FBI Stories: Comey Didn’t Trust Lynch, FBI Willing to Pay $50,000 for Trump Dossier

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Two weekend stories are raising further questions of the role politics played in both the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email abuses and the investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged Russian ties. If J. Edgar Hoover could see these stories he would roll over in his gown.

50 Gs for the Trump Dossier?

The New York Times reported Saturday that the FBI was willing to pay $50,000 to the source of a dossier on Donald Trump containing information gathered by former British spy Christopher Steele. This dossier, which has since been discredited, includes allegations of sexual antics by Trump in Moscow and talk of ties to Putin.

As the Daily Caller reports in a story dated April 22,

A July 19 memo from Steele’s dossier alleges that the Trump campaign used (advisor Carter) Page as an intermediary in a “well-developed conspiracy” [with Russians] to help Trump during the election. The source of that claim has since been identified as Sergei Millian, a Belarusian-American businessman who has a history of exaggerating his business ties.

The Bureau wanted corroboration. If Steele delivered, he’d get the 50 G’s. (Talk about G-men!) However the ex-MI6 agent was never paid, the Times says.

Never paid by the FBI would be more accurate. As reported by The Stream, Steele is an “opposition researcher.” After a stint collecting dirt for Trump’s GOP opponents, Steele was hired by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm aiding Hillary Clinton.

So not only was the FBI willing to lap up allegations from an opposition researcher tied to Hillary Clinton, they were willing to shell out $50,000 tax dollars if he could confirm the allegations. Since the Feds didn’t pay Steele, the Daily Caller speculates that perhaps he could not confirm the information.

End of story, right? Wrong.

The FBI reportedly relied on Steele’s dossier last September when seeking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Page. That gets us into the whole gathering of intel on Trump associates. This leads to the dubious unmasking of names, the definitely illegal leaking and all the rest. A scandal that curiously has vanished from the airwaves quicker than Bill O’Reilly.

What’s more, The Washington Post reports the relationship between Steele and the FBI ended because the dossier “became the subject of news stories, congressional investigations and presidential denials.” For those not fluent in translating liberal media-speak, let me help: “They got caught.

The Stream has laid out how the dossier’s arrival at the FBI curiously lines up with Bill Clinton’s not-so-secret rendezvous with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. To refresh:

Steele crafts an anti-Trump dossier for his client, the Clinton-backing Fusion GPS.

Seems logical Fusion GPS would share it with their client.

June 27: The client’s husband secretly huddles with Loretta Lynch at the Phoenix airport.

July 5: Steele brings the dossier to the FBI.

July 5: James Comey says he’s going to let Hillary skate for the ” extremely careless” mishandling of highly classified documents.

By month’s end, the FBI is instead investigating Trump and his associates.

Why bring up Lynch? Because somebody was playing politics with FBI investigations last year. But don’t believe me. Ask FBI Director James Comey.

Comey Worried Lynch was Playing Politics with His Clinton Investigation

James Comey didn’t trust Lynch when it came to the Clinton investigation so he kept her out of the loop. According to The New York Times:

… this go-it-alone strategy was shaped by his distrust of senior officials at the Justice Department, who he and other F.B.I. officials felt had provided Mrs. Clinton with political cover. The distrust extended to his boss, Loretta E. Lynch, the attorney general, who Mr. Comey believed had subtly helped play down the Clinton investigation.

What does “subtly helped play down” mean?

How to “Subtly Play Down”

On July 10, 2015, the FBI launched a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email activities. However, the next morning Lynch’s Justice Dept. insisted “it is not a criminal referral.” Hillary would use the distinction without a difference to falsely declare she was not under criminal investigation. “It’s a security review,” she would say.

In September, Comey met with Lynch before testifying on Capitol Hill. He would not reveal details of the investigation, of course. But Lynch went further. She pushed him to refer to the case as a “matter,” not an “investigation.” Comey felt Lynch was “asking him to be misleading and line up his talking points with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.” One prosecutor ribbed Comey, “I guess you’re the Federal Bureau of Matters now.”

Fast forward to the weeks before the election. Agents find tens of thousands of Hillary emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer. Comey felt it was his duty to tell Congress. He knew failing to do so would lead to accusations he had been withholding information before the election. Lynch was dead set against telling Congress about the emails. However, in the end, she decided against ordering him not to send the letter.

That’s the Times‘ idea of subtly playing down.

Apparent confirmation of Comey’s suspicions came from a document seized from a Russian hacker. It was written by a Democratic operative who expressed confidence that Lynch would stop the Clinton investigation from going too far.

Meanwhile …

Hillary Clinton made a surprise appearance at the Tribeka Film Festival Saturday night. She talked about elephant poaching.

Which gets to our final point: Even the talented filmmakers at Tribeka could not make any of these characters and intrigue up. (For more from the author of “FBI Stories: Comey Didn’t Trust Lynch, FBI Willing to Pay $50,000 for Trump Dossier” please click HERE)

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Doctor’s Arrest Brings Attention to US Female Circumcisions

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Zehra Patwa only learned a few years ago that during a family trip to India at age 7, she was circumcised, which is common for girls in parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East . . .

The recent arrest of a Michigan doctor accused of performing the procedure on two 7-year-old girls from Patwa’s own Shiite Muslim sect, the Dawoodi Bohra, highlights how female genital mutilation is alive and well in parts of the Western world where its adherents have migrated and formed communities.

Depending on the culture, female circumcisions are performed on girls of various ages and by various methods, and they are seen as a way of controlling a girl’s sexuality, maintaining her purity or even making her more fertile as she grows into adulthood. Critics, though, say it can cause complications during childbirth, make intercourse painful and eliminate any pleasure a woman can derive from sex. (Read more from “Doctor’s Arrest Brings Attention to US Female Circumcisions” HERE)

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It’s Almost Impossible to Find out the Cost of a Medical Procedure. This Company Is Trying to Change That.

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For a patient looking to see a doctor for any given medical procedure, costs often vary wildly based on the facility or physician.

Take non-surgical repair for a broken ankle.

For a 26-year-old female insured by Cigna who chooses a top-rated orthopedic surgeon in Washington, D.C., such a procedure costs $1,729.

But if she chooses another top-rated orthopedic surgeon in nearby College Park, Maryland, the procedure costs $1,199.

That’s according to a company called Amino, which mines data from billions of health insurance claims from the private and public sectors. Amino then gives patients access to information on the cost of various procedures and how much experience doctors nationwide have in those procedures.

And in the age of rising deductibles and out-of-pocket costs for health care, this Silicon Valley-based company is working to put more of such information in the hands of patients.

An alumnus of Zillow, a real estate company that provides data on the housing market, Amino CEO David Vivero decided to start the company in 2013 based on what he personally had gone through in searching for a new insurance plan.

Because Vivero has a pre-existing condition, he realized he probably would have trouble finding a good insurance plan and a good doctor.

“I realized just having the consumer experience that health care had offered me was really frustrating,” Vivero says in an interview with The Daily Signal. “So I decided to build Amino to solve that.”

The company provides consumers with access to specifics about procedures, doctors, and costs generated by its massive database of health insurance claims from government and private-sector partners.

Users head to its website, Amino.com, and click through five screens—procedure, gender, age, location, and insurer, which is optional—before they’re presented with results for doctors based on quality and prices for more than 90 procedures.

Need a chest X-ray in the Arlington, Virginia, area?

For a 26-year-old female enrolled with UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest insurance provider, the procedure will cost $662 at Virginia Hospital Center, the top-billed facility.

Need to repair a broken ankle in the Sarasota, Florida, region?

For a 48-year-old male insured by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, the procedure will cost $2,029 to see the top-rated doctor for fixing a broken ankle.

The website doesn’t have any ads or sponsorships, and because of this, Vivero says, he hopes Amino can offer “truth” to health care consumers.

“By committing to not taking advertisements or allowing for providers of care to bid up, we can promise the results are data-driven for consumers,” he says.

Vivero says he believes that having access to this information helps consumers make more informed choices about their health care:

Transparency can really change markets. Having an empowered consumer was really something that would really create both a competent set of choices, and also solve problems for insurance plans and providers who are now dealing with the realities of this emerging consumer class in health care.

And as deductibles on health care plans have continued to rise, leaving consumers to pay more out of their own pockets, more companies see a market for showing patients the costs of medical procedures.

“When people pay their own way, they’ll start to shop and demand prices,” Twila Brase, president of the consumer group Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, tells The Daily Signal. “Lots of people wanted to force doctors to be transparent about their prices, but it didn’t matter until people pay their bills.”

When it first launched, Amino provided users with information on the quality of doctors featured on the site.

In October 2015, the company introduced a service allowing users to tap into its database of doctors nationwide to determine which they like based on how much experience doctors have with specific conditions and the insurance accepted. It also allows users to book an appointment.

And last year, the health care company unveiled its cost estimates, allowing patients to find the costs of 49 different services or procedures and estimate what they may have to pay based on their insurer.

Today, Amino provides cost estimates for more than 90 procedures.

“They’ve been able to finally compare and understand the prices that are available for them, which is a huge opportunity for the average consumer,” Vivero says of users.

‘The Pioneers’

As of 2015, health care spending in the United States reached $3.2 trillion, according to the federal government, and health insurance data has been used by others in the industry to build actuarial models and combat fraud.

But Vivero says his company is the first to marry access to that data with patients’ desire for transparency.

“As it relates to using this data to empower consumers to feel informed and confident in their health care choices, we feel we’re the pioneers,” Vivero says.

The company is one of several ushering in a new era of transparency in health care, fueled by higher deductibles and the increased amount patients pay out of their own pockets.

“As deductibles rise in health care, more and more decisions become the sole financial responsibility of that head of household or that individual insured member,” Vivero says. “As a result of that, the information appetite that people have has grown substantially.”

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the size of deductibles increased 12 percent in 2016 for consumers in the group market.

For employers with fewer than 200 employees, 65 percent of workers are in high-deductible plans, with the average deductible totaling $2,000.

In the individual market, deductibles have continued to rise as well.

According to an Avalere study of plans sold on Obamacare’s exchanges, combined deductibles—which include medical and drug deductibles—for silver-level plans jumped 20 percent from 2016 to 2017.

In 2016, for example, the average combined deductible for a silver-level plan was $3,075. In 2017, that rose to $3,703.

Though many patients began noticing a rise in deductibles after implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the Kaiser Family Foundation notes that this trend began before Obamacare was signed into law.

Still, as consumers move toward health insurance plans with lower premiums in exchange for higher deductibles, they tend to desire more information on health care services.

“Private-sector companies see an opening because people are now forced to pay cash to meet their deductibles,” Brase, of the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, says. “[Obamacare] has returned a cost-consciousness to a fair amount of people.”

Brase and her organization advocate a cash-based system of health care, where patients don’t have to rely on insurers to pay their bills. Removing insurers from the equation allows patients to negotiate prices directly with providers, she says.

But those with insurance, Brase says, are becoming more aware of the impact medical procedures will have on their pocketbooks:

Transparency is really important because it moves us back to true sensitivity about prices. Because of Obamacare, it forced people into paying for their own bills, [and] they then naturally gravitated toward transparency. They started asking for prices, shopped around, and went on the internet.

Brase warns that in today’s system of health care, it’s difficult to know what the “true cost” of any given procedure is, since insurance companies negotiate prices directly with providers.

That means that even within the same hospital or medical facility, costs may vary.

But the push for more transparency in the health care industry can help get patients closer to solving that puzzle, Brase says.

“It brings us closer to the true cost,” she says. “It also brings the prices down because then there’s competition between the posted costs.”

‘Nuanced Choices’

Vivero says he has heard from many Amino users who use his company’s website for different purposes.

Some report that Amino helped save “tens of thousands of dollars,” he says. Other consumers praise the company for helping to avoid misdiagnoses, since they were able to find experienced doctors to get a second opinion.

And others changed their habits of health care consumption based on the information Amino provided.

“Being able to see that information up front is incredibly empowering,” Vivero says of consumers, adding:

What they do with that is either to choose a physician, or sometimes they budget differently. Or they might decide to get that procedure done in one calendar year versus another. But at the very least, you have the information you need to make that informed choice.

To provide patients with cost estimates, Amino partnered with more than a dozen companies across the health care supply chain—health IT companies, payment processors, insurers—to compile data on patients’ health insurance claims.

That gave the company access to a trove of insurance information from the private sector.

Then, in 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—the federal agency that also oversees Obamacare—named Amino a “qualified entity,” making it the first for-profit company to receive the designation. As a qualified entity, the company received claims data from Medicare Parts A, B, and D.

Amino removed all identifying information from the data it received and, with the claims, built a database with information on which doctors take which insurers, how much different procedures cost, and how much consumers will pay.

Vivero says his company now has data from more than 9 billion health insurance claims, and Amino users can book appointments online with more than 900,000 doctors and facilities.

The company recently added Amino Plus, a service for insurance companies or employers that gives members access to additional information on their insurance plans, including plan documents, network data, and the current status of their deductibles and out-of-pocket maximum fees.

“The effect of that is to drive even greater use of in-network services so that … the consumer gets fewer surprise bills and so the employer gets fewer surprise bills and out-of-network charges,” Vivero says.

In March, Amino released a study with Ipsos, a market research company, exploring Americans’ attitudes about health care costs.

The study found that 63 percent of Americans said that receiving a medical bill they can’t afford is worse than or as bad as being diagnosed with a serious illness.

Additionally, 55 percent said they received a medical bill they couldn’t afford, and 1 in 5 said they avoid high medical bills by avoiding the doctor.

Vivero says Amino’s mission is to help patients make more informed decisions that save money.

“We hope to give them the information they need to make smart choices that in the long run are better for their wallets and better for their health,” he says. (For more from the author of “It’s Almost Impossible to Find out the Cost of a Medical Procedure. This Company Is Trying to Change That.” please click HERE)

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Why Record Numbers of Americans Are Renouncing Their Citizenship

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Would you give up your citizenship in order to keep your bank account?

That’s a question few Americans would ever want to confront, yet many Americans living abroad are now having to answer.

A little-known tax law, known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, has resulted in some foreign banks no longer serving Americans.

The law, signed in 2010 by President Barack Obama, was intended to make it harder for Americans to keep money overseas and out of the reach of the IRS. The primary target was rich Americans allegedly hiding money from tax collectors.

To find tax avoiders, foreign banks are conscripted by the U.S. government to serve as a compliance arm of the IRS. As a result, many of these stranded Americans have had to make the undoubtedly difficult decision to give up their citizenship just to continue to access their banking services.

Last year, 5,411 people renounced their U.S. citizenship, the largest number of published expatriates in one year, continuing a four-year streak of record-breaking numbers.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act requires foreign financial institutions, such as banks, to identify and report to the United States most types of transactions for all American clients.

These new regulations are enforced by the threat of applying a 30 percent withholding tax on revenues generated in the United States by the noncompliant foreign financial institution.

The reporting burden and withholding penalty faced by foreign banks trying to comply with the new regulations has made it easier for some Americans to renounce their citizenship than to find a bank that is willing to bear the bureaucratic costs of complying with the law.

These penalties are not just hitting the rich, and they are not just harming tax dodgers. The cost of complying with this law hits every American living overseas, not just those targeted by the original legislation.

Middle-class Americans living abroad who are fully compliant with U.S. tax laws are losing their mortgages, business bank accounts, and personal banking services. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act has unintentionally ruined some Americans’ livelihoods.

To add insult to injury, the cost of implementing this law may soon outpace the money that it brings in.

Furthermore, the direct cost to taxpayers does not include the compliance costs to financial institutions. A legal challenge to the law in 2015 estimated compliance costs alone were on track to total more than the 10-year revenue estimates.

These regulatory costs can discourage international business, slow investment, and hamper the global economy.

The root of the problem is more than just compliance costs, it’s the U.S. government’s presumption that it is entitled to your money even if it’s earned in another country.

The U.S. is one of just a few countries that claims taxing rights on labor income earned abroad. Such a system of worldwide taxation hurts the American economy and makes it much harder for Americans to live abroad

Hopefully, relief from this law is around the corner. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., recently released a bill that would repeal the onerous regulations.

Congress and the IRS should focus on the U.S. domestic tax system and leave Americans living abroad alone. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is yet another example of continued government overreach.

Hopefully, tax reform will bring with it relief for all Americans—including those living overseas. (For more from the author of “Why Record Numbers of Americans Are Renouncing Their Citizenship” please click HERE)

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Former Obama Official Says Bureaucrats Manipulate Climate Stats to Influence Policy

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A former member of the Obama administration claims Washington, D.C., often uses “misleading” news releases about climate data to influence public opinion.

Former Energy Department Undersecretary Steven Koonin told The Wall Street Journal Monday that bureaucrats within former President Barack Obama’s administration spun scientific data to manipulate public opinion.

“What you saw coming out of the press releases about climate data, climate analysis, was, I’d say, misleading, sometimes just wrong,” Koonin said, referring to elements within the Obama administration he said were responsible for manipulating climate data.

He pointed to a National Climate Assessment in 2014 showing hurricane activity has increased from 1980 as an illustration of how federal agencies fudged climate data. Koonin said the assessment was technically incorrect.

“What they forgot to tell you, and you don’t know until you read all the way into the fine print, is that it actually decreased in the decades before that,” he said. The U.N. published reports in 2014 essentially mirroring Koonin’s argument. (Read more from “Former Obama Official Says Bureaucrats Manipulate Climate Stats to Influence Policy” HERE)

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White House Survey Asks Public: Should the Presidency Be Eliminated

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While some survey options fall in line with the traditional Republican agenda, such as cutting the Department of Energy and the National Endowment for the Arts, others appear to flout the power of the Washington D.C., establishment. The CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Pentagon, and National Security Council are also options.

The survey allows users to select entire departments or bureaucracies within each department. It also features a question regarding which agencies survey participants would like to reform rather than eliminate.

Most surprisingly, however, is the option to eliminate the “Executive Office of the President” altogether. Users can also select smaller branches of the executive office and other agencies. Even U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are options under the larger umbrella of Homeland Security.

Users can select as many options as they like and are also provided write-in boxes where they can list their suggestions and ideas in more detail.

The survey is an apparent result of an executive order President Trump issued on March 13. According to the website:

On March 13th, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order that will make the Federal government more efficient, effective, and accountable to you, the American people. This Executive Order directs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to present the President with a plan that recommends ways to reorganize the executive branch and eliminate unnecessary agencies.

It claims the president is seeking Americans’ input to achieve this goal. “President Trump wants to hear your ideas and suggestions on how the government can be better organized to work for the American people,” the website’s statement reads. The survey will remain online until June 12 of this year.

It is unclear whether or not the president, like any other politician, is actually eager to hear the ideas of his constituency and Americans in general. While that could be the case, the website appears to be a useful tool, at the very least, for creating the appearance of accountability and concern with what voters actually want.

As TIME pointed out, “As an online poll that can be easily gamed, the survey is hardly scientific, but it could be a useful tool for the White House to push its own ideas down the road.”

For now, the results of the survey are hidden, and the site does not specify whether the final results will be made public. Notably, however, a disclaimer at the bottom of the page warns users that the White House “may not respond to every comment that is submitted and submissions do not bind the Office of Management and Budget or the Administration to further action.” (For more from the author of “White House Survey Asks Public: Should the Presidency Be Eliminated” please click HERE)

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Was the Hill Hoaxed Over Its Attack on Steve Bannon?

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On Thursday, I reported on how The Huffington Post was hoaxed into running a column. It called for white males, worldwide, to be stripped of the right to vote. Then it came out that the piece was actually penned by a white guy as a satire. So of course somebody got fired.

Not the editor who greenlit and defended the piece. The author, whom Huffington editors outed to his employer. The satirist lost his job with a think tank, and The Huffington Post yanked the column, which now it decided was hate speech. Because it didn’t want to yank people’s voting rights based on race. I’ll pause for a moment, to let the reader assimilate all that.

Did Steve Bannon Hoax The Hill?

And now, it appears to me that the online journal The Hill was the victim of a similar hoax. I believe, based on an analysis of internal evidence such as tone, logic, and content, that the April 20 column “America’s biggest enemy isn’t North Korea or Iran — it’s Steve Bannon” with the byline “Mark Feinberg” was written by Bannon himself.

Don’t put it past him. TIME magazine dubbed Bannon “The Master Manipulator.” That’s a cover story which the New York Times’ Frank Bruni believes helped to alienate Donald Trump. Assuming that Trump is the insecure, short-fingered doofus painted by liberal media, Bruni thought the article made Trump so defensive at the perception that Bannon was pulling his strings, that it led Trump to sideline Bannon.

That seems to me unlikely. But Bannon is certainly crafty. He catapulted Breitbart to the top of conservative media. Then he went on to take Trump’s stalled presidential campaign and make it a winner. Would you really put it past Steve Bannon to counter the constant media hammering he’s getting by trolling himself in print?

If you believe unsourced media speculation (and who among us doesn’t?), you’re convinced that Bannon and the rest of Trump’s campaign team have deep ties to the Kremlin. And an old standby tactic of Soviet propaganda was “disinformation.” The KGB raised it to a high art in its heyday. A favorite trick: releasing truthful but embarassing information in a crass, discredited source. Then if a real newspaper ever uncovered it, no one would believe it.

Is it really so surprising that Bannon would craft an attack on himself so over the top and absurd that it discredits mainstream criticism? Even better, that he’d get it in a staid, non-partisan venue such as The Hill? (It’s not a left-wing rag. I’ve written there myself.)

So Many Random, Unsupported Charges, the Author’s Clearly Kidding

Okay, so we’ve established plausibility. Bannon might be behind this. But where’s the evidence? The piece is riddled with it.

First of all, the title. “America’s biggest enemy isn’t North Korea or Iran — it’s Steve Bannon.” Could we go a little further over the top? So a mere presidential advisor is more of a threat than a nuclear-armed totalitarian state, and a leading sponsor of international terrorism.

Not just a threat, but an “enemy.” It’s not customary in America to call one’s political opponent an “enemy” of the nation. I don’t think Pat Buchanan ever said that of Bill Clinton, or Trump of Hillary. Even “screaming Howard” Dean didn’t say it about Mitt Romney. (Though Dean claims that Ann Coulter’s “hate speech” is not protected by the First Amendment. Maybe Coulter is secretly controlling Howard Dean — but that’s a topic for a future investigation.)

The Hill piece goes on to call Bannon “a dangerous figure.” The evidence offered? “Bannon reportedly works 18-hour days behind the scenes to promote a far-right, extremist, white nationalist agenda.”

No one has ever offered a speck of credible evidence that Bannon is a white nationalist, of course. His Jacksonian nationalism is race-neutral. Trump made as much clear in his first speech to Congress.

The Stream has explored Bannon’s views via his 2014 speech at the Vatican. Bannon does resent globalist influence-peddlers and crony capitalists. But those folks come in all colors. The charge that Bannon is an anti-Semite collapsed from a total lack of evidence. Then it was drowned out by Jewish conservatives rallying to his defense. Just another strand of spaghetti, peeling quickly from the wall.

Neo-Nazis Under the Bed

The op-ed takes the white nationalist charge as proved and quickly moves on. Next it asserts that Bannon is an “enemy of the Constitution.” So by having him as an advisor Trump is violating his Presidential Oath of Office. Read for yourself:

Like every president, Trump vowed to protect and defend the Constitution, and the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency depends on fulfilling that oath. This is why his hiring of Steve Bannon has tainted his presidency from the beginning: Trump vowed to fight enemies of the Constitution, not to hire them.

Even worse, Bannon was able to “transform Trump’s finely honed ability to insult and humiliate opponents into the leading edge of a multi-pronged, strategic propaganda machine.” Dear me. Did the article just say that … Bannon helped Trump campaign more effectively, and win? We can’t have people like that running around the White House, so close to the nuclear button.

So what is the hidden agenda of this “dangerous figure” that makes him an “enemy of the Constitution”? In fact it’s such a threat that he must be fired to save the “legitimacy of Trump’s presidency”? The article exposes the ugly “facts”:

[Bannon] shaped Breitbart into a unifying platform for a spectrum of hate, ranging from Tea Party racists to far-right extremist groups like neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white nationalists. The core shared goal among this spectrum of far-right extremist groups is to build a new muscular America as a white ethnostate.

You might think that those links lead to statements by Bannon that prove the author’s point. Or at least pieces he ran at Breitbart that express such sympathies. That’s the kind of evidence, if it existed, that a sincere critic of Bannon would compile and use to damn him.

But the author of this piece does not seem to be trying to hurt Bannon. So he sends readers off on a wild goose chase. The first link goes to a random piece from Mother Jones that lists crank neo-Nazis who offered Trump unwanted endorsements which Trump ignored. (Just so, Hillary Clinton ignored the endorsement of the head of the Communist Party, USA.)

The next link goes to an article about white race fetishist Richard Spencer, who has never been published at Breitbart. He had not the slightest link either to Trump or Bannon. He’s just a small time hustler trying to hitch his racist wagon to the nearest rising star. Clearly, the piece’s author is trying to frustrate readers and exhaust them.

Bannon Has a Potty-Mouth

For the next piece of “evidence,” the piece cites some emails from Bannon. In them, Bannon spoke with profane contempt about an anti-Trump congressman, Jason Chaffetz. These establish that Bannon has a temper and a potty-mouth. But they have nothing to do with the charges in the previous paragraph. Nor are they linked to anything asserted in the next paragraph. They’re just random information, with no connection to charges of racial or ethnic bias. None. Surely the author knew this. No one is this incompetent.

I could go on and on. Instead let’s finish with this paragraph:

It’s thus predictable that, in the White House, Bannon would be determined to move the hate-right agenda forward regardless of constitutional protections, legal restrictions or democratic norms. Bannon is said to have been the architect of the unconstitutional and doubly cursed Muslim ban; he over-ruled specific legal advice within the administration in doing so; and he has shown a proclivity to use aggressive threats to silence the press and bend members of Congress to his will.

“Doubly-cursed”? Come on. That’s the kind of language used in fatwas coming from Islamist sheiks in Egypt, not academics at colleges in Pennsylvania. Again, nothing the author asserts even tries to establish that Bannon is an “enemy of the Constitution.” He’s just a political figure promoting policies liberals don’t like. Even left-wing professors consumed with hatred for Bannon, Trump, and Trump’s voters aren’t this sloppy and incoherent.

“Mark Feinberg, Ph.D.” Indeed

No, this is a nasty caricature. A right-wing parody of progressive hysteria penned by the very man it pretends to attack. This column has Bannon’s nefarious ink-stained fingerprints all over it.

If “Mark Feinberg, Ph.D.,” really exists, and really is a “research professor of Health and Human Development at Pennsylvania State University,” as The Hill’s byline asserts, then I am really the Queen of Spain.

Good one, Steve. You had some people fooled! (For more from the author of “Was the Hill Hoaxed Over Its Attack on Steve Bannon?” please click HERE)

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America’s House Is Divided Over Faith. What Can We Do About It?

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New research confirms yet again what many Americans already knew: The divide between Left and Right in America is widening even further.

A post entitled “Don’t Bet On The Emergence Of A ‘Religious Left’” from the Public Religion Research Institute’s research director, Daniel Cox, highlights how the American Left is becoming less religious at a much faster rate than the Right.

Cox explains:

Nearly four in 10 (38 percent) liberals are religiously unaffiliated today, more than double the percentage of the 1990s, according to data from the General Social Survey. In part, the liberal mass migration away from religion was a reaction to the rise of the Christian right. Over the last couple decades, conservative Christians have effectively branded religious activism as primarily concerned with upholding a traditional vision of sexual morality and social norms. That conservative religious advocacy contributed to many liberals maintaining an abiding suspicion about the role that institutional religion plays in society and expressing considerable skepticism of organized religion generally. Only 30 percent of liberals report having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in organized religion. Half say that religion’s impact on society is more harmful than helpful.

Of course, these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, if one takes seriously the research in Rodney Stark’s 2015 book “The Triumph of Faith.” In the book, Stark – a sociologist at Baylor University – looks at the inherent flaws in a great deal of similar research and how its missed nuances skew the numbers away from a more accurate and detailed understanding of religious belief in the U.S.

But this research does indeed speak to an apparent truth to even the most casual observer: Religion on the Left is dying out. Furthermore, it also suggests that while organized religion on the American Right has also diminished over the past few years, the chasm between the faiths of the two poles of American political life is growing wider.

Even more, the philosophical frameworks in which we debate the issues of the republic are growing more and more different from each other, leading us to effectively talk past each other, not debate, on issues like religious freedom, marriage, abortion, and others.

It’s nearly impossible to deny that the Left is becoming not only less religious, but more anti-religious. A lot of this can be attributed to the fact that liberal churches have been dying for some time while conservative denominations thrive.

This divide is evident most of all in how political coalitions have changed over the years. Cox says “religious liberals who once operated in the center ring may now have to come to terms with working outside the spotlight,” and he appears to be right.

While the Democrat Party and the greater political Left used to have a space for religious progressives, this wiggle room has all but disappeared. One need only look at the remaining handful of pro-life Democrats in Congress or the dramatically altered landscape regarding conscience rights between the 1993 passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and today to get a glimpse of a much larger picture.

The other side of this is where religious conservatives should take the most heed. While the increasingly irreligious Left may be out of political power, at least until 2019, it has cultural cachet in spades. This will naturally prompt a different kind of public engagement paradigm from that seen in past generations – ones that Rod Dreher, Anthony Esolen, and R.R. Reno seek to outline in recent books – the former two of which I am still digesting.

One thing is certain: In the present and future political landscape, culture and community will indeed have to be the new watchwords of political engagement for those who still hold fast to the classical triad of the true, the beautiful, and the good.

One clear implication for both sides of the divide, however, is a need to return to the tenets of our original federal system.

We have never in recent memory been more divided in our worldviews as fellow citizens. Ironically, we have also never in recent memory been so in need of a federal system that allows for different societies in this union to govern themselves while debating issues that affect us in the public square, and we have never been farther from it. In an era of such contrast among fellow citizens, good fences are necessary to good neighbors; it’s high time we mended them. (For more from the author of “America’s House Is Divided Over Faith. What Can We Do About It?” please click HERE)

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Netanyahu Welcomes ‘Great Change’ Under Trump During Mattis Visit

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The leader of Israel is no longer hiding his relief that he gets to move on from the anti-Israel policies of former President Barack Obama.

Greeting U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis Friday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted the “welcome change” in the new administration under President Donald Trump.

Mattis is in Israel as part of a greater Middle East trip in which he has been meeting with American allies throughout the region. The retired decorated general turned secretary of defense had stops in Egypt and Saudi Arabia before arriving in Jerusalem for the third leg of his trip. He will visit Qatar on Saturday and Djibouti on Sunday, before heading back to Washington.

“Israel has no better friend than America. America has no better friend than Israel,” Netanyahu said upon greeting Mattis for their joint press conference. “This is a partnership based on common values in the deepest sense of the word.”

Netanyahu praised Mattis and President Trump for their “clear and forthright” language used to describe the threat from the terrorist regime in Iran.

America and Israel face “twin threats” in today’s global security environment, Netanyahu explained, discussing how their common adversaries include the “Shiite extremists led by Iran and the Sunni extremist led by Daesh (the Islamic State).”

Mattis added: “Especially the week before Holocaust Remembrance [Day], I think it’s important that we remind ourselves that if good people don’t band together, then bad people can do a lot of damage in this world.”

Earlier, Mattis met with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. The two discussed the major threat posed by the Iranian regime’s use of terrorist proxies to achieve its goals, and how Tehran continues to threaten global stability with its nuclear program.

Israeli leaders, Netanyahu especially, appear relieved that they no longer have to deal with the Obama administration’s constant harassment of the Jewish state.

Obama accused Israel of “humiliating” Palestinians. His top diplomat, John Kerry, accused Israel of becoming an “apartheid” state, and claimed Israel could not be both Jewish and democratic. The Obama administration also delivered the theocratic regime in Iran over $100 billion in unfrozen assets, and empowered Islamic supremacists worldwide with his support of the Arab spring revolts. In Obama’s last days, he allowed the United Nations to pass an anti-Israel resolution that was so vehemently toxic even Democrats rebuked the former president for his hostility to Israel.

That’s why it surprised nobody when Netanyahu accepted what he called “a great change in the direction of American policy.” (For more from the author of “Netanyahu Welcomes ‘Great Change’ Under Trump During Mattis Visit” please click HERE)

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Sen. Lee Won’t Let the Left Rewrite the Story of American Slavery

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Slavery was not abolished wholesale in the United States until 1867 with the ratification of the 13th Amendment. So ended the great black mark of our republic. However, for the state of Massachusetts, that mark ended before the turn of the 19th century.

One of the most pivotal players in making the Bay State slave-free long before full emancipation was a slave herself. And as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, details in his new book, “Written Out of History” (Penguin Random House), she fought for her own freedom in court long before the outset of the Civil War.

In the collection of stories about forgotten figures in America’s founding, Lee tells the story of Mum Bett, who was a slave in the home of Colonel John Ashley in Massachusetts.

She longed for freedom, and the words of the Sheffield Declaration – which was mostly drafted in her master’s study – especially resonated with her. So much so, it eventually drove her to seek out the kind of liberty that people like Ashley were writing about and fighting for.

“Mum Bett heard those who gathered in her master’s house discussing the principles of freedom and liberty on which the new nation was being founded,” Sen. Lee writes. “Even as a slave, [she] … knew those words were meant for her also.”

For years, Bett waited and yearned for the realization of her God-given liberty, until one day, a particularly appalling run-in with Mrs. Ashley spurred her to take action.

The book recalls that Bett and her sister, Lizzie, were working in the kitchen when Mrs. Ashley spotted Lizzie eating crumbs and scraps from a batch of bread she had just made. Screaming, “Thief, thief,” Ashley went to the stove and pulled out a red-hot coal shovel, lifting it above her head.

The book described the rest as such:

As Mrs. Ashley swung to bring the shovel down on Lizzie, Bett dived forward and placed herself in between her sister and her crazed mistress, with her arm above her head. Her arm caught the force of the blow, shielding Lizzie. The pain was searing. Bett felt it start in her arm and immediately radiate outward, shocking her entire body. But she didn’t scream.

Bett summarily walked out of the house and down the road to enlist the aid of politician and attorney Theodore Sedgwick – who had helped Colonel Ashley with the Sheffield Declaration years before – to represent her in a lawsuit for her freedom. He took her on as a client.

Then it was on; the lawsuit began with another slave of Ashley’s son in a nearby town.

Eventually – after a long wait for the trial and some legal shuffling, the jury found that Bett was a free woman, and that no other human being had any claim to her ownership under the new constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Ashleys even had to pay damages.

Later, the liberated Mum Bett would become Elizabeth Freeman and would take a job as a paid servant of the Sedgewicks under her own volition, quickly becoming a “pillar of the household.” She would eventually die some years later in a home she bought with her own savings, leaving a legacy of liberty in our fledgling republic.

“When she won,” Sen. Mike Lee writes, “it was a victory for natural rights in the face of entrenched interests.

“When the first U.S. Census was taken in 1790, nine years after Mum Bett’s victory in court, her home state of Massachusetts was the only state in the new nation that was found to have no slaves among its population.”

Mum Bett – properly Elizabeth Freeman – is just one of a handful of forgotten figures memorialized in the pages of Lee’s newest work. “Written Out of History” follows two years after the publication of his previous one, “Our Lost Constitution,” and seeks to offer “a true, alternative history of our nation’s founding.”

By telling the stories of people like Freeman, George Mason, Aaron Burr, and others, the senator says that he hopes to remedy what he sees as an imbalance in our popular understanding of the Constitution – one which tends to err on the side of big government (and against liberty).

Lee contends all this is no accident; it is because of the framing of the founding by the Left. And that is what makes the all-but-forgotten history lessons of the book (to be released on May 30) so necessary.

Lee concludes with today’s hard truth: “If you don’t fit a certain version of history […] if your story is inconvenient to the notion that we all benefit from a strong central government in which every aspect of human existence can be regulated by bureaucratic experts in Washington, then you might run the risk of being written out of history.” (For more from the author of “Sen. Lee Won’t Let the Left Rewrite the Story of American Slavery” please click HERE)

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