Using The Government To Intimidate Those With Differing Views

Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today about Michael Caputo. Michael Caputo is an ordinary citizen who worked on the Trump presidential campaign. On Tuesday, he appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee and gave his testimony. Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is chilling to anyone who believes that Americans should be free to volunteer for any candidate’s campaign they choose without facing enormous negative consequences.

The article reports on Michael Caputo’s interview with Tucker Carlson These are some quotes from that interview:

“They’re still looking at Russian collusion, still looking for it…In my mind, if anybody thinks that Russia collusion is off the table, they haven’t visited with the Mueller team.”

 “They know more about the Trump campaign than anybody that worked there and they know more about what I did in 2016 than I do myself.”

” What are they looking at? “I don’t want to interfere with the investigation. I was warned about that.”

“Did he construe that as a threat? “I’m not going to be friending them today on Facebook, if that’s what you’re asking.”

 “It’s not nice but it’s nothing compared to the $125,000 in legal bills that I’ve stacked up for nothing.”

 “What’s happening to me and my family is happening to many other people in this investigation and I’m just a witness. I can’t imagine if somebody’s a subject or a target what they’re going to go through.”

This is the statement from the interview that I find chilling:

“I certainly didn’t sign up for this when I went to work for the Trump campaign and I will never, ever work on another Republican campaign for as long as I live…and I think that’s part of this, Tucker. This is a punishment strategy. I think they want to destroy the president, they want to destroy his family, they want to destroy his businesses, they want to destroy his friends so that no billionaire, say, in 15 years wakes up and tells his wife, you know what, they country’s broken and only I can fix it….His wife will say, ‘are you crazy Did you see what happened to Donald Trump?’ That’s what this is about.”

Mr. Caputo explains that he thinks this is the Democrat’s new strategy–intimidate people who work on Republican campaigns so that no one will be willing to work on them.

Mr. Caputo concludes:

“I think the president should not go anywhere near this [Mueller team]. I think in a lot of ways it’s a trap. I think the president is clear on potential Russian collusion. I think the campaign is in the clear. In the end if they want to get the president, they’re going to try to trip him up in an interview like this and my advice, after being through it, is stay away.”

 “I have a lot of respect for Director Mueller. When this thing first started I had some faith that it was going to be done fairly. I’m not so sanguine about it anymore.”

 “I’m very confident there was no Russian collusion. I’m very confident that the president is in the clear here. I’m very confident that in the end they’re going to find the holes that they’re digging to be empty, but they are digging and they’re going to continue to dig.”

It is long past time to send Mr. Mueller packing. There was no Russian collusion on the part of the Republicans, and he is obviously not interested in the Russian involvement in the GPS Fusion dossier that the Democrats put together. There is no way this can be considered a fair or legitimate investigation.


Amazing Scientific Commentary

The following comments are from an article in The New Yorker from January 30, 2017. Unfortunately the article is still extremely relevant.

The article reports:

Calling it a “medical mystery of the first order,” scientists are baffled by the ability of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan to stand upright without the benefit of spines.

Doctors at the University of Minnesota Medical School, who have been studying the skeletal structures of both Republicans for months, believe that their ability to stand, walk, and even break into a brisk trot when confronted by reporters’ questions is “virtually inexplicable.”

“The fact that they can do these things without the aid of spines makes McConnell and Ryan anomalies in the animal kingdom,” said Dr. Davis Logsdon. “According to everything medical science teaches us, their bodies should be collapsing to the ground in two heaps.”

…Logsdon said that the anatomies of McConnell and Ryan require further study, and that there was growing public support for both men to be dissected.

There is nothing I can add to this!

I Would Rather See The Government Shut Down Than See The Current Budget Bill Pass

I would like to remind Republicans that they were sent to Washington to shrink the size of government and reduce spending. If they choose not to do that, I will gladly vote to replace them with people who will. On Wednesday night, a $1.3 trillion budget plan was introduced. The proposal does not include many of the things the Republicans that were sent to Congress promised–there is funding for Planned Parenthood, funding for Sanctuary cities, and there is very limited funding for a border wall. The bill also does not include any remedy for the DACA children, which is something the Democrats said they wanted (I don’t think they wanted a solution–I think they wanted the issue). It is a bad bill. Not only is it a bad bill–it was introduced in a manner that does not allow anyone to analyze it properly.

In an article posted yesterday Breitbart points out:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) struck a deal in February to increase domestic and military spending by nearly $300 billion over the next two years. The bill includes an additional $90 billion in disaster aid for states and localities affected by last year’s hurricanes and $140 billion for emergency military funds.

Jason Pye, vice president of legislative affairs for FreedomWorks, said, “Republicans don’t know how to stop spending money.”

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that our national debt has skyrocketed in recent years to untenable levels.

“This year, we’re looking at a deficit of $750 to $1 trillion. Next year, the estimate is $1 trillion or more. I have to wonder if there is any way that we can avoid a national insolvency or bankruptcy.”

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) lamented in an interview with Breitbart News Daily on Tuesday that the “Senate Democrats seem to be calling most of the shots.”

A report on Monday suggested that the omnibus spending bill will not include a bailout of Obamacare.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), another member of the House Freedom Caucus, suggested that a number of liberal policies will be included in the omnibus, without any substantial border wall funding.

Jordan said, “Planned Parenthood, Gateway Bridge, Planned Parenthood, trillion dollar deficit, and no wall.”

This is a bad bill, and Congress should be forced to go back to the drawing board and cut spending. I don’t care if the government shuts down–they need to get it right.

Be Careful What You Ask For

PJ Media posted an article yesterday that highlights one of the major problems of the Trump administration–civil servants who are working against President Trump’s policies. The amazing thing about spotlighting this problem is that the Congressional Democrats accidentally illustrated the problem without meaning to.

House Democrats Elijah Cummings and Eliot Engel have written an open letter to the White House and State Department expressing concern that Obama holdovers who do not support President Trump’s policies were being removed.

The letter deals with Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, an Obama-era pro-Iran-deal State Dept staffer.  Ms. Nowrouzzadeh reportedly expressed “willingness to support the policy priorities of the Trump Administration” in good faith, but her actions tell another story. Ms. Nowrouzzadeh co-authored an article entitled “Trump’s Dangerous Shift on Iran,” which severely criticizes the President’s stance on the Iranian nuclear deal.


The article at PJ Media reports:

The Democratic Party and Politico just went to bat for a rubber-roomed “whistleblower.”

They really did just try to make hay with: “Trump Demotes — But Can’t Fire — Employee Who Calls Him ‘Dangerous.'”

If the Republican Party has a smidge of the media instincts of Schachtel and Ceren, then this coming Monday should open with a House Oversight Committee hearing on civil service employment law reform.

They don’t, of course.

But Trump does. And winning over America with civil service reform is a six-inch putt for him.

Politico, Cummings, and Engel just demystified the Deep State for American voters. It’s not about paranoiac white men bumbling about like Inspector Clouseau. It’s about an irrational set of laws that allow thousands upon thousands of unelected Executive Branch employees to work against the elected boss.

Some of them are even the precise cause of the constant “chaos” that the mainstream media loves to ascribe to this White House. Some of them routinely commit felonies by leaking confidential information to those media outlets.

And, unbelievably, one was a JCPOA architect so blinded by a lifetime in government that she actually thought America embraces her “right” to be an un-fireable bureaucrat.

Any employee in the business world who does not support the policies of her corporation or company would be shown the door. Why should civil service be any different?

There Really Are Not Two Parties In Washington


The article reports:

Now, a stunning discovery surfaces of Paul Ryan’s Congressional Leadership SuperPAC,, actually campaigning for the Democrat, Conor Lamb, in the recent PA18 congressional race.


This is the mailer:

The article explains:




The article concludes:




I Wouldn’t Celebrate Just Yet

The Hill is reporting today that Democrat Conor Lamb has declared victory in the House of Representatives race in Pennsylvania. It is quite possible that he has won, but all of the votes have not been counted yet, and the race is extremely close. This race is a beautiful example of the fact that every vote counts. When it is all over, it will be very close.

There are a few things to look at in this race. Conor Lamb is a very attractive candidate. He is a Marine and a former federal prosecutor. The Democratic candidate ran as a conservative, but when you look at his website, his views are not necessarily all that conservative. He sounds like another tax and spend Democrat. Mr. Lamb is not pro-life–according to The Weekly Standard, he has stated that he does not support proposals to ban abortions after 20 weeks, the point at which fetuses can feel pain. His website states that he wants to fix ObamaCare (not repeal it), forgive student debt, encourage more green energy, support unions, spend on job training, and spend on infrastructure.

It is obvious that Conor Lamb wants to be another Joe Manchin. However, the thing to remember is that Joe Manchin votes with the Democrats when his vote is needed. He votes with the Republicans when the Democrats do not need his vote. Electing a conservative Democrat to the House of Representatives does not in any way make the House any more conservative–the new house member will tow the party line when asked. Nancy Pelosi will become Speaker if the Democrats gain the majority in the House. Impeachment proceedings against President Trump will begin (Lord knows on what basis), and the tax cuts will be taken away from average Americans. Conor Lamb successfully (and smartly) avoided nationalizing his race. However, that does not mean that the consequences of electing Democrats will not be national.

Why The Republicans Need To Remain In Control Of Congress

Do you like your tax cut? Do you like the growth of opportunity due to the ending of some of the regulatory state? Well if you do, you need to vote for a conservative in November. Hint–as far as I know, almost all of the conservative Democrats have left the party. Even the few (I can think of one offhand) conservative Democrats in Congress vote with the Democrats when their vote is needed, so they are primarily Democrats. So why is it important for you  that the Republicans hold Congress.

Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial yesterday detailing the Democrats’ plans if they take over Congress this year. The first item (although not mentioned in the article) is the impeachment of President Trump. They have no idea what charges to impeach him on, but they don’t like him and want him gone. Good luck with that. But they do have other plans that could actually happen if they become the majority.

The editorial reports:

Democrats have a new plan to win over voters in November. Instead of letting taxpayers keep the money they’re getting from Trump’s tax cuts, they want government to spend $1 trillion of it on wasteful government projects.

 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer outlined this plan on Wednesday, calling it a “better deal” for Americans.

What it entails is “rolling back” $1 trillion worth of the Republican tax cuts that just went into effect, and spending that money on roads, bridges, schools, electric grid and so on.

There are several problems with this approach, not least of which is that what Schumer is actually proposing is a $1 trillion tax hike on Americans to finance $1 trillion worth of new federal spending.

It is, in other words, just good old-fashioned tax-and-spend liberalism.

So what is this really about? In Washington, power is based on how much money you control. The establishment politicians in Washington consolidate their power by increasing the amount of money they control. It doesn’t matter that the money rightfully belongs to the people who earn it–the establishment politicians want it!

The editorial concludes:

Unlike Trump’s infrastructure plan, which relies on private investors and states to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure where and when it’s needed, Democrats want all the money to come from the federal government.

We’ve already seen the results of this approach with President Obama’s failed stimulus, which dumped massive amounts of federal tax dollars into “shovel ready” projects, only to see the money frittered away, few of the promised jobs created, and the nation’s infrastructure barely improved as a result.

They also propose spending tens of billions on rural broadband, despite the fact that the private sector is already finding ways to do that.

There’s also the flagrant hypocrisy of Democrats who, just a few weeks ago were decrying the GOP tax cuts because they would “explode the deficit.” Now they are proposing to run deficits of equal magnitude, in order to pay for more government instead of tax cuts.

According to the Washington Post, Schumer says the Democrats’ infrastructure plan will “set up a stark contrast for voters ahead of the midterm elections.”

He’s right about that.

Republicans passed a set of increasingly popular pro-growth tax cuts that are boosting the economy and incomes of middle class families.

Democrats are pushing $1 trillion tax hikes that will be wasted on government boondoggles.

The choice for voters should be easy.

If you want to keep more of the money you earn, vote Republican in November. The Republicans will make policies that keep the recovery going. If you want to go back to the Obama economy, vote Democrat.


Waiting For The Spin

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article comparing statements made by top officials in the State Department in 2017 to what we know now about the Steele Dossier. We know that the people involved in the spygate scandal felt that if Hillary Clinton were elected, it would all go away. What is interesting is that they were still lying in 2017.

The article reports:

Now that Chairman Devin Nunes, Chuck Grassley and the key players themselves, have discovered and admitted the U.S. State Department was heavily involved in passing along Clinton opposition research to Chris Steele to create the “Clinton-Steele Dossier”, it’s interesting to look at how the former State Department spokesperson -in place during all the events- responded last year when the Clinton-Steele Dossier was thought to be part of the underlying evidence for the DOJ/FBI FISA application.

Former State Department spokesperson Marie Harf, a person in direct and continuous contact with all the principle agents during the 2016 information flow, was confronted in July 2017 and adamantly denied the dossier was part of the FISA application.

The video clip of that denial is included in the article at The Gateway Pundit.

The article continues:

Looking beyond the transparent lying and subsequent collapse of credibility, the key takeaway here is how State Department officials knew what was going on in 2016, recognized the risk presented by that action in 2017, and were willing to walk the plank because they were certain none of it would ever come to light.

The article concludes:

Officials at the top of the FBI and Department of Justice; officials in the intelligence apparatus of the ODNI, CIA and NSA; and officials at the top of the U.S. Department of State – to include Secretary John Kerry; were all working in common political cause.

Beyond the political talking points, when you simply point out the provable facts the Director of the FBI, Attorney General of the United States and the Secretary of State, were all deeply within the information loop there’s no way possible to extract President Obama from the network. This is how the collapsing house of cards eventually brings down the office of the presidency.

What would be the fall-back, or alternative, narrative?

The talking points are still a few weeks away, but there’s only one possible angle: The President was unaware of the action of his Attorney General, FBI Director, Director of National Intelligence, CIA Director and Secretary of State?


Many of the people involved in the surveillance of the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team are still employed by the government. A few have resigned, but many are still employed. It is time for them to be fired and convicted of violating Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.

A Valid Perspective

Yesterday The Conservative Review posted an article about the two-year budget recently passed by Congress. Although there are two good things about the budget–the fact that it funds the military and the fact that it prevents government shutdowns for the next two years–there are some serious problems with it–mostly overspending. I understand the objection to the overspending (and agree with it), but I wonder if a budget without overspending could have been passed. I suspect with good leadership and good messaging, we could have passed a much more sensible budget.

The article reports:

A travesty occured in the chambers of Congress last night and early this morning. Republicans in Congress exposed themselves as hypocrites and frauds by passing an unconscionable two-year budget deal that will explode this year’s deficit and add $1.5 trillion to the debt. This is a level of spending that is three times larger than government spending in President Obama’s final year in office.

A majority of Republicans in both chambers of Congress voted for the bill, and President Trump signed it Friday morning. Whatever pretense of fiscal conservatism the Republican Party once professed has vanished from all but a few conservatives in Congress.

In the United States Senate, Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., stood in objection to the Republican Party’s fundamental betrayal of conservative principles. He was joined by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. Paul held up the Senate vote Thursday evening, triggering a short government shutdown in the middle of the night. In a lengthy speech on the Senate floor, Paul criticized his colleagues for assailing government spending under President Obama and then outdoing Obama under President Trump.

“So the reason I’m here tonight is to put people on the spot. I want people to feel uncomfortable,” Paul said on the Senate floor. “I want them to have to answer people at home who said, ‘How come you were against President Obama’s deficits and then how come you’re for Republican deficits?’ Isn’t that the very definition of intellectual dishonesty? If you were against President Obama’s deficits, and now you’re for the Republican deficits, isn’t that the very definition of hypocrisy?”

It is, on both counts. And the liars and the hypocrites are outraged that Sen. Paul would dare expose them as such. Republicans are savaging Sen. Paul in the media. Sen. John Thune, the number three Republican in the Senate, called Paul’s actions “a colossal waste of time.” “He wanted attention and he got attention,” said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Penn., went so far as to suggest it’s “easy to understand why it’s difficult to be Rand Paul’s next door neighbor.” Dent is referring to the neighbor who assaulted Sen. Paul, breaking several of his ribs and putting him in the hospital. But receiving disgusting comments like that are the norm when you expose the swamp, as Sen. Paul has done.

I would like to mention at this point that I believe John Thune is gearing up for a presidential run. He is not a conservative and will say what he thinks will get him the highest approval ratings.

Voters elected Republicans to shrink government and decrease spending. If Republicans want to be re-elected in the mid-terms, they are certainly not moving in the right direction. The budget that was recently passed is an illustration that there are really only two parties in Washington, and those parties are not the Democrats and the Republicans. One party is the Democrats and what are called mainstream Republicans; the other party is the Republicans who hold to the Republican party platform of smaller government and lower taxes. We need more Republicans who believe in the party platform and fewer Republicans who have chosen to become part of the Washington establishment (swamp).

The American Thinker Asks A Very Good Question

On January 29th, The American Thinker posted an article with the following title:


That is a really good question. When the government bureaucracies can be politicized in one direction, there is nothing to say that they can’t be politicized in another direction. What has happened in our upper levels of government is a threat to all of us.

The article reports:

The public has seen only a fraction of the material that, according to those who have seen it, proves higher-ups at the DOJ and FBI colluded to clear Hillary Clinton of any responsibility for her many crimes.   These operatives knew she had ignored all the rules regarding classified material by having her own private server.  They likely all knew the Clinton Foundation was nothing but a pay-to-play outfit to enrich the Clintons (only 6% of its funds went to charity).  And this bunch still thought she was qualified to be President,  this woman with a forty-year history of lying, cheating and scheming!  

Are there no essential values among these persons privileged to wield power over the rest of us?  In collusion with the Clinton campaign,  the DNC, the FBI and DOJ worked together to produce and then use fabricated opposition research to obtain FISA warrants to spy on possibly hundreds of people connected to the Trump family and campaign.  They did this to bring him down by any means necessary.  As many people have observed, this is the stuff of the former Soviet Union and third-world dictatorships.

The article concludes:

What is so distressing is that no elected Democrat,  not one, has expressed shock or concern that these agencies have been so corrupted.  Given what we know so far, every member of Congress and every member of the press should  be equally horrified.  This level of criminality should offend everyone, every citizen and every elected official.  But to the left, it’s just another dust-up created by those rascally Republicans.   Use our law enforcement agencies to destroy a campaign and/or to bring about the impeachment of a President?   “So what” seems to be the attitude on the left.  The Constitution be damned.  

Among these culprits, who include Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Clapper, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Andrew McCabe, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok,  there is no honor, no respect for the law, the truth or the American people.   

Shouldn’t the Democrats be as angry about this as Republicans?  Has their hatred for Trump so impaired their judgment that they have sacrificed their integrity,  their respect for ethics and the law?   How else to explain their full engagement in the cover-up, fueled by their wholesale denial of the facts? 

Once DOJ IG Michael Horowitz’s report is released,  and if the FISA memo is made public, much more will be clear to everyone.  One has to wonder how the Democrats will recover their lost dignity.  Their many months-long defense of the indefensible will have done significant damage to their brand unless Democrat voters are as unscrupulous, as unconcerned about honor and ethics as their elected representatives have proven to be.

Isn’t the lack of integrity in the upper levels of government under the Obama Administration something all Americans should be concerned about?

What Exactly Are The Democrats Opposing In The Immigration Bill?

Rasmussen Reports posted an article yesterday about the polling they have done regarding a border wall. The poll questions were related to building a border wall and dealing with the ‘dreamers.’

The article reports:

Most voters favor the immigration reform plan detailed by President Trump in his State of the Union speech and think it’s likely to finally produce a secure southern border.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 52% of Likely U.S. Voters favor a proposal that would create a pathway to citizenship for those brought to this country illegally when they were children, build a wall on the Mexican border and change legal immigration to a more merit-based system. Thirty-two percent (32%) oppose a plan with those key elements in it, while 16% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Have the Democrats opposing the proposed immigration bill read these poll numbers? Is there a reason they are going against the will of the majority of voters? Have we reached the point where the Democrats will simply oppose anything President Trump proposes regardless of what the voters want? Somehow I don’t think that is the path to victory in the mid-term elections. The Democrats (with the help of the mainstream media) may be able to convince some voters that the Republicans blocked a pathway to citizenship for the ‘dreamers,’ but there may be enough informed voters that know the truth that will not support their candidates. Stay tuned. If the Democrats can figure out how to turn it to their advantage, we may be in for another government shutdown.

More To Come

In case you are not yet convinced that there were government connections to the campaign of Hillary Clinton, more evidence has surfaced.

The Washington Examiner is reporting today that there was a second Christopher Steele dossier.

The article reports:



According to the referral, Steele wrote the additional memo based on anti-Trump information that originated with a foreign source. In a convoluted scheme outlined in the referral, the foreign source gave the information to an unnamed associate of Hillary and Bill Clinton, who then gave the information to an unnamed official in the Obama State Department, who then gave the information to Steele. Steele wrote a report based on the information, but the redacted version of the referral does not say what Steele did with the report after that.

The article includes the heavily redacted memo to Rod Rosenstein referring Christopher Steele for potential violation of federal law. As more of this use of the government for political purposes comes to light, one can only hope that there will be a series of jail sentences for those involved.

Immigration As Seen By A Thirty-Something

Below is a guest post by Michael Daskalos, a young friend who follows history and politics very closely. The links with the paragraphs are the sources for his statements.

Trump wants a deal; and indications are that if you voted for him, you consider what he wants is pretty moderate by any reasonable standards. If you voted for him and are incredibly disappointed, it’s probably because you think this is way less effective than a reasonable and well thought out plan that involves more deportations, lots of rope and assorted other things best left unsaid…and that’s just for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and its immigration activist allies. Let them run for office in Mexico, or the Knesset where they can have all the open borders immigration they want.

The sticking point is the Democrats vested interest—getting every single possible future vote out of this that they can get as fast as possible. Trump’s vested interests—getting re-elected and Making America Great Again are counter to this plan. As such President Trump wants whatever deal is made to have teeth and enforcement up front and concrete—just like people have been promised for years now. It is telling that when anyone asks for the law as written to be applied, they are called a fascistic racist white supremacist. If President Trump does not get guaranteed ironclad language, he knows he would have on his hands what most will instantly understand as “Getting Reaganed” wherein every state mentioned below gets the California treatment in short order.

The corporate-paid-for class of professional Republicans are fine with this. Many of them are getting forced out or retiring from seats that are becoming “electorally unwinnable” (political euphemism for “your voters were demographically displaced”) or being voluntold by their donor handlers to take the money and run because they don’t fit in this new divide. This anti-Trump gambit supported by all the anti-Trump voices we are familiar with is attempting to give the Democrats the House and increase pressure for amnesty that way and feign the appearance that Americans support it. The anti-Trump forces are also aware that one of the first actions of a Democratic House of Representatives would be to initiate the impeachment process.
What flashy titles for pieces like the one linked above are doing is taking a simple thing that’s well known: Trump is ok with a few DACA recipients, a micro fraction of the eligible “Dreamers” that might be useful and possibly a few hangers on that also attended diploma mills, a path to citizenship as a bargaining chip, and framing it for a particular audience. They leave out or bury the fact that the concessions on DACA are being made in exchange for teeth everywhere else in the deal. The reason President Trump is demanding specific language is so that it won’t or can’t be expanded by the courts later, as anyone with a couple brain cells knows will happen if they have seen the last year unfold.

Those articles are an attempt to separate hardliners and reasonable people like myself from supporting the president because he might not force as tough a line as could be imagined. The governing dynamic that has to be understood is that Democrats want every single illegal immigrant in the country currently to be eligible to vote in 2018.  That’s the starting position they are working from when they approach the table for any “compromise.” The wording is to be designed to wiggle as high a number of them into that possible, and as soon as possible, regardless of language that might infer otherwise. This fight is about language that will allow Democrats and their Republican allies, you know the names, the legal space to pull shenanigans through the courts with hand picked judges to make that happen.

What To Expect This Coming Week

I expect the memo Congress has put together detailing domestic abuses by the FBI and DOJ to be released Tuesday or Wednesday. I also suspect that the Democrats will plan something dramatic to distract Americans from the release of the memo. It should be pointed out that because the Executive Branch of our government is in charge of the FBI and the DOJ, those agencies need to ask President Trump–not Congress–to give them access to the memo.

So what will happen when the memo is released? Democrats will dismiss it as Republican talking points. If that happens, the Republicans may release the source documents–which are not talking points. The Democrats will have to figure out whether it is better to ignore the memo or deal with the source documents. Since the media will help the Democrats whichever path they choose, expect to see a lot of Democratic spin regarding the memo.

If the memo shows that illegal spying took place, will anyone be prosecuted? As much as I would like to see certain people in jail, I suspect the more visible culprits will be pardoned by President Trump. It would make America look like a banana republic if key players in the previous administration were arrested by the administration that followed. I also realize that it makes America look like a banana republic when a sailor who took a picture of his work station goes to jail for having a classified picture on his cell phone and has his life ruined, and the President and Secretary of State routinely send classified documents over an unsecured server with no consequences. However, I believe that the entire upper echelon of the FBI and DOJ needs to be fired. Although I believe the spying was orchestrated at the highest level, the leadership of those agencies had the choice as to whether or not they would participate. If a few of the leaders of the FBI and DOJ had had the courage to resign, questions might have been asked and this whole mess avoided.

It is a safe bet that this week is going to be a roller coaster. Although I believe the memo will be released, there are no guarantees. I also expect that we will see a degree of spin that we haven’t seen since Bill Clinton was in the White House and told us he didn’t have sex with Monica Lewinsky.

The Deal Or The Issue?

There is a school of thought that the Democrats don’t want a deal on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)–they want the issue in the 2018 mid-term elections. We may be about to find out if that is true.

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an opinion piece about the immigration deal offered by President Trump. The deal currently on the table is to allow 1.8 illegal immigrants who came as children to apply for U.S. citizenship (this includes 690,000 who applied for DACA status as well as others who are eligible but did not apply). In exchange, President Trump gets $25 billion to build a wall, changes the slots in the diversity visa lottery to slots based on ‘merit’, and limits chain migration to nuclear family members.

The whole situation brings to mind a line from the movie “Men in Black,”

“We’re not hosting an intergallactic kegger down here.”

 [Zed (Rip Torn) in Men In Black (1997)

The deal currently on the table is pretty much what Senator Schumer asked for.

The opinion piece explains:

There just isn’t any substantial difference and, what’s more, there aren’t any significant losses. Schumer won’t be prostrating himself on the altar to offer his career as a sacrifice if he accepts the deal. Democrats have promised a fix for immigrant kids since literally the turn of the millennium. There’s no abandonment of principle here: Democrats have supported border security since 2006, when a majority got on board with a border fence.

Democrats can take this deal and, with a bit of courage, face their base. Of course, ending chain migration isn’t insignificant. But not every Democrat bet their political fate on full-fledged amnesty. Survival is possible.

Do the Democrats want to deal or do they want to whine?

Explaining The Procedures Involved In Releasing The Memo

All of the information in this article has been taken from an article posted at The Conservative Treehouse yesterday. The #ReleaseTheMemo movement has been successful.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse includes the following:

The article explains what is involved in releasing the memo and the steps that are necessary in the process in order to comply with the law.

The article reports:

Once the House Intelligence Committee votes to declassify the four-page memo, the White House, National Security Adviser (H.R. McMaster) and National Security Council will have five days to review the content. The White House will likely have a brief review by the NSC and the Office of Legal Counsel of the content, and then issue approval for the release.

…Secondly, while it might seem like a good idea for President Trump to declassify the Nunes memo, if given by the Intel Committee, it would not be prudent to do so. Within this classified document Donald Trump is the subject of adverse action outlined therein.

…Therefore the best route as constructed by Nunes and Goodlatte would be for the House to vote to declassify, pass on to the Executive for review, then President Trump grants approval for the request of the House (legislative branch).

By law, all attempts by the legislative branch to declassify intelligence information must be given to the executive branch for review in advance of release. This is because the executive branch needs to see if any current intelligence operations might be compromised by information not known to the legislative branch.

The National Security Council and any impacted offices of the intelligence information (CIA, NSA, FBI, DOJ, U.S. DoS, DOD, etc.) review, provide opinion, and sign off prior to executive approval and release.

It is not just this declassification that goes through this process, all declassification goes through this process. In this example, presumably, the President has no adverse reason to block the declassification request and it is likely all approvals will happen quite quickly.

After the White House approves of the HPSCI request, the Memo then becomes public.

That’s when Democrats will attack the memo as being authored and misrepresented by Chairman Devin Nunes. This is the politics.

We need to remember a few things here. First of all, the Democrats DO NOT want this memo released. It is becoming obvious that there are things in the memo that make the Democratic party look really bad–such as using the government to spy on political opponents. Watergate was simply attempted spying and people went to jail. This allegedly was using government agencies to spy–many people should go to jail. Secondly, if and when the memo is released, the Democrats will do everything they can to discredit it. However, at some point this month, the Inspector General’s report is due out, and I suspect that will confirm much (if not all) of what is in the memo.

The article further notes what will happen if the Democrats claim the memo is not what it seems to be:

If/when this happens (highly likely it will), Chairman Nunes will then request the entire House of Representatives be given the opportunity to see the underlying FISA documentation that led to the summary.

The underlying FISA documentation likely includes the DOJ/FBI FISA application as presented to the FISA court; again, likely to include the “Clinton/Steele Dossier”.

Additionally, the FISA-702 raw data will include the FBI “searches” on Trump officials that led to the upstream collection of information and the subsequent “unmasking” of Trump officials.

Releasing the underlying FISA documentation -that proves the Nunes FISA memo- will likely follow a similar path as the Nunes memo itself. Again, this is a process, and within each of these processes there are revelations as to the scope of the corruption and conspiracy.

The article concludes:

In April and May 2017 Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and NSA Director Admiral Rogers, began assembling a pathway for Devin Nunes to climb out of that intelligence box. ODNI Dan Coats declassified the FISA Court opinion, and that opened the door for Horowitz, Grassley, Goodlatte and Nunes to question the content therein that circled the unlawful action of the DOJ and FBI.

Where we are today is a step in the investigative process that is an outcome of months of work by Coats, Rogers and Horowitz to extract Chairman Devin Nunes and bring all prior DOJ and FBI corruption to the surface.

I strongly suggest that you follow the link to read the entire article. The author is amazingly detailed in his research and lists his various sources at the end of the article.

Look for the Democrats to stage a major distraction about the time the memo is released. It may be another government shutdown or it may be some sort of march or filibuster. Based on what I have heard, the Democrats will do almost anything to keep this memo off of the front page of the news. Stay tuned.

Some Basic Facts About The Government Shutdown

I just want to remind people that the Republicans do not have the power to shut down the government–even if they wanted to. It takes sixty Senate votes to pass the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government. (This could be avoided if we had a budget). The Republicans do not have sixty members in the Senate, so the only way that a CR can pass is if a few Democrats vote for it. Since enough Democrats did not vote for the CR to reach sixty votes, the CR did not pass. The Democrats have stated that DACA is the reason for their lack of support for the CR, but DACA does not expire until March, so that is questionable at best. Most of what you see on the news today will be political posturing. Hopefully, saner heads will prevail at some point, and the government will reopen.

A Different Perspective On The Possible “Schumer Shutdown” Of The Government

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today about the looming government shutdown. He comments on some of the strategies being used by the Republicans to avoid a shutdown and some of the strategies the Republicans can use to make the shutdown as painful as possible for the Democrats if a shutdown occurs.

The article reports:

Senate GOP leaders prepared to force Democrats into a series of uncomfortable votes, aimed at splitting their ranks by pitting moderates from states that Trump won against party leaders and the handful of outspoken liberals considering a run for the presidency.

For one, Republicans attached a long-term extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program and delays to several unpopular health-care taxes. The bill does not include protections for “dreamers,” immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children or who overstayed their visas as children, a top Democratic priority.

That represented an election-year bid by the GOP to cast the spending vote as, in part, a choice between poor children and undocumented immigrants. Ryan, McConnell, and other Republicans also sought to highlight the potential erosion to military readiness that could result from a shutdown.

At a press conference this morning, Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, referred to the possible shutdown as the “Schumer Shutdown.” Maybe the Republicans are finally beginning to understand the value of messaging.

I need to mention that in order to continue to fund the government, the Republicans need sixty votes in the Senate–that means that some Democrats need to vote to keep the government running. The Republicans do not have enough votes in the Senate to keep the government running by themselves.

The article suggests ways to make the shutdown work for Republicans:

But perhaps Republicans should shrug off the media headwinds here and allow Democrats to shut down the government. The White House has the upper hand in these stunts, as both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton proved, by picking and choosing which workers to furlough. Both Obama and Clinton made it as painful as possible; Obama locked veterans out of national parks in 2013, garnering huge headlines and generating lots of anger toward Ted Cruz and his fellow futile obstructionists.

Donald Trump and his team should take the opposite approach: make everything seem normal while shutting down the regulatory agencies Democrats love. Keep the national parks open, but shut down the EPA. Maintain military readiness, but close down the Departments of Education and Labor. Rather than look at the short-term public relations hit, the White House should keep their eyes on the long game by using a shutdown to remind Americans just how much of the government they could truly live without. And when all of those union-represented employees have gone without a couple of paychecks on top of that, wait for Democrats to come back to the table.

It’d be much better if Democrats didn’t obstruct the budget over DACA, of course. But if they do, it shouldn’t be Republicans panicked over a shutdown.

Hopefully, the government will keep running. It is ridiculous to give government workers a paid vacation that they didn’t earn–they may not get paid immediately, but they will be paid for the time they did not work.

Why Not Just Put It On Hillary Clinton’s Secret Server And We Can Get It From The Russians?

Sorry about the sarcasm. I couldn’t resist. The Hill posted an article today about the fight in Congress to keep the American public from finding out what actually went on behind the scenes during the 2016 presidential campaign and President Trump‘s transition team.

The article reports:

A growing number of Republicans are demanding the release of a classified report that they say reveals political bias at the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) in the investigation into President Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow. 

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) spearheaded the effort this week to allow lawmakers to view a top-secret report compiled by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

Scores of Republicans have since viewed the document in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) on Capitol Hill. They left expressing shock, saying the special counsel investigation into whether Trump’s officials had improper contacts with Russia is based on politically motivated actions at the highest level of law enforcement.

Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) called the memo “shocking.”

“I’m here to tell all of a America tonight that I’m shocked to read exactly what has taken place,” Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said in a speech on the House floor. 

“I thought it could never happen in a country that loves freedom and democracy like this country. It is time that we become transparent with all of this, and I’m calling on our leadership to make this available so all Americans can judge for themselves.” 

As voters, we need to see this. We need to know exactly what happened–not what the media or the political parties choose to tell us. Why is it classified in the first place? For political purposes?

This is how the process of declassification works:

Meadows and his allies asked GOP leaders in the House to declassify the report as part of a short-term spending bill the House passed late Thursday night. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said he wanted to follow House rules on the matter and deferred to Nunes and the Intelligence Committee.

Nunes could call for a vote to release the report on his panel. If a majority on the committee agrees to declassify the report, the executive branch would just need to sign-off to make it public, said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), another Freedom Caucus member.

“It is so alarming the American people have to see this,” Jordan said.

The article includes the following statement:

Lawmakers were tight-lipped about the contents of the memo, as they are barred from unilaterally releasing classified information.

But the lawmakers who have long been claiming that FBI agents and DOJ officials launched a partisan investigation into Trump said the report vindicated their claims.

This story is currently being overshadowed by threats of a government shutdown. I don’t think that is a coincidence.

How The News Media Covers President Trump

Newsbusters posted an article today analyzing how the major media covers President Trump. As I am sure almost everyone is aware, the coverage is almost always negative. I strongly suggest that you follow the link and read the entire article–the statistics are amazing.

The article includes the following graph:

The conclusions of the article are somewhat frightening:

The media reaction to Trump’s first year has been so extreme, the public itself has become polarized over the coverage. In September, Gallup discovered that record numbers of Democrats are reporting “trust and confidence in the mass media to report the news ‘fully, accurately and fairly,’” with 72 percent of Democrats saying they trusted the press in 2017, compared to just 51 percent who said that a year ago.

A month later, a Politico/Morning Consult poll found that “more than three-quarters of Republican voters, 76 percent, think the news media invent stories about Trump and his administration.” That number swells to 85 percent when just Trump supporters are asked the question.

What seems to be happening is that many in the media, including the broadcast networks, have chosen to morph into anti-Trump activists. As a result, they provide massive attention to stories that they think make him look bad, give little airtime to more positive aspects of his administration, and punish him with massively negative spin.

The polls suggest anti-Trump Democrats love that kind of news, pro-Trump Republicans hate it — while the national media are cementing their reputation as biased partisans. Their hostility against the White House is now so obvious, nobody could possibly take them seriously if they ever again claim to be fair and non-partisan professionals.

When politicians (or the media) complain about the divisiveness in America, they need look no further than themselves. The lies that the media is telling and the things that the media is choosing to emphasize are not helping inform the public and they are surely not helping to unite us in the common goal of making America a better place.

The Temper Tantrum Continues


The article reports:







The Definition Of Serendipity

Serendipity means a “fortunate or happy unplanned coincidence”. We may be seeing an example of that concept in one of the unintended consequences of the recently passed tax bill.

Yesterday the Associated Press reported the following:


The ideas are bubbling up as state lawmakers begin their 2018 sessions and assess the effects of the Republican tax overhaul that President Donald Trump signed into law last month. Lawmakers and governors in some states are grappling with how to protect their constituents.

Loosely translated this is what is happening as a result of the fact that states with low state taxes will no longer be subsidizing states with high state taxes. Under the current plan, if your real estate taxes were $20,000 a year, which is not unusual in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey or California, you knew you could deduct them on your federal income tax, so it really wasn’t that important to you. Now those deductions will be limited to $10,000 and you will still have to pay the balance to your state.

No one likes it when their gravy train is cut off.

The article further reports:

This week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo used his state-of-the-state speech to pledge to sue over the GOP tax plan, which he called “an assault” by the federal government. A lawsuit would add taxes to the growing list of Trump administration policies that Democratic states have challenged in court.

Other states have not committed to sue, but some leaders have indicated they’ll explore the idea.

“I’m certainly not a constitutional lawyer, but the notion that this is not constitutional is something we want to pursue,” said Phil Murphy, New Jersey’s Democratic governor-elect.

Officials in California and Connecticut also said this week they were considering legal options.


The Constitution gives Congress the right to levy taxes. Good luck with your lawsuit.

It is remotely possible that fiscal responsibility may be forced on some of our high-taxed states. When you consider that the Founding Fathers saw each state as a laboratory to experiment with unique ideas, it becomes obvious that some states did better than others in controlling expenses. Those states which controlled expenses have been subsidizing those that spent wildly for years. It is nice that things are changing. Now the governments of those states who have overspent need to change.

The Immediate Impact Of The Tax Cuts



According to a Washington Post article April 10, 2015:





The HeraldNet article reports the plan:



$98.3 billion (26 percent)

Defense cuts: $26.4 billion (7 percent)

Nondefense cuts: $34.8 billion (9.1 percent)

Entitlement cuts: $30.8 billion (8.1 percent)

Other reductions/offsets: $7.8 billion (2 percent)

Freeze federal pay raise: $26.1 billion (6.9 percent)

Management savings: $46.6 billion (12.3 percent)

Net interest: $107.7 billion (28.4 percent)

Total non-revenue:$280.2 billion (74 percent)

Total: $378.5 billion




The article at The Daily Signal reports:





All working Americans have many reasons to celebrate the tax bill.


Does He Really Believe This?

Pardon my skepticism, but One America News reported yesterday that Senator Mitch McConnell is optimistic that Democrats and Republicans can work together to pass legislation in 2018. Really??!!  One of the things that President Trump has put on the agenda is infrastructure spending. That might be the easiest thing to find bipartisan support on, but based on some of the statements being made by Democrats lately, I can’t imagine them cooperating with Republicans on anything. The tax bill recently passed provided more spending money for the average working man–the person the Democrats have always claimed they represent. Yet no Democrats crossed the aisle to vote to save money for the people they claim to represent.

The article reports:

“There’s not much you can do on a partisan basis in the Senate at 52-48 or at 51- 49 which will be the number for us next year,” said McConnell. “I don’t think most of our Democratic colleagues want to do nothing. And there are areas I think where we can get bipartisan agreement.”

McConnell went on to say two areas of potential bipartisan agreement could be a rollback of some of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, and a permanent solution for young illegal immigrants, which could come to a floor vote in mid-January.

I can’t imagine the Democrats working to rollback any of Dodd-Frank. Elizabeth Warren wants to run for President, and she will use any legislation to limit Dodd-Frank to increase her visibility. Whether or not that will help her cause remains to be seen. I also suspect any agreement on DACA will be elusive–the Democrats look at the DACA kids (who are no longer kids) as their future voting base.

It soon will be 2018–an election year. Historically, very little meaningful legislation gets passed during an election year. It will also be interesting to see how many days Congress actually works before they shut down and leave for campaigning.

Being Obstreperous Because You Can

The tax bill the President signed today was a major victory for the President and those who supported it. The Democrats are looking a little unhappy about the whole thing. The real reasons the Democrats opposed the bill are most likely political, but there was one thing the Democrats changed in the bill that they need to be held accountable for.

Townhall posted an article about the tax bill today explaining how parents of children with disabilities and parents who homeschool were denied a benefit by Democrats.

The article reports:

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), one of the Senate’s most outspoken advocates for school choice, introduced an addition to the tax bill called the Student Opportunity Amendment. The amendment would expand 529 college savings plans to also include K-12 education, allowing parents and grandparents to use these tax-advantaged plans to save up to $10,000 per child per year for private schools, religious schools, or even homeschooling.

…However, Democrats weren’t about to let a beneficial piece of legislation pass without a fight. Party leaders ran to the Senate Parliamentarian to complain that the entire amendment ran afoul of the Byrd rule — another one of those arcane Senate rules that no one understands. But while the Parliamentarian disagreed with the Democrats’ argument about the majority of the provisions in the amendment, she unfortunately found their argument compelling when applied to homeschooling and struck the language from the bill.

In response, Senator Cruz rushed to the floor and pushed a Motion to Waive the Parliamentarian’s changes, which solely affected the homeschooling provision. This motion would require a 60-vote majority to succeed.

This is what happened next:

Nevertheless, not a single Democrat voted for Senator Cruz’s motion. Not one. The Democrats knowingly and proudly discriminated against homeschooled kids and kids with disabilities, in many cases destroying their access to quality education. Even by the Democrats’ woefully low standards, it was a shameful display.

Next time Democrats attempt to take the moral high ground on some issue related to education or welfare, Americans should remember exactly what they did here. When given the choice to help children with disabilities, they chose partisanship. When given the opportunity to make life better for millions of children, they chose to RESIST.

The actions of the Democrats in the Senate are truly despicable.