by John and Andy Schlafly
On Dec. 21, as President Trump prepared to leave Washington for Christmas at Mar-a-Lago, the White House released a list of “81 major accomplishments” during the President’s first year in office. A second list touted more than 100 other “minor achievements” in 2017.
His fulfillment of his campaign promise to roll back globalism is one of his crowning achievements of the year. Without exception, President Trump stood up against the incessant pressure by other countries against the United States.
An example of this occurred later the same day at the United Nations in New York. The UN General Assembly held an emergency session to condemn Trump’s decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, thereby walking into a trap that will come back to bite that dysfunctional body.
Some 128 UN member countries joined in the vote against this sovereign decision by the United States, while 35 countries abstained and 21 were absent. Only 9 countries (including the United States and Israel) voted against the resolution.
“The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out in this assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation,” said U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Voting against the United States were several of the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid such as Egypt, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ambassador Haley acted promptly to deliver on her promise of consequences. The U.S. Mission to the United Nations announced that next year’s UN budget would be slashed by over $285 million and warned that further reductions would also be made to the UN’s management and support functions.
“We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of,” Haley said in a statement, adding that the “inefficiency and overspending” of the organization is well-known. The timing of her statement sends a clear message.
For many years, Uncle Sap has been paying 22% of the body’s annual operating budget, costing us $1.2 billion in 2017-2018. We also pay 28.5% of the $6.8 billion annual cost of peacekeeping operations.
After the vote, Haley reminded the assembly that the U.S. was “by far the single largest contributor to the UN” and would remember the vote “when we are called upon to once again make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations, and we will remember it when so many countries come calling on us, as they so often do, to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.”
“I must also say today: when we make generous contributions to the UN, we also have expectation that we will be respected,” she said. “What’s more, we are being asked to pay for the dubious privileges of being disrespected.”
Haley added: “If our investment fails, we have an obligation to spend our investment in other ways … The United States will remember this day.”
Before the vote, the President Trump spoke at a White House cabinet meeting about the vote scheduled for the next day. “They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us,” he said. “Well, we’ll be watching those votes. Let them vote against us; we’ll save a lot. We don’t care.
“But this isn’t like it used to be, where they could vote against you, and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars and nobody knows what they’re doing. We’re not going to be taken advantage of any longer.”
Three weeks earlier, Haley announced that the Trump Administration had properly withdrawn from the UN Global Compact for Migration, which claims to be aimed at protecting the rights of refugees and migrants. Its real purpose is to give refugees and migrants the right to resettle in the countries of their choice (the United States and Europe) while fighting what is misnamed as xenophobia, racism, and discrimination towards refugees and migrants.
“No country has done more than the United States, and our generosity will continue,” Haley said in a statement. “But our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone.”
“We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter our country,” Haley continued. “The global approach is simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson explained that “we simply cannot in good faith support a process that could undermine the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders.” He stressed that it “is the primary responsibility of sovereign states to help ensure that migration is safe, orderly, and legal.”
As 2017 winds down, so does the century-long push for globalism. Thank you, President Trump!
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously last year. These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Dream on, Establishment
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
by John and Andy Schlafly
If money talks, the loudest noise in America would be an article published last Thursday entitled “Congress must act on the dreamers.” Legislation to protect the 690,000 illegal aliens known as Dreamers, the article insists, “is a political, economic and moral imperative.”
A movement is afoot either to slip this into a final 2017 bill when few are watching, or to make it a litmus test for candidates seeking to raise campaign cash for races next year.
“Delay is not an option,” the authors wrote, ignoring the backlog of unfinished business in Washington. “Congress must act before the end of the year.”
The op-ed was signed by Charles Koch, who shares a $97 billion fortune with his brother David. The Koch brothers are aligned with the “never Trump” Republicans who have undermined much of President Trump’s agenda.
Charles Koch is a businessman, and he likes to get his money’s-worth when he spends it. After striking out the past two years with their political agenda, the Koch network of mega-donors could be making support of DACA a litmus test for Republican primary candidates in the 2018 election cycle.
Republican candidates would be wise to decline, just as candidate Trump declined support by the Koch network last year, and won anyway on a platform of opposing illegal immigration.
Koch was joined by co-author Tim Cook, who succeeded the late Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple. Cook supports many liberal causes, and was criticized by candidate Trump for how Apple would not cooperate in unlocking the iPhone of a terrorist who went on the killing rampage in San Bernardino about two years ago.
Cook’s corporate practices at Apple hardly commend him to lecture about what is best for America. Apple stashes hundreds of billions of dollars – that’s billions, not millions – of its profits overseas in order to avoid paying taxes in the United States, and thereby avoid investing it in American workers here.
Moreover, Apple’s claim of employing a few hundred Dreamers – far less than 1% of its workforce – in mostly low-skill jobs would not ordinarily attract the attention of a CEO. But Cook and Koch are not just in favor of entitlements for hundreds of thousands of Dreamers, but also for many millions of other illegal aliens.
Cook and Koch declare in supporting DACA, “If ever there were an occasion to come together to help people improve their lives, this is it.” But where is the compassion for helping Americans improve their lives, which ending benefits for illegal aliens would do?
Senator Jeff Flake was a frequent attendee at the Koch conferences of donors, and he has remained anti-Trump to this day. All that got him was a disapproval rating so high in his home state of Arizona that he resigned at a young age rather than even try for reelection.
Now Senator Flake is leading a group of other anti-Trump senators, including Lindsey Graham (R-SC), to try to forge a deal with Democrats to protect these illegal aliens.
The day after the Koch-Cook article appeared in the Washington Post, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a report throwing cold water on the bum’s rush to protect the Dreamers. The CBO estimates that legalizing Dreamers would cost taxpayers $25.9 billion over the next decade.
The CBO explains why the costs of Dreamers would far exceed any benefit that Americans would ever see. Once legalized, the Dreamers would become eligible for the full array of benefits for the working poor including Obamacare, Medicaid, food stamps, and much more.
Dreamers would consume more benefits and pay less taxes than the average American because their skills and education are so much lower. Even though most Dreamers are now in their twenties or thirties, for example, more than half of them never finished high school.
Part of the skills gap is because Dreamers were never required to demonstrate English fluency, and many are functionally illiterate. Of those who signed up for DACA, many required the help of a translator to fill out the form.
The CBO estimates the cost of all those federal benefits at $27 billion over 10 years, while only $1 billion of new tax revenue would be generated from Dreamers moving “out of the shadows” to regular employment. Combining those two amounts produces a net cost of $26 billion.
Even in Washington, where the federal budget is measured in trillions, $26 billion is real money. And that number almost surely understates the true cost by a wide margin.
Democrats are acutely aware of the value of $26 billion, whether or not they are willing to admit it where the Dreamers are concerned. Trump's border wall, which Democrats consider exorbitantly expensive, would cost only $21.6 billion according to a study conducted by the Department of Homeland Security in February of this year.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously last year. These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
by John and Andy Schlafly
If money talks, the loudest noise in America would be an article published last Thursday entitled “Congress must act on the dreamers.” Legislation to protect the 690,000 illegal aliens known as Dreamers, the article insists, “is a political, economic and moral imperative.”
A movement is afoot either to slip this into a final 2017 bill when few are watching, or to make it a litmus test for candidates seeking to raise campaign cash for races next year.
“Delay is not an option,” the authors wrote, ignoring the backlog of unfinished business in Washington. “Congress must act before the end of the year.”
The op-ed was signed by Charles Koch, who shares a $97 billion fortune with his brother David. The Koch brothers are aligned with the “never Trump” Republicans who have undermined much of President Trump’s agenda.
Charles Koch is a businessman, and he likes to get his money’s-worth when he spends it. After striking out the past two years with their political agenda, the Koch network of mega-donors could be making support of DACA a litmus test for Republican primary candidates in the 2018 election cycle.
Republican candidates would be wise to decline, just as candidate Trump declined support by the Koch network last year, and won anyway on a platform of opposing illegal immigration.
Koch was joined by co-author Tim Cook, who succeeded the late Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple. Cook supports many liberal causes, and was criticized by candidate Trump for how Apple would not cooperate in unlocking the iPhone of a terrorist who went on the killing rampage in San Bernardino about two years ago.
Cook’s corporate practices at Apple hardly commend him to lecture about what is best for America. Apple stashes hundreds of billions of dollars – that’s billions, not millions – of its profits overseas in order to avoid paying taxes in the United States, and thereby avoid investing it in American workers here.
Moreover, Apple’s claim of employing a few hundred Dreamers – far less than 1% of its workforce – in mostly low-skill jobs would not ordinarily attract the attention of a CEO. But Cook and Koch are not just in favor of entitlements for hundreds of thousands of Dreamers, but also for many millions of other illegal aliens.
Cook and Koch declare in supporting DACA, “If ever there were an occasion to come together to help people improve their lives, this is it.” But where is the compassion for helping Americans improve their lives, which ending benefits for illegal aliens would do?
Senator Jeff Flake was a frequent attendee at the Koch conferences of donors, and he has remained anti-Trump to this day. All that got him was a disapproval rating so high in his home state of Arizona that he resigned at a young age rather than even try for reelection.
Now Senator Flake is leading a group of other anti-Trump senators, including Lindsey Graham (R-SC), to try to forge a deal with Democrats to protect these illegal aliens.
The day after the Koch-Cook article appeared in the Washington Post, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a report throwing cold water on the bum’s rush to protect the Dreamers. The CBO estimates that legalizing Dreamers would cost taxpayers $25.9 billion over the next decade.
The CBO explains why the costs of Dreamers would far exceed any benefit that Americans would ever see. Once legalized, the Dreamers would become eligible for the full array of benefits for the working poor including Obamacare, Medicaid, food stamps, and much more.
Dreamers would consume more benefits and pay less taxes than the average American because their skills and education are so much lower. Even though most Dreamers are now in their twenties or thirties, for example, more than half of them never finished high school.
Part of the skills gap is because Dreamers were never required to demonstrate English fluency, and many are functionally illiterate. Of those who signed up for DACA, many required the help of a translator to fill out the form.
The CBO estimates the cost of all those federal benefits at $27 billion over 10 years, while only $1 billion of new tax revenue would be generated from Dreamers moving “out of the shadows” to regular employment. Combining those two amounts produces a net cost of $26 billion.
Even in Washington, where the federal budget is measured in trillions, $26 billion is real money. And that number almost surely understates the true cost by a wide margin.
Democrats are acutely aware of the value of $26 billion, whether or not they are willing to admit it where the Dreamers are concerned. Trump's border wall, which Democrats consider exorbitantly expensive, would cost only $21.6 billion according to a study conducted by the Department of Homeland Security in February of this year.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously last year. These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
Monday, December 18, 2017
Daubert standard is not current law
The Bezos Wash. Post attacks a Trump nominee:
But a clip of one of President Trump’s federal judicial nominees struggling to answer rudimentary questions about the law garnered well more than 1 million views in a matter of hours on Thursday night and stoked speculation that another of the president’s nominations might get derailed. ...This is amusing, but the Daubert standard is not used in federal courts today, and there is no reason for a federal judge to know what it is. It was used from 1975 to 2000, and was defined:
“As a trial judge, you’re obviously going to have witnesses. Can you tell me what the ‘Daubert standard’ is,” the senator asked, referring to a critical and well-known rule on using expert testimony in federal court.
“I don’t have that readily at my disposal,” Petersen said. “But I would be happy to take a closer look at that. That is not something that I had to —” ...
When video of the interrogation made its way online, several high profile law professors tweeted their surprise.
“Don’t want to beat up on the guy but the questions he was being asked could be answered by a second year law student,” wrote Aderson Francois, a professor at Georgetown Law. “Even if you know zero about evidence the one doctrine every law student knows is Daubert because it’s a very famous case about standard to admit expert testimony.”
Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, said it was unreasonable to expect Petersen to have recently studied the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a lengthy and complex document. “But,” Kreis added, “if you have little or no trial experience, I’d hope you could speak a little bit about the law with some degree of sophistication. Daubert is pretty basic.”
If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise.The current rule is:
RULE 702. TESTIMONY BY EXPERT WITNESSESAs you can see, the current rule goes beyond Daubert by requiring sufficient data and reliable methods.
A witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or otherwise if:
(a) The expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue;
(b) The testimony is based on sufficient facts or data;
(c) The testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and
(d) The expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Amid More Terrorism, Question Diversity
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
by John and Andy Schlafly
“There have now been two terrorist attacks in New York City in recent weeks carried out by foreign nationals here on green cards,” President Trump told an impromptu news conference on Tuesday. “The first attacker came through the visa lottery and the second through chain migration.
“We're going to end both of them – the lottery system and chain migration,” the president declared. “We’re going to end them – fast.”
The first terrorist attack occurred six weeks ago, on Halloween, when Sayfullo Saipov, a Muslim immigrant from Uzbekistan, drove a rented truck through a crowd of pedestrians and cyclists, killing 8 and injuring 12. Saipov had sworn allegiance to ISIS and reportedly asked to display the ISIS flag in his hospital room where he was recovering from a gunshot wound.
Saipov came to the United States in 2010 after winning the annual lottery for 50,000 visas which our government foolishly grants to people from the most diverse countries, defined as those that sent fewer than 50,000 immigrants to the United States during the previous five years. Over a million people without skills have received one of these so-called diversity visas since the program began, and the average recipient brings three relatives to settle here permanently.
In the latest attack Monday morning, Akayed Ullah, a Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh, set off a pipe bomb in the crowded tunnel that links Times Square to the nation’s busiest bus terminal, which serves over 200,000 passengers each weekday. Ullah reportedly told police that he chose that location partly because he was triggered by nearby Christmas posters.
Ullah came to the United States in 2011 after qualifying for an F43 visa as the child of a sibling of a U.S. citizen (his uncle) through what’s called “extended family chain migration.” He was one of 141,501 immigrants who have entered the U.S. from Bangladesh through chain migration since 2005, an astounding number equal to the population of Dayton, Ohio.
The same day the President vowed to end the visa lottery and chain migration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the men who committed the two New York attacks were in the United States “as a result of failed immigration policies.” As Sessions explained, this “20-year-old son of the sister of a U.S. citizen should not get priority to come to this country ahead of someone who is high-skilled, well educated, has learned English, and is likely to assimilate and flourish here.”
President Trump points out that the United States “must fix its lax immigration system, which allows far too many dangerous, inadequately vetted people” into our country. Trump was elected president in large part because Americans applauded the strength of his commitment to put Americans first and protect our borders against politically correct notions of multiculturalism and diversity.
Congressman Steve King recently echoed an observation made by the prime minister of Hungary that diversity can lead to a lower quality of life, not a higher one. What is needed is not diversity as much as assimilation, in order to remain a secure and prosperous nation.
“Assimilation has become a dirty word to the multiculturalist Left,” King wisely observed. “Assimilation, not diversity, is our American strength."
Supporters of diversity insist that immigrant terrorists became radicalized after they arrived in the United States. Even if true, that’s all the more reason to oppose such immigrants because they are not assimilating themselves into our society, and instead are trying to destroy it.
The Boston Marathon bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, is cited as an example of someone who supposedly became a terrorist after coming to America, but Tsarnaev was probably trained by his trip to the Chechen region of Russia in 2012. He was then allowed back into the United States despite his highly suspicious stay abroad, and the House Homeland Security Committee Chairman, Michael McCaul, expressed dismay at why the FBI did not pick up on this.
Akayed Ullah repeatedly traveled to Bangladesh in recent months before initiating his attack here. Is this the same mistake, which was made in letting Tsarnaev back in after a suspicious trip abroad, being made again and again?
One of the first executive orders by President Trump was to issue his so-called travel ban to restrict immigration from certain countries associated with terrorism. Liberals then filed multiple lawsuits to block his Executive Order from going into effect.
On December 4th the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that President Trump’s modified travel ban can be enforced while liberals challenge it in lower courts. It took nearly all of 2017 for the courts to allow the ban that President Trump first issued back in January to be enforced in a revised form, but better late than never.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously last year. These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
by John and Andy Schlafly
“There have now been two terrorist attacks in New York City in recent weeks carried out by foreign nationals here on green cards,” President Trump told an impromptu news conference on Tuesday. “The first attacker came through the visa lottery and the second through chain migration.
“We're going to end both of them – the lottery system and chain migration,” the president declared. “We’re going to end them – fast.”
The first terrorist attack occurred six weeks ago, on Halloween, when Sayfullo Saipov, a Muslim immigrant from Uzbekistan, drove a rented truck through a crowd of pedestrians and cyclists, killing 8 and injuring 12. Saipov had sworn allegiance to ISIS and reportedly asked to display the ISIS flag in his hospital room where he was recovering from a gunshot wound.
Saipov came to the United States in 2010 after winning the annual lottery for 50,000 visas which our government foolishly grants to people from the most diverse countries, defined as those that sent fewer than 50,000 immigrants to the United States during the previous five years. Over a million people without skills have received one of these so-called diversity visas since the program began, and the average recipient brings three relatives to settle here permanently.
In the latest attack Monday morning, Akayed Ullah, a Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh, set off a pipe bomb in the crowded tunnel that links Times Square to the nation’s busiest bus terminal, which serves over 200,000 passengers each weekday. Ullah reportedly told police that he chose that location partly because he was triggered by nearby Christmas posters.
Ullah came to the United States in 2011 after qualifying for an F43 visa as the child of a sibling of a U.S. citizen (his uncle) through what’s called “extended family chain migration.” He was one of 141,501 immigrants who have entered the U.S. from Bangladesh through chain migration since 2005, an astounding number equal to the population of Dayton, Ohio.
The same day the President vowed to end the visa lottery and chain migration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the men who committed the two New York attacks were in the United States “as a result of failed immigration policies.” As Sessions explained, this “20-year-old son of the sister of a U.S. citizen should not get priority to come to this country ahead of someone who is high-skilled, well educated, has learned English, and is likely to assimilate and flourish here.”
President Trump points out that the United States “must fix its lax immigration system, which allows far too many dangerous, inadequately vetted people” into our country. Trump was elected president in large part because Americans applauded the strength of his commitment to put Americans first and protect our borders against politically correct notions of multiculturalism and diversity.
Congressman Steve King recently echoed an observation made by the prime minister of Hungary that diversity can lead to a lower quality of life, not a higher one. What is needed is not diversity as much as assimilation, in order to remain a secure and prosperous nation.
“Assimilation has become a dirty word to the multiculturalist Left,” King wisely observed. “Assimilation, not diversity, is our American strength."
Supporters of diversity insist that immigrant terrorists became radicalized after they arrived in the United States. Even if true, that’s all the more reason to oppose such immigrants because they are not assimilating themselves into our society, and instead are trying to destroy it.
The Boston Marathon bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, is cited as an example of someone who supposedly became a terrorist after coming to America, but Tsarnaev was probably trained by his trip to the Chechen region of Russia in 2012. He was then allowed back into the United States despite his highly suspicious stay abroad, and the House Homeland Security Committee Chairman, Michael McCaul, expressed dismay at why the FBI did not pick up on this.
Akayed Ullah repeatedly traveled to Bangladesh in recent months before initiating his attack here. Is this the same mistake, which was made in letting Tsarnaev back in after a suspicious trip abroad, being made again and again?
One of the first executive orders by President Trump was to issue his so-called travel ban to restrict immigration from certain countries associated with terrorism. Liberals then filed multiple lawsuits to block his Executive Order from going into effect.
On December 4th the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that President Trump’s modified travel ban can be enforced while liberals challenge it in lower courts. It took nearly all of 2017 for the courts to allow the ban that President Trump first issued back in January to be enforced in a revised form, but better late than never.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously last year. These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
Monday, December 11, 2017
Summarizing the Russian story
The NY Times keeps reminding us about the silly Russian story that is supposedly going to be used to impeach Trump.
The "massive cyberattack" consisted mainly of broadcasts on RT television that decried American capitalism in general, and Clinton in particular.
None of the agencies said that the Russian interfered with the election. The reports have no allegations that any votes were changed or influenced as a result of Russian activities.
The "pushing false information" refers to opinion broadcasts on RT TV. There is a lot of legitimate news on RT. Sure, there is some bias, but I am not sure that there is any more bias than there is for Hillary Clinton on MSNBC and CNN.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is known to hate Hillary Clinton for reasons that have nothing to do with Trump. Apparently Clinton once suggested having Assange killed. Assange denies that he got the leaks from the Russians, and denies that he was trying to elect Trump.
The accusation here is that Trump was worried that Comey would screw up the Russian investigation in the same way that everyone agrees that he screwed up the Clinton email investigation.
The President's main job is to make sure that competent men are running the federal agencies. It was Trump's duty to consider what Comey might do, and to fire him if there are sufficient doubts about the job he will do.
The NY Times hates Trump, and presents this story in a way to make him look as bad as possible.
Confused by all the news about Russia and the 2016 presidential election? We are here to help.It is all a big nothing burger, but read it yourself.
By KAREN YOURISH DEC. 10, 2017
What Is the ‘Russia Story’?
Russia’s use of cyberattacks to interfere in the 2016 presidential electionNot exactly. Two agencies said that the Russians were probably trying to help Trump. One agency thought that the Russians were trying to undermine the coming Clinton presidency, and did not expect Trump to win. They all very explicitly said that they were not certain about those conclusions.
In late 2016, top United States intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government directed a massive cyberattack aimed at denying Hillary Clinton the presidency and putting Donald J. Trump in the White House.
The "massive cyberattack" consisted mainly of broadcasts on RT television that decried American capitalism in general, and Clinton in particular.
None of the agencies said that the Russian interfered with the election. The reports have no allegations that any votes were changed or influenced as a result of Russian activities.
This broad campaign included hacking and leaking Democratic emails, pushing false information on Russian media outlets, ...Wikileaks published hacked emails, but there is no proof that the Russian govt had anything to do with it. The DNC refused to let the agencies inspect their servers for evidence. Podesta apparently got phished by someone in Eastern Europe, but there is no known link to the Russian govt. The DNC president and many others believe that the DNC leak was an inside job by Seth Rich, and not related to the Russians.
The "pushing false information" refers to opinion broadcasts on RT TV. There is a lot of legitimate news on RT. Sure, there is some bias, but I am not sure that there is any more bias than there is for Hillary Clinton on MSNBC and CNN.
It was also recently revealed that Donald Trump Jr. exchanged private messages on Twitter with WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy group that published Democratic emails stolen by Russian hackers.So? Is there something wrong with that? I am sure the NY Times and a lot of others had private communications with WikiLeaks. Even if Donald Jr. asked WikiLeaks to publish info embarrassing to Clinton, I don't see anything wrong with that.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is known to hate Hillary Clinton for reasons that have nothing to do with Trump. Apparently Clinton once suggested having Assange killed. Assange denies that he got the leaks from the Russians, and denies that he was trying to elect Trump.
Here are some of the ways Mr. Trump may have interfered in the continuing criminal and congressional investigations, according to ethics and legal experts.Are you kidding? Trump probably thought about all the things that Comey was involved in. It is Trump's constitutional responsibility to consider everything that makes Comey fit or not fit for the job.
• Mr. Trump admitted that he had been thinking about the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible coordination by Trump campaign associates when he fired the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey.
The accusation here is that Trump was worried that Comey would screw up the Russian investigation in the same way that everyone agrees that he screwed up the Clinton email investigation.
The President's main job is to make sure that competent men are running the federal agencies. It was Trump's duty to consider what Comey might do, and to fire him if there are sufficient doubts about the job he will do.
The NY Times hates Trump, and presents this story in a way to make him look as bad as possible.
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Trump Should Take Control of DOJ
The Phyllis Schlafly Report
by John and Andy Schlafly
Robert Mueller’s ongoing “investigation” of Trump supporters is the only part of government that has no budgetary constraints and no real accountability. Its lack of proper oversight resulted in a political opponent of Trump, FBI agent Peter Strzok, apparently leading the biased questioning of Lieutenant General Michael Flynn that caused his downfall.
The partisan agent has since been reportedly removed from the Mueller investigation, but not until after the injustice occurred. The right to an impartial investigator is fundamental to our legal system, and Gen. Flynn was unjustly deprived of it.
“When the FBI first learned of the allegations, the employees involved were immediately reassigned, consistent with practices involving employee matters,” the FBI declared. But the flaw is that there has been no proactive oversight of Mueller’s out-of-control investigation, and no meaningful steps taken to ensure that bias does not taint the process.
As Trump properly tweeted, “Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI ‘agent’s role in Clinton probe under review.’ Led Clinton Email probe.”
We have three branches of government, and the Department of Justice is part of the Executive Branch. Yet President Trump has been misled by his advisers to believe that he cannot supervise his own department or fire employees who fail to ensure impartiality in the investigations.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday the Justice Department released the shocking report that Mueller blew through $6.7 million in merely the first four-and-a-half months of his investigation, which exceeds more than $1 million per month. At that rate his runaway witch-hunt has already wasted more than $10 million in taxpayer money, with no end in sight.
General Flynn, who spent most of his life serving our country, could not possibly withstand an expenditure of so much money against him. Facing bankruptcy if he did not agree to a plea bargain, he had little choice to stop the hemorrhaging of legal fees in order to save his family from complete financial disaster.
Before long, the cost of Mueller’s searching for crimes done by Trump supporters will exceed the entire budget for the United States Attorney’s office in many states. The Department of Justice gives more money to Mueller’s unsupervised investigations than it does to prosecuting dangerous illegal aliens in many parts of the country.
Hire 17 prosecutors and give them a blank check for funding, as the DOJ has done for Mueller, and numerous injustices will inevitably follow. On Tuesday there was a report, denied by a Trump attorney, that Mueller’s prosecutors have even issued a subpoena on Deutsche Bank to provide highly confidential banking information about President Trump and his family.
At this point, Trump’s own advisers may be too terrified of the out-of-control prosecutors to give him candid advice. Congressmen are probably petrified about retaliation if they were to say anything critical of this.
But President Trump can and should take the decisive action that he is known for in other areas. For starters, he should impose a reasonable limit on expenditures by Mueller’s growing army of 17 lawyers.
In Texas, for example, the average cost of investigating and prosecuting a death penalty case is $2.3 million. That should be more than adequate for the task of looking into whether there was any illegal contact with Russians during the 2016 election, in which nobody died.
But Mueller has already burned through more than three times that amount. In the spirit of the Christmas season, Trump should cap the taxpayer expense at ten times the cost of a death penalty case, or $23 million.
In addition, Trump should fire those who are failing to properly supervise the Mueller investigation. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should be politically accountable for everything that Mueller does, and when there is a lack of oversight on his overreaching, then Mr. Rosenstein should be fired.
Use of an anti-Trump FBI agent to interrogate key witnesses is an example of something that should never have been allowed in the first place, and for which a supervisor should be fired. Issuing subpoenas on a private bank for the highly personal banking information of Trump and his family members is another basis for firing the supervisor who allows it.
Congress properly rejected the concept of an “independent prosecutor” nearly two decades ago, and Justice Antonin Scalia wrote against it as being unconstitutional. Similarly, the advice that President Trump has been receiving that the Department of Justice must somehow be independent is contrary to our Constitution.
Phyllis Schlafly felt an incoming president should take control of all of the Executive Branch to ensure loyalty to his mandate. It is long overdue for Trump to invoke Harry Truman to say “the buck stops here,” and stop the injustices coming out of his Department of Justice.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously last year. These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
by John and Andy Schlafly
Robert Mueller’s ongoing “investigation” of Trump supporters is the only part of government that has no budgetary constraints and no real accountability. Its lack of proper oversight resulted in a political opponent of Trump, FBI agent Peter Strzok, apparently leading the biased questioning of Lieutenant General Michael Flynn that caused his downfall.
The partisan agent has since been reportedly removed from the Mueller investigation, but not until after the injustice occurred. The right to an impartial investigator is fundamental to our legal system, and Gen. Flynn was unjustly deprived of it.
“When the FBI first learned of the allegations, the employees involved were immediately reassigned, consistent with practices involving employee matters,” the FBI declared. But the flaw is that there has been no proactive oversight of Mueller’s out-of-control investigation, and no meaningful steps taken to ensure that bias does not taint the process.
As Trump properly tweeted, “Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI ‘agent’s role in Clinton probe under review.’ Led Clinton Email probe.”
We have three branches of government, and the Department of Justice is part of the Executive Branch. Yet President Trump has been misled by his advisers to believe that he cannot supervise his own department or fire employees who fail to ensure impartiality in the investigations.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday the Justice Department released the shocking report that Mueller blew through $6.7 million in merely the first four-and-a-half months of his investigation, which exceeds more than $1 million per month. At that rate his runaway witch-hunt has already wasted more than $10 million in taxpayer money, with no end in sight.
General Flynn, who spent most of his life serving our country, could not possibly withstand an expenditure of so much money against him. Facing bankruptcy if he did not agree to a plea bargain, he had little choice to stop the hemorrhaging of legal fees in order to save his family from complete financial disaster.
Before long, the cost of Mueller’s searching for crimes done by Trump supporters will exceed the entire budget for the United States Attorney’s office in many states. The Department of Justice gives more money to Mueller’s unsupervised investigations than it does to prosecuting dangerous illegal aliens in many parts of the country.
Hire 17 prosecutors and give them a blank check for funding, as the DOJ has done for Mueller, and numerous injustices will inevitably follow. On Tuesday there was a report, denied by a Trump attorney, that Mueller’s prosecutors have even issued a subpoena on Deutsche Bank to provide highly confidential banking information about President Trump and his family.
At this point, Trump’s own advisers may be too terrified of the out-of-control prosecutors to give him candid advice. Congressmen are probably petrified about retaliation if they were to say anything critical of this.
But President Trump can and should take the decisive action that he is known for in other areas. For starters, he should impose a reasonable limit on expenditures by Mueller’s growing army of 17 lawyers.
In Texas, for example, the average cost of investigating and prosecuting a death penalty case is $2.3 million. That should be more than adequate for the task of looking into whether there was any illegal contact with Russians during the 2016 election, in which nobody died.
But Mueller has already burned through more than three times that amount. In the spirit of the Christmas season, Trump should cap the taxpayer expense at ten times the cost of a death penalty case, or $23 million.
In addition, Trump should fire those who are failing to properly supervise the Mueller investigation. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should be politically accountable for everything that Mueller does, and when there is a lack of oversight on his overreaching, then Mr. Rosenstein should be fired.
Use of an anti-Trump FBI agent to interrogate key witnesses is an example of something that should never have been allowed in the first place, and for which a supervisor should be fired. Issuing subpoenas on a private bank for the highly personal banking information of Trump and his family members is another basis for firing the supervisor who allows it.
Congress properly rejected the concept of an “independent prosecutor” nearly two decades ago, and Justice Antonin Scalia wrote against it as being unconstitutional. Similarly, the advice that President Trump has been receiving that the Department of Justice must somehow be independent is contrary to our Constitution.
Phyllis Schlafly felt an incoming president should take control of all of the Executive Branch to ensure loyalty to his mandate. It is long overdue for Trump to invoke Harry Truman to say “the buck stops here,” and stop the injustices coming out of his Department of Justice.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously last year. These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.
Monday, December 4, 2017
Billy Bush explains the tape
Billy Bush finally explains his famous Trump tape:
And we laughed along, without a single doubt that this was hypothetical hot air from America’s highest-rated bloviator. Along with Donald Trump and me, there were seven other guys present on the bus at the time, and every single one of us assumed we were listening to a crass standup act. He was performing. Surely, we thought, none of this was real.It was amazing how many people took this old comedy routine as if it were some sort of admission of guilt.
Friday, December 1, 2017
Immigration graph
Here is an excellent graphical representation of the history of American immigration. It shows the countries of origin.
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