roughly 800,000 employers are expected to provide HRAs for more than 10 million employees once the rule finalized.
  • Americans have more healthcare freedom thanks to the President signing legislation that ended Obamacare’s individual mandate penalty.
  • While healthcare premiums had been steadily increasing as a result of Obamacare, the average benchmark exchange premium will decline for the first time in 2019 thanks to President Trump’s policies.
    • Next year, Americans will benefit from more insurer participation on the exchanges.
  • Medicare Advantage plans offer more benefit options than ever before, and average premiums in 2019 will be 6 percent lower than in 2018.
  • President Trump launched an unprecedented campaign to drive down drug prices, leading more than a dozen drug manufactures to enact price freezes, reductions, or rollbacks.
    • In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a record number of generic drugs, breaking the previous record set by the Administration in 2017.
    • The FDA’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 generic drug approvals are expected to bring nearly $9 billion in savings in 2017 alone.
    • President Trump signed legislation eliminating contractual gag clauses that stopped pharmacists from informing patients about lower drug prices.
  • The President put forth an initiative to stop global freeloading that drives up prices for American patients.
  • The Administration provided Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D plans with new negotiating tools to drive down drug costs for American patients.
  • The Administration implemented reforms to the amount Medicare pays hospitals for drugs that are purchased under the 340B program, saving seniors $320 million in 2018.
  • President Trump signed “Right to Try” legislation to expand access to experimental treatments for terminally ill patients.

FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE CRISIS NEXT DOOR: President Trump mobilized his entire Administration to combat the opioid crisis that has devastated communities across the country.

  • President Trump launched an Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand, introducing new measures to confront the driving forces behind this crisis.
  • The President signed the landmark SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, the largest and most comprehensive legislative package addressing a single drug crisis in history.
  • The President helped secure a record $6 billion in funding to fight the opioid epidemic.
  • The Administration provided more than $2 billion in grants in 2018 to help States, territories, tribes, and local communities prevent and treat opioid abuse.
  • The Administration pursued scientific solutions to prevent and treat addiction through the Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative.
  • The President launched a national public awareness campaign about the dangers of opioid addiction and youth opioid usage.
  • Last year, President Trump created a Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, which recommends ways to tackle the opioid crisis.
  • The Administration declared the opioid crisis a nationwide Public Health Emergency in 2017.
  • President Trump is working to cut off the flow of deadly opioids into our country and to disrupt the networks that distribute them to our communities.
    • The Administration secured first-ever indictments against Chinese nationals for fentanyl trafficking.
    • The Department of Justice (DOJ) launched a surge to target fentanyl and heroin dealers in the districts with the most severe overdose death rates.
    • The DOJ formed a Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement team and shut down the biggest Darknet distributor of drugs.
  • Last year, the DOJ announced the largest healthcare fraud takedown in history, arresting more than 120 defendants with opioid-related crimes.
  • The President launched a Safer Prescribing Plan that seeks to cut nationwide opioid prescription fills by one-third within three years.
  • The Administration has led four National Prescription Drug Take-Back Days, collecting a record-breaking 1,837 tons of expired and unneeded prescription drugs.

STANDING UP FOR THE SANCTITY OF LIFE AND PROTECTING RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: The President is committed to defending the right to life and religious liberty.

  • Shortly after taking office, President Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy.
  • President Trump defunded a United Nations (UN) agency for colluding with China’s brutal program of forced abortion and sterilization.
  • The Administration withdrew guidance that constrained State’s ability to exclude family-planning providers that provide abortion services from the Medicaid program.
  • The Trump Administration proposed new regulations to ensure Title X family planning funding does not go to projects that perform, support, or refer patients for abortion.
  • The Trump Administration issued regulations establishing new or expanded exemptions from the Obamacare contraceptive mandate based on religious beliefs or moral convictions.
  • In 2017, the President issued an executive order to promote free speech and religious liberty.

KEEPING AMERICAN COMMUNITIES SAFE: President Trump has made clear that his first responsibility is to protect the safety and security of Americans.

  • Federal Bureau of Investigation data shows violent crime decreased under President Trump’s watch in 2017, following two consecutive years of increases.
  • United States Attorneys indicted the most violent criminals on record last year.
  • Last year, the DOJ announced nearly $100 million in grant funding to hire hundreds of additional law enforcement officers.
  • President Trump is cracking down on the vile MS-13 gang that has brought violence to communities across the country.
    • In 2017, the DOJ worked with international partners to arrest and charge approximately 4,000 MS-13 members.
    • Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations arrested nearly 800 MS-13 members and associates in FY 2017, an 83 percent increase from the prior year.
  • President Trump signed an executive order to restore State and local law enforcement’s access to surplus equipment that can be used to help keep our communities safe.
  • President Trump enhanced and updated the Project Safe Neighborhoods program.
  • The DOJ announced the creation of the National Public Safety Partnership in 2017, launching a cooperative initiative with cities to reduce violent crime.
  • President Trump signed legislation to improve the Federal firearm background check system and keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals.
  • President Trump signed the First Step Act, which includes bipartisan reforms to make our Federal justice system fairer and our communities safer.
    • The First Step Act will help prepare inmates to successfully rejoin society, reducing recidivism and improving community safety.
    • This legislation includes commonsense sentencing reforms that will make our Federal justice system fairer while keeping violent criminals and sex offenders off our streets.

ENFORCING OUR LAWS AND SECURING OUR BORDERS: From the first day of his Administration, President Trump has worked to uphold the rule of law and secure our borders.

  • President Trump released an immigration framework that would fix our broken immigration system through merit-based reform and provide the resources needed to secure our border.
    • This includes closing the legal loopholes that enable illegal immigration, ending chain migration, and eliminating the visa lottery.
  • President Trump secured funding to begin building the wall and construction has already begun in areas along the southern border.
  • President Trump deployed the military to assist in securing the southern border.
  • President Trump and his Administration took action to require aliens seeking asylum to go to a port of entry to make their claim.
  • Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehended 17,256 criminals and 1,019 gang members in FY 2018.
  • ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arrested 158,581 aliens in FY 2018, an 11 percent increase from FY 2017.
    • 90 percent of those arrested had criminal convictions, pending charges, or had been issued final orders of removal.
  • ICE ERO increased removals by 13 percent in FY 2018 to 256,086, the majority of whom were convicted criminals.
    • Removals of convicted criminal aliens increased by 14 percent from FY 2017.
    • Nearly 6,000 known or suspected gang members were removed in FY 2018, a 9 percent increase from FY 2017.
  • The Department of Justice prosecuted a record number of criminal immigration offenses in FY 2018, and increased the number of prosecutions for illegal entry by 84 percent over FY 2017.
  • Immigration courts are now completing more cases than at any point since 2011
  • President Trump kept his promise by launching the office of Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) within the Department of Homeland Security.
  • The Administration has more than doubled the number of jurisdictions participating in the 287(g) program, which enables State and local law enforcement to aid immigration enforcement.
  • President Trump has made our country safer by ordering the enhanced vetting of individuals entering from countries that do not meet our security standards.
    • These procedures were upheld in a June 2018 Supreme Court ruling.

REBUILDING AMERICA’S MILITARY FORCE: President Trump is rebuilding our military and defending America’s interests across the world.

  • President Trump ended the devastating defense cuts of the past Administration and has secured historic investments to rebuild our military.
    • President Trump signed legislation providing $700 billion for defense in FY 2018 and $716 billion in FY 2019.
  • President Trump is supporting America’s men and women in uniform, securing the largest military pay raise in nearly a decade.
  • The President issued a new National Security Strategy to keep America safe from all threats.
    • The Administration has also released new strategies specific to cybersecurity, biodefense, counterterrorism, and weapons of mass destruction terrorism.
  • President Trump directed the first whole-of-government assessment of United States manufacturing and defense supply chains since the Eisenhower Administration.
  • President Trump initiated the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, improving United States deterrence policy and existing capabilities to counter nuclear threats.
  • President Trump empowered our military commanders with broad authority in order to take the fight to ISIS, and the results are clear.
    • ISIS has lost nearly all of its territory, more than half of which has been liberated since President Trump took office.
    • All of ISIS’ territory in Iraq was successfully liberated.
    • ISIS’ self-proclaimed capital city Raqqah has been recaptured.
  • ISIS’ territorial caliphate has been defeated and President Trump has announced that he is bringing America’s troops in Syria home.
  • President Trump announced a new Iran strategy to confront all of Iran’s malign activities and withdrew from the horrible, one-sided Iran nuclear deal.
    • All sanctions that had been lifted or waived under the Iran deal have been reimposed.
    • The Administration has sanctioned more than 160 individuals tied to the regime’s support of terrorism, ballistic missile program, human rights abuses, and more.
  • President Trump took decisive military action to respond to the barbaric use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.
    • President Trump directed strikes in response to the regime’s chemical weapons attacks in April 2017 and April 2018.
    • The Trump Administration has also rolled out sanctions targeting those tied to Syria’s chemical weapons program.
  • President Trump is strengthening America’s cyber defense and directed the elevation of the United States Cyber Command into a major warfighting command.
  • The President announced that the Department of Defense will work to create a Space Force to serve as an independent branch of the United States military.

RESTORING AMERICAN LEADERSHIP ABROAD: President Trump is restoring American leadership on the world stage and advancing an America first agenda.

  • President Trump held an historic summit with Chairman Kim Jong-Un, bringing beginnings of peace and denuclearization to the Korean Peninsula.
    • Since the summit, the leaders have exchanged letters and high-level officials from both countries have met.
    • Because of the President’s actions, North Korea has halted nuclear and missile tests.
    • The remains of POW/MIA service members from the Korean War are being returned to the United States.
  • Prior to the summit, President Trump’s leadership helped secure the passage of historic UN sanctions on North Korea.
  • President Trump followed through on his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the American embassy there.
  • President Trump withdrew the United States from the UN Human Rights Council due to its bias against Israel.
  • The Administration made clear that it does not accept the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction over Americans and will continue to protect America’s sovereignty.
  • President Trump has successfully advocated for cutting waste at the UN.
    • Changes made to the organization’s structure allowed the UN to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from their budget, while making the organization more efficient.
  • The President’s leadership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has encouraged members to increase their defense spending and realign the Alliance’s priorities.
    • In 2017 alone, there was an increase of more than 4.8 percent in defense spending among NATO allies.
    • President Trump convinced the Alliance to strengthen counterterrorism activities, and NATO formally joined the coalition to defeat ISIS.
  • President Trump’s Administration is working to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific through investments and partnerships.
  • President Trump has imposed tough sanctions on the corrupt regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
  • President Trump has taken tough action to combat Russia’s malign activities, including Russia’s efforts to undermine United States elections.
    • The Administration has imposed sanctions on more than 200 individuals and entities related to Russia’s destabilizing activities.
    • The Trump Administration has enhanced support for Ukraine’s defense by stepping up sales of weapons to its military.
  • The Trump Administration has secured the release of numerous American citizens held abroad, including Pastor Andrew Brunson from Turkey, Josh Holt from Venezuela, and more.
  • President Trump attended G20 summits in Argentina and Germany, where he promoted American First policies and encouraged closer cooperation.
  • In 2017, President Trump conducted tours through Asia to promote America’s interests.

HONORING AMERICA’S COMMITMENT TO OUR VETERANS: President Trump is honoring America’s commitment to our veterans by ensuring they receive the quality care they have earned.

  • President Trump secured a record $73.1 billion in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide quality medical care for our veterans.
    • This funding included $8.6 billion for mental health services, $400 million for opioid abuse prevention, $206 million for suicide prevention, and more.
  • The President signed the VA MISSION Act, revolutionizing that VA healthcare system and reforming numerous services for our veterans.
    • This legislation will consolidate and reform existing programs to give eligible veterans better access to healthcare providers in their communities.
    • Thanks to this legislation, eligible veterans will have access to walk-in community clinics that offer immediate, local care.
  • President Trump and his Administration have expanded access to telehealth services for veterans, including through the “Anywhere to Anywhere” VA health care initiative.
  • President Trump issued an executive order requiring the Administration to improve access to mental health treatment and suicide prevention resources for veterans.
  • President Trump signed the Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, making it easier to fire failing employees and protect whistleblowers.
    • Under President Trump, the VA has removed, demoted, or suspended more than 4,300 employees for poor performance.
  • President Trump signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017, streamlining the process used by veterans when appealing benefits claims.
  • President Trump fulfilled his promise to create a new White House VA Hotline to provide veterans with 24/7 support.
  • The VA is providing veterans with online access to wait time and quality of care data.
  • The President signed the Forever GI Bill, providing veterans, service members, and their families with enhanced education benefits.
  • Last year, programs at the VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development helped more than 51,000 veterans find permanent housing and access supportive services.

TRANSFORMING GOVERNMENT: President Trump has followed through on his pledge to transform the Federal Government and increase accountability and transparency.

  • President Trump’s Administration submitted a plan to reorganize the executive branch in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
  • In a historic show of transparency and accountability, the Trump Administration completed the Department of Defense’s first ever audit.
  • The President implemented a five-year ban on lobbying for White House employees and a lifetime ban on lobbying for foreign countries.
  • Each quarter since taking office, President Trump has donated his salary, fulfilling a promise he made to the American people.
  • President Trump is reshaping our Federal judiciary, appointing judges who will follow the Constitution as written.
    • The President has appointed Circuit Court judges at a record pace.
    • President Trump has appointed two Supreme Court justices, Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Trump Investigation: Part II

March 12, 2019

House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) claimed in 2017 he had “factual evidence” that proved collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign. (That evidence has never appeared)

Then Sunday, March 10, 2019, on CBS Schiff claimed “There is ‘direct evidence’ of Russian collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. He stated it this way:

“I think there is direct evidence in the emails from the Russians through their intermediary offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of what is described in writing as the Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“They offer that dirt. There is an acceptance of that offer in writing from the president’s son, Don Jr., and there are overt acts and furtherance of that,” he added. “That to me is direct evidence,” Schiff said. “But there’s also abundant circumstantial evidence.”

And then there’s Senator Mark Warner from that same Committee:

Given “the litany of what we know,” Warner said, “the ongoing negotiations about Trump Tower, well into the campaign, I believe the fact that Mr. Trump knew about the dump of the Wikileaks material, the fact that clearly the meeting at Trump Tower which was not described appropriately, in terms of offering dirt are examples. To me, that’s all evidence,” he said. “There’s no one that could factually say there’s not plenty of evidence of collaboration or communications between Trump Organization and Russians.”

I’m a simple American. But even in my small, trite world, when someone feels that something is illegal, you go get facts. Democrats did that: They saw to the appointment of an Independent Special Counsel — Robert Mueller. Special Counsel Mueller is 2 years and a reported $25 million into extensive investigations based on exactly what Schiff and Warner “claim” is “evidence.”

Definition of evidence: an outward sign; indication; something that furnishes proof — testimony; specifically; something legally submitted to a tribunal to ascertain the truth of a matter.

Two years and $25 million — WHERE’S THE EVIDENCE?

Special Counsel Robert Mueller

The Mueller Probe has been going strong for two years. “Anonymous sources” (there they are again) say that probe is wrapping up and to expect the report from Mueller on his investigation of the Trump Gang any day now. With the “leaks environment” in Washington, conventional wisdom maintains that because there have been no reports of pending charges against the President or anyone in the Campaign regarding Russian collusion, there will be no smoking gun in the Mueller report. Finally: we’re getting through with investigations and now we can just get on with governing!

Of course, that’s not so. Congressman Schiff and fellow Democrats apparently are simply going to ditch Mueller’s findings, even though we don’t officially know they will even exonerate the President. But they simply cannot let sleeping dogs lie. That’s how we are now on the front-porch of Part II of the Trump Investigation. They’re never going to give up. Democrats are convinced there’s something in the Trump camp that is going to kick Donald Trump out of the White House.

And Adam Schiff shows up one more time with “news:”

“Within our committee, we certainly have a compelling interest in making sure that U.S. policy … is not driven by leverage that the Russians have over the president,” Schiff said. “There have been credible allegations that the Russians may have laundered money through the Trump organization, and if that’s the case, then we need to be able to look into it and be able to tell the country, ‘Yes, this is true,’ or ‘No, this is not.’ But I think it would be negligent not to find out.”

“It’s going to be important for Congress to ensure that U.S. foreign policy is being driven by U.S. national interests and not by Trump family finances,” Schiff said, in reference to the president’s business ties to Saudi Arabia and his pro-Saudi policies, such as backing the kingdom in its confrontation with neighboring Qatar. “The president has not truly divested his family’s interests or been the least bit transparent about it,” the congressman said, and lawmakers need to “make sure we’re protecting the country.”

Americans knew full well that with Democrats in the 2018 midterm taking control of the House of Representatives, investigations regardless of Mueller’s findings would definitely be the Democrat Party agenda for the next two years. And that certainly appears to be true. But there are a few things that may throw a wrench into Democrats’ plans.

Department of Justice Investigations

While the Democrat parade is ramping up, the Department of Justice continues its behind-the-scenes investigations of which very little is known. Many remember the comment former AG Jeff Sessions made to Congressman Goodlatte about the AG’s instructions to restart the investigation into the Uranium One transaction AND Hillary Clinton. Months later when asked about that investigation, a DOJ official stated there was NO such letter or authorization by Sessions to do so.

After it claimed no such document existed, the Justice Department just unearthed a letter Matt Whitaker (when Session’s chief of staff) delivered to the Utah U.S. attorney directing a review of how the department handled the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One issues.

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote the letter on Nov. 22, 2017, for Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber. Matt Whitaker emailed the letter to Huber that day, writing, “As we discussed.” He also sent Huber a copy of a letter the Justice Department’s Congressional affairs chief sent to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Nov. 13 of that year.

The existence of a letter documenting Sessions’ directive that the DOJ revisit probes of Trump’s top political foe is a surprise because a department lawyer said in court last year that senior officials insisted it didn’t exist. The liberal nonprofit American Oversight obtained the letter through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request they filed on Nov. 22, 2017––the same day Whitaker emailed Sessions’ letter to Huber.

The request asked for documentation of the directions Sessions gave Huber about the review of the Clinton investigations. After DOJ failed to produce any written directions, American Oversight sued.

And on Nov. 16, 2018, Senior Counsel in the Office of Information Policy Vanessa Brinkmann, who handles FOIA Requests, said a lawyer in Sessions’ office told her no such letter existed. That lawyer spoke with Huber and Whitaker, she said in a declaration filed in federal court, and then told her that “when the Attorney General directed Mr. Huber to evaluate these matters, no written guidance or directives were issued to Mr. Huber in connection with this directive, either by the Attorney General, or by other senior leadership office staff.”

That wasn’t correct. On Wednesday of last week (March 6, 2019), a DOJ lawyer told American Oversight that they had found the document that kicked off Huber’s work.

The letter is consistent with what the DOJ’s chief of legislative affairs has told Congress: that Huber is scrutinizing the sale of a Canadian uranium mining company with interests in the United States to Rosatom, a Russian state-owned company. Republicans have long alleged that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declined to oppose the deal because of contributions to the Clinton Foundation.

The DOJ hasn’t brought any charges related to the foundation or the transaction. Some Hill Republicans and conservative media commentators have long argued this is because the Department hasn’t sufficiently investigated it. They have called for the appointment of a special counsel to scrutinize the transaction. Sessions didn’t bite.

Some Republicans say Huber’s work is too little, too late. Democrats, to no one’s surprise, argue it’s evidence of the Trump administration weaponizing law enforcement to target its political rivals.

Is Something Besides Mueller’s Report Imminent?

Hardly any of the media are talking about the publicly available list of 82,000 sealed federal indictments that have all been issued since the week after the instructions to Utah Federal Attorney Huber to reopen Clinton and Uranium One investigations. Every federal district court in the United States has issued several of those sealed indictments. The feds AND the media are strangely quiet about even speculating on the nature of those indictments.

What’s staggering about that is their number. For the previous decade, the total average number of sealed federal indictments issued by all federal district courts combined is 1077 — that’s for each year. These have all been created since October of 2017 — about 16 months.

Speculations of novices and political pundits are that at least some of those indictments are for those involved in human and sex trafficking. Another speculation exists that some may be for some current and past elected and appointed federal officials caught-up in various kinds of wrongdoing. No matter who or what they are for, when the veil of secrecy is pulled back there certainly will be some surprises, especially if any have to do with members of the Trump Administration, Hillary Clinton or her former staff, and even of those from the Obama Administration.

Subpoenas of 81 Trump Associates

House Judiciary Committee Chairmen Jerold Nadler (D-NY) announcing the committee’s subpoena of 81 Trump associates was no surprise. His explanation for doing so simply plays into the Congressional Democrat plan to go after the President.

Nadler has made numerous claims that he “knows” Trump colluded with Russia and/or has obstructed justice:

”It’s very clear that the president obstructed justice,” Nadler told ABC News on Sunday, March 10, 2019.

“It’s very clear,” he explained, “1,100 times he referred to the Mueller investigation as a witch hunt, he tried to have Mueller fired — he tried to protect Flynn from being investigated by the FBI. He fired Comey in order to stop the Russian thing, as he told NBC News. He — he’s dangled pardons — he’s threat(end) — he’s intimidated, witnesses, in public.”

But Nadler, his committee, and other Democrats may face an obstacle they did not expect in their serving subpoenas wholesale to the host of Trump associates they plan to intimidate into relaying something incriminating about the President. Doing so may be illegal: The attempted harassment of President Trump (as it appears to be too many), especially after two years of the Mueller probe, may be unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on a case that has direct implications for what Democrats are doing right now.

Watkins v. the United States

John Thomas Watkins, a labor union official from Rock Island, Illinois, was convicted of contempt of Congress, a misdemeanor under 2 U.S.C. § 192, for failing to answer questions posed by members of Congress during a hearing held by a subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities on April 29, 1954. Watkins was asked to name people he knew to be members of the Communist Party. Watkins told the subcommittee that he did not wish to answer such questions and that they were outside the scope of the subjects on which he was summoned to testify and of the committee’s jurisdiction. He said:

“I am not going to plead the fifth amendment, but I refuse to answer certain questions that I believe are outside the proper scope of your committee’s activities. I will answer any questions which this committee puts to me about myself. I will also answer questions about those persons whom I knew to be members of the Communist Party and whom I believe still are. I will not, however, answer any questions with respect to others with whom I associated in the past. I do not believe that any law in this country requires me to testify about persons who may in the past have been Communist Party members or otherwise engaged in Communist Party activity but who to my best knowledge and belief have long since removed themselves from the Communist movement.

I do not believe that such questions are relevant to the work of this committee nor do I believe that this committee has the right to undertake the public exposure of persons because of their past activities. I may be wrong, and the committee may have this power, but until and unless a court of law so holds and directs me to answer, I most firmly refuse to discuss the political activities of my past associates.”

His conviction carried a fine of $100 and a one-year suspended prison sentence. Watkins first won a 3–2 decision on appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia but then lost, 6–2, when that court heard the case en banc. The Supreme Court heard arguments on March 7, 1957, and announced its decision on June 17, 1957.

The Supreme Court decided 6–1 to overturn Watkins’ conviction. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the majority. Warren noted that it is an offense for a witness to refuse to answer any question “pertinent to the question under inquiry” in testifying before a Congressional committee, but he wrote that the Court was unable to ascertain the nature of the Congressional inquiry with reasonable precision:

There are several sources that can outline the “question under inquiry” in such a way that the rules against vagueness are satisfied. The authorizing resolution, the remarks of the chairman or members of the committee, or even the nature of the proceedings themselves, might sometimes make the topic clear. This case demonstrates, however, that these sources often leave the matter in grave doubt.

The New York Times commented: “The Supreme Court has placed fundamental restrictions on a Congressional investigatory power that in recent years has been asserted as all but limitless.”

Senators James Eastland and William E. Jenner, who played principal roles in investigating left-wing activities, issued a statement accusing the Court of contributing to “the trend of the past year of undermining our existent barriers against Communist subversion.”

One can easily make a case that current House Democrats and their various committees that have started burying the White House with new investigations of these old allegations against the President are committing the same acts that resulted in the Watkins conviction being overturned by SCOTUS.

How would that Court finding apply to what’s underway now in D.C.? The exact same thing: “The Court was unable to ascertain the nature of the Congressional inquiry with reasonable precision.”

The difference now is that (as many have maintained since the inception of the Mueller probe) in normal investigations, the investigation begins because of specific wrongdoing and is to find the evidence sufficient to prove who is guilty of wrongdoing. This Congressional witchhunt is based on wrongdoing that hasn’t been proven to even exist!

Summary

Congressional Democrats are afraid. The leadership of the Democrat Party is afraid. What can they possibly be afraid of?

  • Not only the contents of the 82,000 sealed federal indictments but the results of the prosecution of those federal indictments as they are unsealed and executed;
  • President Trump really may NOT be guilty of anything sufficient to run him out of office one way or the other;
  • Extreme wrongdoing — both criminal and simply reprehensible — on their part may be exposed;
  • All of the above may result in their loss of political might and standing and even expulsion from their positions and status;
  • The Democrat Party totally imploding;
  • President Trump’s agenda actually succeeding.

I know there’s a lot in this discussion for us to chew on. It has become extremely difficult to get a fix on what is truthful and what is not, what is applicable to the President, members of Congress, and those from the Department of Justice. But there’s a worn out adage that I believe is appropriate here: “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.” I think it’s safe to say that so far in the exhaustive investigation of this president, his staff, family members, and even his friends, there may not even be smoke. To borrow a phrase from the President, this could all simply be more “Fake News.”

Whether you are a Democrat, a Socialist, a RINO, a Trump supporter, it is probably accurate to say you want this resolved. There may be an argument on the actual resolution you desire, getting this all done and getting the U.S. on the road to what’s ahead without further distractions is really all that matters. But it certainly is time to get this out of the way.

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The “One That Got Away”

March 6, 2019

Uncle Ted was a master fisherman. How do I know that? Uncle Ted said so! After retirement, he fished every day except Sundays. Ted always brought home a bunch of fish. And why not? He was a master fisherman. In his eyes that meant that he knew which was the best rod and reel, best lure, best live bait, and, of course, he knew the best fishing holes (which he kept secret) AND the perfect time of day to fish.

No matter that Ted was a master fisherman, there was always “One that Got Away.” As good a fisherman as Ted was, caught and brought home quite a few whoppers most days, and at least once a week there came with that batch of fish a story about the “One that Got Away.” It was the biggest, strongest, most evasive and most beautiful fish he’d ever seen. How big was it? Well, that depended on which week and to whom he told the story. It seemed to everyone in the family that years ago when Ted told us about that fish that got away, it’s MUCH larger today than it was then. 

Every family has an “Uncle Ted.” Most of the time we smile at the stories, knowing that next week’s one that got away was going to be even bigger. We shrug off Ted and his stories and go about our business. That’s just the way one handles stories like that.

The Crabtrap

Have you ever been crabbing? As a South Louisiana boy, I learned about crabbing early on. You bait and use a crab trap. Here’s how it goes:

A crab trap is a box-shaped wire contraption that has a round hole in the top. When it’s time to catch crabs, you put bait inside the trap on the bottom, drop the trap into the water where crabs live, and just wait. After enough time has passed for crabs to discover that feast in that trap and crawl through that hole to munch on that chicken neck you left, you pull the trap out of the water. And if you’re lucky, you’ll find several crabs have taken the bait and are in the trap.

If you step back and watch those crabs for a while, you’ll usually see one that figures out there’s a way to escape their bleak future by getting out of the trap. That crab will crawl up the side of the trap across the wire top to get to that hole he crawled through to begin his trek. But seldom does he make it out of the trap. Why?

Inevitably, one or several of the crabs sharing the trap reaches up with a claw, latch onto the escaping crab, and pull him back to the floor of the trap with them. More often than not, that crab never makes an escape.

81 And Counting

As of yesterday, heads of Democrat-controlled committees in the House of Representatives had notified 81 people via letter and/or subpoena their committees’ demands for either production of specific documents or appearances before committees to give sworn testimony or both.

What are they looking for?

Do you remember March 17, 2017? Almost two years ago, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Donald Trump and the Trump Campaign. Here’s how (just in case you’ve forgotten):

APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL
TO INVESTIGATE RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE WITH THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND RELATED MATTERS

“By virtue of the authority vested in me as Acting Attorney General, including 28 U.S.C. §§ 509, 510, and 515, in order to discharge my responsibility to provide supervision and management of the Department of Justice, and to ensure a full and thorough investigation of the Russian govemmenfs efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, I hereby order as follows:
(a) Robert S. Mueller III is appointed t() serve as Specia] Counsel for the United States Department of Justice.
(b) The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James 8. Corney in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:
(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
(c) If the Special Counsel believes it is necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters. (d) Sections 600.4 through 600.1 of Title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations are applicable to the Special Counsel.”

For two years with the unfettered resources and permissions of every department of the Federal Government and with an unlimited budget, Robert Mueller has exhaustively investigated Donald Trump and the Trump Campaign for alleged collusion with the Russian government to affect the 2016 presidential election in his favor. $25 million or so dollars and two years later, NO COLLUSION. All “leaked” notices from the Mueller camp indicate his wrap-up report of the investigation is imminent and is alleged to contain no damning evidence of collusion and no evidence implicating the President.

In light of the constant badgering by Democrats and even some Republicans threatening President Trump for any interference he might make to fire Mueller, cut funding for the investigation or in any way use his power and authority to impact or stop it, President Trump has made NO efforts to do so. Numerous times in fact he has publicly stated he had NO intentions to intervene in any way. He clearly stated again and again he simply wanted it completed.

In light of all this, why then are those House Committees going after the President, current and past members of his administration, and even his family members?

At TruthNewsNetwork, on numerous occasions we have clearly made the case predicting that when the Mueller probe is completed, IF there is no referral from Mueller that includes evidence sufficient to warrant impeachment proceedings by the House, Democrats will perpetuate investigations in the all things Trump. Their purpose: do anything and everything necessary to 1) impeach Trump and remove him from office; or 2) blanket him and all those working with him in his presidency with subpoenas, hearings, forced testimony, all the while using their weaponized Media partners to perpetuate claims against Mr. Trump that will push him over the edge so as to pressure him to walk away — resign.

Here’s Congressman Jerold Nadler (D-NY):

Lots of allegations of crimes. Yet Nadler made it clear there is NO evidence of those alleged crimes. Mueller hasn’t found any.

Wasn’t Congressman Nadler one of the loudest Democrats with demands directed at the President to stay clear of interference with Robert Mueller and his investigation? Didn’t he as did so many other Democrats claim numerous times that the President “clearly” obstructed justice and there is “evidence” proving collusion with Russians in the 2016 election?

Nadler along with House Democrats “other” hitman Adam Schiff have made it clear that they know factually President Trump committed criminally impeachable offenses. My question is this: both Nadler and Schiff served on this same committee in the previous House of Representatives when Dems were in the minority. They participated in their committee’s significant investigation into these charges against the President. Schiff and Nadler both have all through the first two years of this Administration claimed to have such evidence of Trump wrongdoing.  So why did they not turn that evidence over to Robert Mueller? Better yet, why did they not turn that evidence over to the leadership of their own committee?

What Are Democrats Up To?

It’s one of two things and may be about both:

  1. Politics and nothing more. Democrats were shocked when Trump beat Hillary in 2016. One can only imagine the plans they had for the continuation of their march to Socialism that began under Obama. They were all given a taste during Obama’s eight years of just what having almost unilateral power over everything and everybody in the federal government could do. And they liked it. They could not wait until they could install “The Clinton Presidency, Part II” at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump definitely rained on their parade. NONE of their plans carefully crafted for governing in the next eight years could be achieved. They didn’t even have House or Senate control! They had to get it back. And their desperation’s first method was to launch a faux investigation into Trump claiming the Russian collusion. When it became obvious that in spite of the Clinton Campaign’s underwriting that dossier to entice the FBI to go after Mr. Trump, no dirt showed up even if there was any. Their other political ploy was instigated with their midterm election victory to take control of the House. That opened Pandora’s box of investigations: of EVERYTHING Donald Trump.
  2. This second option is the scariest one. Many reading this today are too young to remember Senator Joe McCarthy’s legislative witch-hunt looking for Communists. Dozens of those from Hollywood, New York, and Washington who were “outed” as Communists or Communist sympathizers were ruined professionally and privately by McCarthy’s strongarm tactics. Just like today’s Trump investigations, truth and evidence were NOT necessary elements of McCarthy’s work. Allegations and innuendo were all that were needed at the time. There is NO question in my mind that Schiff, Nadler and Company have examined how McCarthy did it and are using his methods (at least in part) to cut short Trump’s tenure in the White House.

Summary

So what does the story of Uncle Ted and the Crabtrap have to do with today’s narrative above? Simple: Democrats in Trump’s first two years went after him. They at first tried to be subtle. But with each failure by Mueller to uncover Trump wrongdoing, Dems grew angrier and more and more desperate.

To make matters worse for Democrats, Trump’s policies implemented in 2017 and 2018 began to work, and work dramatically. The economy took off in every sector. Unemployment numbers over and over again set historical records. Federal tax receipts zoomed to never before seen numbers — even with across the board tax cuts.

Democrats got scared.

Then when it became obvious to most that the Mueller probe was about finished with no findings of criminality, their heads exploded. They HAD to do something. So they now have literally taken the law into their own hands.

Uncle Ted represents Democrats. And the fish that go away is President Trump. Just like Uncle Ted, Democrats are very upset that their fish apparently escaped when everyone thought Robert Mueller had caught him.

Think about it: how are legal investigations structured and implemented? First, when a crime is committed, law enforcement officials launch, implement, and complete an all-out investigation to pull together evidence that reveals every detail of that crime: the perpetrator, motive, and any involvement by others.

Beginning with the Mueller probe, this investigatory process in place for two centuries was turned upside down!

What crime had been committed sufficient to initiate an investigation? What evidence was there?

The instigation of the Mueller probe (and subsequently this “new” probe) was the anger and hatred Democrats have for Donald Trump. THERE APPARENTLY WAS NO CRIME. This probe should have NEVER been initiated.

The crabtrap?

Sources of the vitriol from Democrats for Mr. Trump are two in number. Obviously, his resounding defeat of Hillary set the fire. But to make matters worse, all of the Trump Administration’s accomplishments have poured gasoline on that fire again and again.

The “crabology” story explains how Democrats have responded. Instead of paying attention to Trump’s reasoning and methodology that together resulted in the tremendous victories for the U.S., they chose to instead of joining the President in crawling out of the trap of high unemployment, massive government deficit spending, shrinking military protection, loss of international credibility, and almost unexplainable gross domestic product soaring growth, Democrats paid no attention to those successes. All they saw was Trump was taking Americans out of the trap with him. They couldn’t let that happen! So they’re doing everything within their power to pull him back to the bottom where THEY are. Sadly, American citizens — if they are successful — will be pulled right down with him, back on their level.

That’s a sad story on many levels. But the most saddening part is that Democrats should be reveling in the amazing progress made under this president in just two years.

What will the results of this all be? Who knows. But at least there are enough knowledgeable and impartial people to keep the truth in the minds of Americans. There are very few of those people in today’s media. But thankfully Americans on the most part are wading through the mud to find the truth in all this. “Truth will out.” And it is happening.

Stay tuned! The “Trump Saga” is just getting started. It still has close to six years to go — I hope!

Top Three Trump Lies

February 26, 2019

Every day some news outlet or two publishes a story about lies told by President Trump. It’s funny to me that I never saw, read, or heard any such stories about past presidents or even members of Congress for telling lies.

Virtually every member of the U.S. federal political system has been and will be condemned for lying at some point in their careers. Most of the time the lies they are accused of telling are not really lies but paraphrased statements regarding controversial topics, statistics, and policies that raise the rancors of partisanship among those with opposing views. But one thing is certain: whether not it is true, it appears that President Trump has been accused of telling more lies than any other president in my lifetime.

If you’re looking in today to read which are the top three lies Trump has told, you’re probably going to be disappointed. Why? We didn’t take the time to analyze each of the 6,000 or so he has been accused of telling. We’ll leave that to political pundits. But what we ARE doing here today is looking at the top three lies from various sources ABOUT President Trump. And trust me: there are many more than three.

People may argue about the three we have chosen. There are others in abundance that we could have chosen. But to TruthNewsNetwork, the top three are (in no particular order):

  1. Charlottesville statement that unequivocally proves President Trump is a Racist;
  2. Trump unilaterally separated babies from parents at the southern border;
  3. Trump and/or Trump Campaign members colluded with Russians to change the results of the 2016 election.

Let’s Dive In!

Charlottesville

There is no doubt the horror in Charlottesville, Virginia that occurred during a demonstration in 2017 was a travesty. In the demonstration-turned-riot, one woman was tragically killed.

Certainly, President Trump had nothing to do with the demonstration or subsequent violence. But if you pay attention to the national media, you probably think someone in the Trump Administration was on the phone orchestrating the violence — maybe even Donald Trump himself!

The uproar began when while speaking to the press about the racial-filled tension turned violence the President spoke about those who took an active role in the demonstration sponsored by a white supremacist group. The branding of the President just months into the first political position of his life as a racist began when he made this statement:

“You had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.”

That statement alone lit the racist cries against President Trump. Who was surprised that the media pounced on that sentence. It has only worsened since. But they all either missed something or have chosen to ignore it.

What was missed?

The President by anyone’s description was and is not a polished politician. He often speaks in soundbites as do most businessmen. It is expected for statements of fact to be put in context by listeners. Not so in politics.

The President later put that sentence in the context from which he spoke it. The protest in Charlottesville — at least the one that was legally permitted — was to protest against the recent rush around the country to remove or destroy monuments and/or statues that for many years have been in memory of leaders from the Civil War. The outcry was loudest about those of those leaders who owned slaves. President Trump shared the context later saying this:

“George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? …Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? Do you like him? OK, good. Are we going to take down his statue, because he was a major slave owner? Now we’re going to take down his statue. So you know what? It’s fine. You’re changing history, you’re changing a culture, and you had people — and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally — but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”

We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Let’s come together as one! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2017

Is Trump a Racist?

If you listen to Hollywood elitists, Democrats, civil rights leaders, and leftist media members, the answer is a resounding “Yes!” Based on one sentence? Come on! Only in this divisive political environment would anyone make such an allegation. Why? It’s not based on facts.

Do we really want a single sentence taken out of context to determine our racial status in the minds of the entire world? If that was the determinant, there would be no human being deemed to be OK. No, we take decisions, actions, conversations, interactions with a multitude of people and circumstances over a period of years to determine the character of a person.

In his history of owning dozens of companies, employing hundreds of thousands of Americans from multiple races, religions, ethnicities, and sexes, there have been NO allegations of racism against Donald Trump over the past 50 years. I doubt the same can be said for any of those who scream the loudest that this President is a racist.

Southern Border Baby Separation

“President Trump unilaterally took action to separate children from their parents at the southern border! It’s heartless! It’s racist! It’s un-American! It’s against U.S. law!”

We hear that again and again from pretty much everyone who disagrees fundamentally with the Trump Administration. But those statements are absolute lies.

Wait a minute: children have been separated from their parents at the southern border. How do you explain that?

When an adult crossing the border with a child is detained for criminal prosecution, the child is then considered an “unaccompanied minor” by U.S. immigration law. Thus, while the law itself doesn’t require the separation of children, an increase in prosecution of illegal immigrants has that effect. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions explained: “If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” Sessions said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a press briefing at the White House that children are separated from adults attempting to cross the border illegally to protect them from smuggling or trafficking. They’re only separated when there is no documentation of a custodial relationship, Nielsen said.

The real reason for any illegal child being separated from their illegal parent? That’s because of something called the Flores Consent Decree from 1997. It says that unaccompanied children can be held only 20 days. A ruling by the Ninth Circuit extended this 20-day limit to children who come as part of family units. So even if we want to hold a family unit together, we are forbidden from doing so. If a parent makes a claim seeking asylum, they are going to be in that process far longer than the 20 days that a child can be held. Thus, the children (by that decree) must be handed over to the HHS to find temporary foster care.

Remember that picture that went viral showing the Trump Administration holding young children being held in cages at the southern border? Those pictures were actually taken of children separated from their parents for the exact same reason during the Obama Administration!

Was there a similar uproar from Democrats and the media about those children being held in cages? Nope.

Trump – Russia Collusion During 2016 Election Cycle

More than two years and a reported $50 million later, we have a Special Counsel with a fleet of attorneys investigating around the clock and calendar to find that Russia collusion. None has surfaced.

Robert Mueller accepted the appointed as Special Counsel with specific orders to investigate the Trump Campaign for collusion and any other possible criminal matters that may arise from collusion investigations. Yes, there have been multiple indictments initiated by Mueller’s findings, but none having anything to do with Russian collusion.

Let’s face facts: we all know that there was NO collusion by the Trump Administration with the Russians. “If” there had been any such collusion, WE WOULD ALL KNOW ABOUT IT IN VIVID DETAIL BY NOW! In the “loose lips” and frenzied anti-Trump media turning over every rock to find anything negative about this President, any such wrongdoing would have been trumpeted (pun intended) throughout America, not to mention the world.

No collusion. NO COLLUSION!

But don’t ever think Democrat political elitists are going to do what they instructed the President to do again and again: “Shut up and let Robert Mueller do his job unimpeded. And, Mr. President, don’t you dare think about interfering in any way. The Congressional Boogy Man will get you if you do!”

No Russian collusion has been exposed. But what HAS been exposed is the real intention of the Democrat Party as led by Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) hinted that he would not accept the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller as the end of the investigation into President Donald Trump and Russia. Schiff and other House Democrats have hired new investigative staff and begun to leak to the public their plans to launch their own aggressive investigation in the President even if he is totally exonerated from any wrongdoing. Why is that?

THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HAS NOTHING TO RUN ON IN 2020 EXCEPT AGAINST DONALD TRUMP!

Without even any little tidbit to throw at Donald Trump in the 2020 campaign, they are justifiably horrified that he will serve a second term. And they certainly don’t care about any of the abundant in a number of achievements in the country under this President, many of which are historical achievements expected by very few.

Summary

“Same song, second verse.”

While most Americans watch their bank accounts, 401k’s, IRA’s, other retirement accounts rise like never before in history, they watch the unemployment rate for women, African Americans, Latinos, and young Americans fall to lowest in history levels.

Businesses numbered in dozens and dozens are expanding, raising employee wages, and re-patriating billions of dollars being held offshore for decades. DEMS DON’T CARE! In fact they are horrified at these Trump accomplishments.

Why? This doesn’t fit their Leftist political agenda. This wasn’t supposed to happen!

If Trump wins the White House for another term, the Democrat Party faces massive problems. They are frantic and have no other plan around which they can unify other than “Dump Trump.”

How’s That playing with Americans?  This month the Trump approval number in the non-partisan Rasmussen poll climbed above 50%.

In short, there certainly are things about this president that many would love to see changed. That is probably true about every past president, too. But what is certain to this journalist and more than half the nation is that Leftists in Congress, the Democrat Party, and especially in the Mainstream media are piling on Donald Trump with many allegations that are untrue.

Let’s watch as the frenzy called the Democrat Party unfolds with candidates jumping into the race get more and more radical, all the while sending Democrat voters straight into the Trump column.

The “Walkaway” campaign membership is growing everyday!

 

The National Emergency Act

February 4, 2019

It’s time to stop kidding ourselves: rank-and-file Democrats in Congress in large part “individually” feel physical barriers are needed across our southern border. It’s Democrat Congressional leaders who have made the decision to in no way allow through Congressional action the funding of a border wall. Why do you think they call it “Donald Trump’s wall?”

In their doing so, they are showing Americans that they really DON’T support border security in any way. Besides the stories documented and shared previously on TruthNewsNetwork, Democrat leaders stoically cling to their unwillingness to protect Americans from foreign intruders. Without real security and commitment to stop the horrors caused by millions of pounds of illegal drugs flooding across the border, the unknown numbers of unwanted criminals from Mexico and Central American countries that have already committed hundreds of thousands of criminal acts against legal Americans, and the hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to support illegals who are draining U.S. infrastructure, all of these atrocities will simply continue. 

Democrat leaders look at this international disaster myopically: they only see it in one way. Allowing the continued flow of illegals into our country perpetuates the life of the Democrat Party by bringing obligated “potential” Democrat voters into the U.S. Secondly, (and likely just as important as getting “new” voters in) keeping wall/barrier funding away from Donald Trump fulfills a campaign promise Dems made to their hard-left “constituents.” Their excuse? Trump wants it only because HE beat the “border wall drum” continuously during HIS presidential campaign. Many say it was the chief reason for which they voted from Trump.

This bi-partisan committee named to sit down and work out a southern border protection policy suitable to both parties has been revealed to be nothing but a sham. Even knowing the February 15th deadline to reach a negotiated agreement, this “Superstar” committee has met just one time. The bottom line: PELOSI AND SCHUMER HAVE NO INTENTION TO PUT EVEN ONE DOLLAR ON THE TABLE FOR SUCH A WALL OR STEEL BARRIER. They are perfectly comfortable to maintain the status quo on the border while untold thousands of innocents are summarily being brutalized at the hand of the criminal element numbered among the illegals. For Dems, this issue is certainly not about the safety of Americans. It is about one thing only: PREVENT PRESIDENT TRUMP GETTING ANY BORDER WALL OR FENCING WITH CONGRESSIONAL FUNDING…PERIOD.

Politicians — Democrats and Republicans alike — forget about the ability to recall promises made and promises broken: like Pelosi on negotiating with the President if he reopened the government.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she would not negotiate on funding for the southern border wall, going back on her promise to negotiate with President Donald Trump if he agreed to end the partial government shutdown.

“There’s not going to be any wall money in the legislation,” Pelosi told reporters on Jan. 31, reported The Associated Press.

Democrats for decades have cried loudly for the critical nature of and the People’s mandate to stop illegal immigration and Democrats wholehearted support for stopping illegals from getting in. Yet today, those same Dems cry just as loudly that building the same wall/barrier they previously were all-in for is immoral, wasteful, ineffective, unnecessary, and too costly.

 

Look and listen for yourself:

What Do We Do: Declare a National Emergency?

Some scholars of presidential emergency powers say there is next to nothing, at least procedurally, that Capitol Hill could do to stop Trump from exercising what lawmakers of all stripes agree is his right to declare a national emergency.

“Congress chose not to put any substantial — or really any — barriers on the president’s ability to declare a national emergency,” says Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program.

“So if he can really just sign his name to a piece of paper, whether it is a real emergency or not,” she adds, “that creates a state of emergency that gives him access to these special powers that are contained in more than 100 different provisions of law that Congress has passed over the years.”

Trump has already invoked national emergency powers on three occasions, adding to the 28 earlier national emergency measures that remain in effect.

Almost all of them, including those signed by Trump, was invoked to freeze foreign nationals’ assets in the U.S. The longest-standing decree dates to November 1979, when President Jimmy Carter froze Iran’s U.S.-held assets.

It requires not only that the president formally declares a national emergency but also that he or she cite the specific statutory authority the president sought to use. An emergency declaration would lapse after one year unless formally renewed by the president.

There is also a means for lawmakers to do away with a national emergency decree.

“The way that Congress set it up,” says Vladeck, “was that Congress could basically terminate any national emergency the president declared through a concurrent resolution — simply through majority votes of both houses, without the president’s approval.”

That veto-free arrangement, though, did not pass constitutional muster when it went before the Supreme Court in 1983.

Congress’ response was to revise the National Emergencies Act so that the termination of an emergency decree required a joint resolution signed by the president. If the president vetoes such a measure, a two-thirds majority vote in each chamber would be needed to override.

That fix effectively set the political bar considerably higher for reining in presidential national emergency declarations — that is, should Congress ever try to do that.

“Congress has never voted once in the last 40 years — since the National Emergencies Act has been in effect — to terminate a state of emergency,” says Goitein. “At no point either before the court’s decision or after has Congress ever attempted to exercise this check.”

That may be, at least in part, because lawmakers trusted the National Emergencies Act was being invoked in good faith. “The assumption is that presidents are going to be relatively responsible in using those authorities and resources,” says UT’s Vladeck, “and are not going to just create some kind of pretext to allow them to go through a back door when Congress is denying them the front door.”

Summary

Is it any wonder that the favorability rating by Americans of members of Congress for years has hovered around high single digits? One would think that if our elected representatives really cared about the public’s collective and individual opinions about their job performance, we’d do something about it. We really DO care, and we have only sparingly done something about it at the voting booth. Yet term after term, Americans send those U.S. Senators and House Representatives back to D.C. to keep on doing the same old things. In a way, this mess in D.C. (and their 7-10% favorability rating) is OUR fault: we keep voting them back into office!

They are not stupid: they read voter support and re-election of Congressional representatives and approval for what they do while there. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Here is the truth of the matter: Americans have become too busy, too preoccupied, too caught-up in “instant everything” to even notice. The internet, social media, instant this and instant that have created a generation of “Instant-everything” Americans.

The current generation literally wants NO responsibility, NO accountability, and NO commitments. Those apply to home and auto ownership, job titles and management slots because of personal and employee accountability and pressure required to be successful. And personal and social relationship commitments are long ago out the window.

“I want a great job with great pay, lots of paid-time-off, all-in job retirement benefits paid 100% by the employer, and nothing more than 9-5 work hours Monday through Friday, and certainly NO weekend commitments.”

How about “knowledge?”

They’re not interested in reading, investigating, time obligations and financial commitments are necessary to obtain knowledge. And if it’s not on the front page of their favorite internet news channel, Twitter, Instagram, or Snap Chat, forget about it! It ain’t happening.

All that is scary. But here’s the tragedy: Washington D.C. and its minions KNOW all this. It’s what perpetuates their consuming power for their own personal benefit at American taxpayer expense that comes with NO ACCOUNTABILITY! Voters just keep sending them back to D.C. to do the same selfish acts again and again — WITH NO PRICE TO PAY FOR THEIR SELFISH ACTS.

The irony of this is the “new” leftists in the Democrat Party have beat the Socialist drum louder and louder. “We want to make American government Socialist. Capitalism is evil. Capitalists are tools of Satan. We want to be like European and South American nations!”

And not one can tell you anything about the horrors Socialism wreaked on every one of those nations. Venezuela — once one of the richest countries on Earth because of its oil holdings — cannot even provide toilet paper to their citizens who have on average lost 30 pounds during the last year because of the unavailability to basic food.

The Democrat leftists want open borders, “Just like Europe.” They don’t read and their favorite leftist media site does not carry the true stories of immigrant horrors in those European countries — countries who all are currently desperately trying to find ways to not just stop further immigration, but to RETURN THOSE IMMIGRANTS TO THE COUNTRIES FROM WHICH THEY CAME! Rape, break-ins, murders, theft, armed robberies, assault of every type, are saturating European countries like The Netherlands, Germany, France, and Switzerland.

In the cases of these Leftists in America: “Ignorance is Bliss.” At least that’s what Democrat Party leaders promote so as to maintain their political might and power over these mind-numbed robots that refuse to find and embrace real truths.

I’ll close with this: the current U.S. President is terrifying to Democrat Party leaders and Establishment Republicans alike. Why? Because he refuses to play the political games as planned by those in both parties. He is unpredictable, totally driven by his commitments to Americans, and, most scary, he is undeterred by the constant threats from the left. They are not accustomed to someone in power from the opposite power not caving and not afraid. They have met their match in Donald Trump.

Let me put it simply and cut to the chase: Regardless of how dishonest, uncaring, politically deliberate and mean Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are, they have met their match.

With or without a declaration of a National Emergency, Donald Trump WILL build a southern border wall. It may be steel, it may be concrete, but probably both together. But you know what the REAL victory will be? Not that in doing so he wins a battle with the opposition. The only victory that matters is that for the American people: stopping illegal immigration and all that comes with it.

Isn’t that what we vote for and send people to Washington to do? Why should anyone be surprised when someone in D.C. actually does what they promised to do?

 

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Let’s Make a Deal

January 17, 2019

Donald Trump as an entrepreneur was famous as a great negotiator of business deals. Obviously, he has many wins in his long career. Yes, he had some losses as do ALL entrepreneurs. But his wins far outnumbered his losses.

Donald Trump as U.S. President has in just two years put together an impressive list of deals he has negotiated that far exceed most if not every one of his predecessor. The difference is that the current media seldom give him credit for those negotiated deals: tax cuts, unemployment numbers, GDP numbers, massive increase in federal revenue, historical achievements in success in keeping businesses from leaving the U.S. and attracting those who left to return, etc. I saw not a single mention of his signing a bill yesterday that because of his efforts reduced the cost of prescription medications for Americans.

To that end, there is a question in the air about the current partial shutdown of the federal government. Could Donald Trump — the “President” and “Deal-Maker-in-Chief” — have instigated the shutdown for a specific reason other than the obvious one and the one so necessary: to fund a southern border wall and the enhancement of border security? 

A “Theory”

Has President Trump suckered Democrats and the Deep State into a trap that will enable a radical downsizing of the federal bureaucracy?  In only five more days of the already “longest government shutdown in history” (25 days and counting, as of today), an obscure threshold will be reached, enabling permanent layoffs of bureaucrats furloughed 30 days or more.

Don’t believe me that federal bureaucrats can be laid off?  Well, in bureaucratese, a layoff is called a RIF – a Reduction in Force – and of course, it comes with a slew of civil service protections.  But, if the guidelines are followed, bureaucrats can be laid off – as in no more job.

A reduction in force is a thoughtful and systematic elimination of positions.  For all practical purposes, a government RIF is the same thing as a layoff. Organizations must stick to predetermined criteria when sorting out what happens to each employee. They must communicate with employees how and why decisions are made.

In deciding who stays and who goes, federal agencies must take four factors into account:

  1. Tenure
  2. Veteran status
  3. Total federal civilian and military service
  4. Performance

Agencies cannot use RIF procedures to fire bad employees.  A lot of procedures must be followed, and merit (“performance”) is the last consideration, but based on the criteria above, employees already furloughed can be laid off (“RIFed”) once they have been furloughed for 30 days or 22 work days:

  • When agencies furlough employees for more than 30 calendar days or 22 discontinuous work days, they must use RIF procedures.
  • An employee can be terminated or moved into an available position.

This seems to be what was referenced in this remarkable essay written by an “unidentified senior Trump official” published in the Daily Caller, which vouches for the authenticity of the author and explains that it is protecting him from adverse career consequences should the name become known. The purported senior official makes the case that devotion to “process” eats up most of the time of federal bureaucrats and is also used by enemies of President Trump’s initiatives to stymie the legitimate orders issued by his senior officials:

“On an average day, roughly 15 percent of the employees around me are exceptional patriots serving their country.  I wish I could give competitive salaries to them and no one else.  But 80 percent feel no pressure to produce results.  If they don’t feel like doing what they are told, they don’t.

Why would they?  We can’t fire them.  They avoid attention, plan their weekend, schedule vacation, their second job, their next position – some do this in the same position for more than a decade.

They do nothing that warrants punishment and nothing of external value.  That is their workday: errands for the sake of errands – administering, refining, following and collaborating on process.  “Process is your friend” is what delusional civil servants tell themselves.  Even senior officials must gain approval from every rank across their department, other agencies and work units for basic administrative chores.”

Then the senior official notes what I have just called the “trap:”

Most of my career colleagues actively work against the president’s agenda.  This means I typically spend about 15 percent of my time on the president’s agenda and 85 percent of my time trying to stop sabotage, and we have no power to get rid of them.  Until the shutdown.

Those officials who waste time and stymie the president’s initiatives now are not present because they are not categorized as “essential.” Due to the lack of funding, many federal agencies are now operating more effectively from the top down on a fraction of their workforce, with only select essential personnel serving national security tasks. …

President Trump can end this abuse. Senior officials can reprioritize during an extended shutdown, focus on valuable results and weed out the saboteurs. We do not want most employees to return, because we are working better without them.

Keep in mind that saboteurs cannot be individually identified and RIFed, but they can be included in the layoffs if they meet the criteria above in terms of seniority and service, and they must be given 60 days’ notice. But once they are gone, they are no longer free to obstruct using the “process” as their friend, because they are gone.

You can expect lawsuits on every conceivable point, and I suspect that the definition of “furlough” will be one matter of dispute.

If this was the plan all along, it would explain why President Trump goaded Chuck and Nancy in his televised meeting with them last year, boasting that he would claim credit for the shutdown.  How could they resist a prolonged shutdown when he made it so easy to blame him? President Trump has proven that he is a “disruptor” who changes the framework of thinking on major issues by refusing to accept the “givens” – the assumptions of how things always have been done and therefore always must be done.

So who is the “senior official?”  I don’t know, but I think Stephen Miller is the sort of bold thinker who might volunteer to telegraph the strategy just five days before the deadline.  Give Chuck and Nancy something to think about and probably reject as unthinkable.  Then they can’t complain that they weren’t warned once the trap is sprung.

Such a mass RIF would be the Trump version of Ronald Reagan firing the air traffic controllers when they went on an illegal strike in 1981.  That was completely unexpected by his enemies, vehemently criticized, and successful.

Among other benefits, it taught the leaders of the USSR that Ronald Reagan was a man whose threats cannot be dismissed as mere rhetoric.  If you think that Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, Angela Merkel, and any other foreign leaders would not draw the same conclusion from a massive RIF, then you are kidding yourself.

Summary

There is no doubt that this shut-down negatively impacts millions in the nation, including the 800,000 workers that have been forced to the sidelines. But the question remains: how many of those 800,000 really need to be employed by the People? No one knows yet the correct answer to that question. There are certainly many opinions on the matter just as on all other political issues. But many of those opinions are based not on any factual justification other than their being filled by working Americans. And the dilemma created “if” those positions were eliminated as illustrated above is simply the creation of unemployed workers.

The economics of that hypothetical is far-reaching and uncertain. As the examples above disclose, it was made it clear that far too many federal workers are not really workers, but have cush jobs with little necessity for existing other than to find ways to perpetuate their jobs and retirements at taxpayer expense. What would those people do if “RIF’d?”

There’s no real all-in-one solution that immediately comes to mind. We have seen in the past the chaos for workers that have been kicked to the curb when large companies close-up shop in the U.S. headed for tax-friendly, employer-friendly foreign countries. The fix would not be an easy one. And we far too often have watched the devastating impact rising unemployment numbers have made in this country. And that’s not even considering the horrors for those out-of-work employees and their families.

But wait a minute: didn’t the U.S. Department of Labor issue a report several weeks ago that stated there are far more jobs available across the nation than there are people to fill them? 6.9 million, to  be exact, as of January 9, 2019. Obviously, it would be ridiculous to say “None of those furloughed federal workers will have trouble finding a job: there are 6.9 million to choose from!” Considerations like job type and location of those empty jobs, employee qualifications, compensation packages, etc., would certainly prevent a simple “walkover” for these former 800,000 federal employees. But this highlights a systemic problem that has epidemically grown the federal government into what it is today: a giant bureaucratic monster that devours everything in site — especially taxpayer dollars!

These numbers further illustrate the picture that entrepreneurs “see” and use in their pursuit of building new businesses or finding existing businesses they turn into profitable enterprises. The fruit of those enterprises is more revenue than the costs to operate those businesses.

While in this conversation we need to be certain to not lose sight of the specific and stated reason for this partial shut-down: the refusal of Democrat members of the House of Representatives to consider and provide funding for the same enhanced border security measures that these same Democrat House members voted for multiple times under previous presidents.

To that end and in closing: why has no member of this “great” American media interviewed Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to ask this question: “Ms. Speaker and Mr. Minority Leader, why do you not support a southern border wall or barrier today when in previous Congressional sessions you each vocally supported and voted for bills that would have taken the exact same measures? Ms. Pelosi, why is the currently proposed border wall immoral when the border walls you previously voted for were mandatory for the safety of Americans?”

It’s sad enough that they have taken this position solely to prevent this President from achieving another objective to move the country forward in total disregard of the safety of Americans. To totally ignore the lives of the Americans they each swore an oath to protect is a blight on the Democrat Party and other Democrats in Congress. The statistics that show the hundreds of thousands of serious crimes at the hands of illegals and Democrat leadership refusing to implement safety measures to sto it solely for political purposes is reprehensible.

I wonder why the national media ignores their flip-flops and will not question Pelosi or Schumer in a national forum? CNN might gain enough viewers to sneak back on top of MSNBC. It would take at least a few hundred more!

 

Many thanks to Robert Lifton

 

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Impeachment Acts: President is Caught Red-Handed

January 7, 2019

In the impeachment noise in D.C., many thought the President was bulletproof and would never face impeachment. But facts have finally surfaced that prove that the President committed treasonous acts and definite obstruction of justice. For such acts, impeachment is a certainty. What you are about to read and hear are facts as verified by multiple sources, including government agency operatives and media insiders. This will certainly answer any questions you have. It will certainly anger some and give others a sense of relief.

What did he Do: The Facts

The President’s administration covertly derailed a campaign by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that targeted the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group in order to quietly protect the Iran nuclear accord, according to an investigative report.

According to the report, the campaign, called Project Cassandra, was launched after the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities. Their terrorist activities long suspected by previous administrations have been exposed and they are real.

Government agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations, and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.

Hezbollah conducted hundreds of terror attacks against Israeli forces during the 1980s and 1990s and was responsible for the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut which left 305 people dead, including 241 American servicemen.

In 2006 Hezbollah carried out an unprovoked attack on IDF forces inside Israeli territory, killing three soldiers, and taking two captives. The attack sparked a month-long war between Israel and the terror group, which pounded northern Israel with missiles, rockets and mortar fire.

Hezbollah has also demonstrated a global reach, aiding the perpetrators of the 1992 suicide bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina which killed 29 people, and is widely suspected of carrying out the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people.

Hezbollah also funneled weapons to Muslim militias in the Balkans during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and killed six people, including five Israelis, in a bombing attack in Bulgaria in 2012.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah has also operated inside Syria to strengthen the Assad regime, an ally of Iran.

After investigators amassed substantial evidence and sought approval for prosecution from the Justice Department and Treasury Department, those two agencies were unresponsive, the report said.

The Justice Department declined requests by Project Cassandra and other authorities to file criminal charges against major players such as Hezbollah’s high-profile envoy to Iran, a Lebanese bank that allegedly laundered billions in alleged drug profits, and a central player in a U.S.-based cell of the Iranian paramilitary Quds force. And the State Department rejected requests to lure high-value targets to countries where they could be arrested.

“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” said David Asher, an analyst for the Department of Defense specializing in illicit finance who helped set up and run Project Cassandra. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

Asher added that officials obstructed efforts to apprehend top Hezbollah operatives, including one of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s foremost weapons suppliers.

The President entered office promising to take and maintain stiff positions against Iran, saying his policies would inevitably improve relations with Muslim countries as part of a broader and “new” relationship.

One top counterintelligence official recommended that “the next president will have the opportunity to set a new course for relations between the two countries” through not only a direct dialogue but “greater assimilation of Hezbollah into Lebanon’s political system.”

Ex-Obama officials said they sought to improve relations with Iran as part of a broad strategy to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring a nuclear arsenal. Their efforts included the Iran nuclear accords.

“The world is a lot more complicated than viewed through the narrow lens of drug trafficking,” one former national security official said. “You’re not going to let CIA rule the roost, but you’re also certainly not going to let DEA do it either. Your approach to anything as complicated as Hezbollah is going to have to involve the interagency [process], because the State Department has a piece of the pie, the intelligence community does, Treasury does, DOD does.”

In a report, sources independent of Project Cassandra confirmed the allegations made by its team members.

In essence, this administration’s willingness to envision a new role for Hezbollah in the Middle East, combined with its desire for a negotiated settlement to Iran’s nuclear program, turned into a reluctance to move aggressively against the top Hezbollah operatives, according to Project Cassandra members and others.

A Treasury official in the administration, Katherine Bauer, who submitted classified testimony presented last February to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs acknowledging that “under the administration … these [Hezbollah-related] investigations were tamped down for fear of increasing the distrust Iran holds for the U.S.”

As a consequence, the report said that the U.S. government “lost insight” into not only Hezbollah’s drug trafficking operation, but other aspects of its vast criminal operations worldwide.

Project Cassandra had its origins in a series of investigations launched in the years after the 9/11 attacks (yes, that long ago) which all led, via their own twisted paths, to Hezbollah as a suspected global criminal enterprise.

As they pursued their investigations, the DEA agents found that Hezbollah was working urgently to raise cash, and lots of it, to rebuild its south Lebanon stronghold after a 2006 war against Israel had reduced it to rubble.

White House spokesman Kevin Lewis denied the allegations by officials from Project Cassandra.

“There has been a consistent pattern of actions taken against Hezbollah, both through tough sanctions and law enforcement actions before and after the Iran deal. This administration terminated the Iran deal.”

Summary

I know this is hard for most to believe. How could this exist so quietly?  Where has the media been in all this? With the current atmosphere of non-stop leaks everywhere in Washington, how could this horrific information about such corrupt acts committed by any administration not be trumpeted from the rooftops in every city in America?

Does this not blow the cover on the corruption that obviously permeates our government? Members of the Administration — the Department of Justice, the State Department, the CIA, and DEA — were all put on task for this job of breaking this $1 billion operation that trafficked weapons, drugs, and money laundering around the Globe, including in the U.S.!

Our president has spent much tv time promoting the horrors of the opioid crisis in the nation, how pervasive are drug deaths every week, and how he was aggressively tackling the drug prescription industry’s egregious practice of gouging the American public with their staggering drug prices. Apparently, his words have been a smokescreen.

Why would this multi-agency, well-coordinated operation be shut down exactly at the point where the indictments of seventeen high-ranking government officials from Iran, several countries in South America, and even some U.S. citizens were about to be issued? Answer: it has to be about dollars.

Most would say: “Presidents are all millionaires. Why would any U.S. President need more?” With the knowledge of the life “after” any presidency will live for life at the expense of U.S. taxpayers makes most Americans shocked that any president would instigate any such actions or allow them to happen on his/her watch. But it did happen. And apparently killing Project Cassandra at the time it was shut down made many in the administration — and apparently the President himself — a pocketful of money.

What could be left but impeachment? Certainly the President’s taking action to thwart a multi-million dollar investigation is an actual defining example of “high crimes and misdemeanors” — which is necessary Constitutionally to file articles of impeachment against a President in the House of Representatives and an impeachment trial of the President in the Senate.

That’s all that’s left here.

Now the “Real” Summary

Folks, this whole story really DID happen. Project Cassandra IS real. And Project Cassandra WAS terminated. And it WAS terminated with the intervention of the President and leaders in the Department of Justice. Dozens and dozens of those who were part of Cassandra for multiple federal agencies have come forward — some confidentially, some openly — and shared the details of the operations and how it was terminated by the Administration with no warning and no explanation other than that explanation given above.

There has been a concerted and presidential administration coordinated effort to keep this all quiet. It is obvious why: impeachment for this is inevitable.

To put the icing on this entire story, go back and read it or listen to the podcast from the top. Why?

None of this happened under President Trump. It all DID happen. But it happened under President Obama!

That’s correct. We did NOT hear or see anything about it. We didn’t hear or read anything about it from MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post or New York Times. We didn’t even hear about it from FOX News.

POLITICO did an amazing story chronicling the details. But even POLITICO doesn’t reach everyone. And apparently, no one picked up the story.

Think about this: our current Mainstream Media have a frequent practice of the way they give us “anonymous” source allegations against Trump and those from his administration and family. Their original version of a story NEVER gives sources, other than saying their sources were“anonymous and credible.” Then the other outlets pick up the story, beginning it by saying “We have credible sources that we have confirmed…..” You know who are those “credible” sources that confirmed the stories? THE OTHER MEDIA OUTLETS THAT REPORTED THEM! There are NO sources at all. The sources are made up and called “Anonymous!”

Know where we found our initial research details? In a small Israeli news outlet that credited POLITICO for the investigation and reporting. (At the end of this story, you will see the link to the POLITICO three-part revelation that when you have 30 minutes or so you need to read. It’s like a spy novel.)

Here’s the travesty in all this:

  1.  This all happened while President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were giving $100+ Billion to Iran.
  2. No criminal actions have been initiated against any of those implicated by the sworn testimony of many regarding the multiple illegal actions taken by many in our government.
  3. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions DID authorize the Trump DOJ to “take a look at Project Cassandra.” But to my knowledge, nothing resulted from that “look.”

I’ll close with this: what would be happening right now if Donald Trump or anyone in his administration had initiated, participated in, or allowed anything like this to happen? Realize this: thousands of Americans and citizens of other countries died because of the trafficked drugs and weapons that came out of shutdown of the Cassandra Project. Imagine where we’d be if this happened in the Trump Administration.

Sadly, everyone so far from the Obama Administration that committed illegal acts in this has not seen any retribution. And no one involved in Project Cassandra will likely pay any price for their actions.

Many if not all of Obama’s cabinet members and intelligence department heads knew about Cassandra, its details, and who was involved. Yet nothing was said or done. And, sadly, if anything ever comes of this regarding their prosecutions, I doubt any will say anything because of deals they have cut.

One more thing: Do you think we’d have heard about Project Cassandra if Hillary Clinton was our president today?

Sad narrative on the state of America, isn’t it?

 

Here’s the Link to the POLITICO three-part story:

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/

 

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