Trump, Keeping Campaign Promise, Picks More Conservative Judges

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President Donald Trump submitted a new slate of judicial nominees to the Senate Wednesday, naming nine appointees to federal courts across the country.

The list is the second such slate that the president has submitted to the Senate. The White House also indicated that Trump will officially nominate three more judicial candidates in the coming days.

The nominations are the latest in what are expected to be monthly waves of nominations.

The most high-profile nominations include Justice Allison Eid for the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Ralph Erickson for the 8th Circuit, and Stephanos Bibas, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, who will be nominated to a seat on the 3rd Circuit in the near future.

Eid appeared on the president’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees during the 2016 presidential campaign. (Read more from “Trump, Keeping Campaign Promise, Picks More Conservative Judges” HERE)

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House Conservatives Float Ideas for Tax Overhaul, Welfare Reform

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Members of the most conservative caucus in the House of Representatives are ready to share their vision for a tax overhaul, welfare reform, and other legislative priorities.

Tax reform is overdue, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal.

“American voters have demanded a simplified tax code that allows our economy to grow, businesses to thrive, and families to keep more of their money,” Meadows said. “Republicans in Congress have promised for years that if given the opportunity, we would deliver on this goal. It’s our responsibility to do nothing less.”

Meadows and other caucus members will outline their ideas Friday at 9:30 a.m. during an event at The Heritage Foundation.

Repealing Obamacare remains a top priority, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a former chairman of the 2-year-old caucus of about 30 House conservatives, said.

“It’s in the Senate now, we just need to get it done,” Jordan told The Daily Signal in an interview Wednesday. “Hopefully it’s [as] close to what we passed in the House as possible. Hopefully the Senate can approve what was passed in the House. However, it is up to the Senate now.”

The House voted by a razor-thin 217-213 on May 4 to pass Republicans’ revised Obamacare replacement bill after President Donald Trump worked with House Speaker Paul Ryan to bring together House conservatives and centrists on the amended version.

Jordan also said he hopes to address the contested proposal for a “border adjustment tax” as part of overhauling the tax code. The House’s Republican leadership backed the idea last year as part of a tax reform package.

“I think one of the keys for me is stopping the border adjustment tax,” Jordan said. “Just from a purely philosophical standpoint, I don’t see how it’s helpful to put a whole new tax on the American economy, on the American people. So just from a philosophical plane, I’m opposed to it.”

Opponents say such a tax would discourage import-intensive businesses by increasing the cost of their products consumed in America while exported goods and services are tax-free, The Daily Signal previously reported.

But Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and a leading proponent of the tax, said it “restores America as the best place on the planet to do business.”

The tax “is already pretty much dead on arrival,” Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., another member of the Freedom Caucus, told The Daily Signal.

“It just creates an internal food fight between exporters and importers,” Brat said in an interview Wednesday. “The White House doesn’t want it, the Senate says it’s dead.”

Brat said caucus members have a plan to help make up for lost revenue if lawmakers defeat the tax proposal.

Part of the solution involves welfare reform, the Virginia Republican said:

It goes along with tax reform because you are strengthening the labor markets, in the meantime, you are getting able-bodied people back in the workforce, along with tax cuts that are going to stimulate job production and the economy, so it’s a win-win and that’s the goal, right? Our measure of success is how many people we get back in the workforce and off of federal programs.

The Freedom Caucus is in favor of doing some heavy lifting on welfare reform, so every able-bodied person gets into the workforce, and we think there’s about $400 or $500 billion in savings there that helps you get tax reform across the board.

Adam Michel, a policy analyst specializing in taxes at The Heritage Foundation, wrote in a recent commentary that the proposed border adjustment tax would raise “about $1 trillion over 10 years, used to partially finance other beneficial reforms.”

Jordan said the merits of revenue-neutral tax policy, which, for tax cuts, requires offsetting revenue elsewhere, should be part of the discussion.

“I would say ‘revenue neutral’ is Washington-speak [for] saying, ‘The tax burden is going to stay the same, we’re just going to shift around who pays what,’” Jordan said, adding:

And in that scenario, that usually means the connected class gets a good deal and the middle class gets a bad deal.

Also expected to attend the Heritage event are Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C. The event will be livestreamed here. (For more from the author of “House Conservatives Float Ideas for Tax Overhaul, Welfare Reform” please click HERE)

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7 Unexpected Takeaways From James Comey’s Testimony

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Former FBI Director James Comey didn’t let every cat out of the bag in his prepared opening statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee, released the day before his testimony.

The initial words under oath Thursday morning from Comey, who President Donald Trump fired May 9, barely resembled that earlier statement. And during questions and answers, he offered some surprises.

“Lordy, I hope there were tapes,” Comey exclaimed at one point to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., referring to a one-on-one dinner conversation with Trump in which his loyalty was a topic.

He talked mostly about Trump, but also about the president’s vanquished opponent Hillary Clinton and political pressure from Loretta Lynch, former President Barack Obama’s second attorney general.

The ousted FBI director also reaffirmed several times that Trump never was personally under investigation. The hearing before the Senate committee, which lasted nearly three hours, also contained a few awkward exchanges.

Here are seven key points from Thursday’s much-talked-about event:

1. Neither Trump Nor His Administration Asked Comey to Back Off Russia Probe.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., asked whether there was any doubt Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Comey responded that there was no doubt.

“There’s no fuzz on this whatsoever,” he said at one point.

But Comey assured the committee the Russians’ actions didn’t change a single vote, to his knowledge.

Burr asked: “Are you confident that no votes cast in the 2016 president election were altered?”

Comey replied: “I’m confident. When I left as director, I’d seen no indication of that whatsoever.”

Burr followed up: “Did the president at any time ask you to stop the FBI investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 elections?”

Comey responded: “Not to my understanding, no.”

Burr: “Did anyone working in this administration, including the Justice Department, ask you to stop the FBI investigation of Russian involvement in the U.S. election?”

Comey: “No.”

In a statement read to reporters after the hearing, Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, said Comey’s testimony on this matter conflicted with “false press accounts.” Kasowitz said:

Mr. Comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the president privately:

That is, the president was not under investigation as part of any probe into Russian interference. Mr. Comey also admitted that there is no evidence that a single vote changed as a result of any Russian interference.

Mr. Comey’s testimony also makes clear that the president never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election, and in fact, according to Mr. Comey, the president told Mr. Comey ‘it would be good to find out’ in that investigation if there were ‘some satellite associates’ of his who did something wrong

.

2. A New Revelation About Loretta Lynch.

Burr later asked Comey whether his decision not to bring charges in the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state was a result of a private meeting between then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton.

In a surprise, Comey said that was just one of the reasons.

“I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department,” Comey said regarding his July 5 news conference.

Comey also said Lynch, head of the Justice Department as attorney general, seemed to try to interfere with the probe of the Democratic nominee by pushing a political line.

“At one point, the attorney general had directed me not to call it an ‘investigation,’ but instead to call it a ‘matter,’ which confused me and concerned me,” Comey said. “But that was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude I have to step away from the department to close this case credibly.”

In his much-criticized press conference, Comey announced he wouldn’t recommend charges against Hillary Clinton for doing official business using a private email account and email server, but called her behavior reckless.

3. McCain Alleges Double Standard.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sharply suggested that Comey’s FBI applied a double standard in concluding Clinton broke no laws in the email investigation, even though she potentially exposed classified material to the Russians and other adversaries. McCain appeared to suggest that the bureau treated Trump differently in the probe into Russia’s interference in the election, which includes unsubstantiated claims of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

Comey seemed to try to make a distinction between the two investigations.

“The Clinton investigation was a completed investigation the FBI had been deeply involved in, so I had the opportunity to understand all of the facts and apply those facts against the law as I understood them,” Comey said. “This investigation was underway, still going when I was fired. It’s nowhere near in the same place.”

McCain said he understood this during an eight-minute exchange, but continued to critique the former director. In his view and the view of other Americans, McCain said, “there are a whole lot of questions remaining.”

However, it wasn’t clear whether the Arizona Republican was referring to the Trump-Russia probe, the Clinton email probe that had a Russian angle, or both.

“So both President Trump and former candidate Clinton were involved in the investigation, yet one of them, you said, there is going to be no charges, and the other you said the investigation continues,” McCain said. “Well, I think there is a double standard there, to tell you the truth.”

4. Trump Told ‘Lies, Plain and Simple,’ Comey Says.

Comey testified that he believes he was fired because of the Russia investigation, and that Trump was being dishonest about the reasons for the firing. At one point he said he kept notes of meetings with Trump because the president might “lie” about what was said.

“Even though I was appointed to a 10-year term, which Congress created in order to underscore the importance of the FBI being outside of politics, I understood that I could be fired for any reason and for no reason at all,” Comey told the panel.

“The shifting explanations [from the Trump administration] confused me and increasingly concerned me because the president and I had multiple conversations about my job both before and after he took office, and he repeatedly told me I was doing a great job and he hoped I would stay.”

The former FBI director continued:

It confused me when I saw on television the president saying that he actually fired me because of the Russia investigation, and learned again from the media that he was telling other parties that my firing had relieved great pressure on the Russia investigation. I was also confused by the initial explanation I was offered publicly, that I was fired for the decisions I had made during the election year. That didn’t make sense to me for a whole bunch of reasons.

The administration then chose to defame me, and more importantly the FBI, by saying the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies—lies plain and simple.

Comey later said one reason he kept memos of his nine one-on-one conversations with Trump is that he didn’t want the White House to mischaracterize the contents.

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to a reporter’s question of whether Trump is a liar, while directing all questions about the hearing to Trump’s personal attorney.

“I can definitively say the president is not a liar,” Sanders said. “I think it is frankly insulting that question would be asked.”

5. The Flynn Conversation.

The man-to-man conversation Trump had with Comey about national security adviser Mike Flynn, whom the president had fired the day before for misrepresenting contacts with the Russian ambassador, was a major point of the hearing.

During that Oval Office meeting, which Comey said took place Feb. 14 after Trump “kicked out” other high administration officials, Comey recalled that Trump told him of Flynn: “He is a good guy and has been through a lot … I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Comey said he replied, “He is a good guy.” But, he recalled, he said nothing else.

Many Democrats have said the president’s remarks could amount to obstruction of justice, if Trump was seeking to shut down the FBI’s investigation into Flynn’s Russian ties.

Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, pressed Comey, asking, “He did not direct you to let it go?”

Comey responded: “Not in his words, no.”

Risch: “He did not order you to let it go?”

Comey: “Those words were not an order.”

Risch continued: “Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or for that matter any other criminal offense where they said they ‘hoped’ for an outcome?”

Comey explained how he interpreted what Trump said to him about Flynn.

“I don’t know well enough to answer. The reason I keep saying his words is, I took it as a direction,” Comey said. “When it’s the president of the United States with me alone saying ‘I hope this,’ I took it as, ‘This is what he wants me to do.’ I didn’t obey that, but that’s the way I took it.”

Risch: “You don’t know anyone that has been charged for hoping something?”

Comey: “That is correct.”

Kasowitz, the president’s lawyer, later stressed Trump never gave any order.

“Consistent with that statement, the president never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that Mr. Comey ‘let Flynn go,’” Kasowitz said. “As he publicly stated the next day, he did say to Mr. Comey, ‘General Flynn is a good guy, he has been through a lot.’”

6. Feinstein to Comey: ‘You’re Big, You’re Strong.’

In an exchange that would sound a bit awkward in isolation, Feinstein referenced Comey’s 6-foot 8-inch frame in talking about his Oval Office encounter with Trump about Flynn.

“You’re big, you’re strong,” Feinstein told Comey.

“I know the Oval Office, and I know what happens to people when they walk in,” she continued. “There is a certain amount of intimidation. But why didn’t you stop and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong—I cannot discuss that with you’?”

Comey didn’t exactly sound commanding in responding.

“Maybe if I were stronger, I would have,” Comey said. “I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in.”

At other points, Comey said he wasn’t “Captain Courageous” and perhaps had acted in a “cowardly” manner in responding to Trump.

7. Comey Confirmed as a Leaker.

The hearing also focused on Comey’s Jan. 27 dinner with Trump at the White House, when, he said, the president asked for his loyalty as FBI director seven days after his inauguration. Trump denied this in an interview, while also saying nothing would be wrong with that.

Comey said he asked a close friend who works at Columbia University School of Law to leak content from his Justice Department memos on Trump to a reporter.

“The president tweeted on Friday that I better hope there’s not tapes,” Comey recalled to the Senate committee:

I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, because it didn’t dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation, there might be a tape. My judgment was that I needed to get that out to the public square, and so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. I didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons.

While still FBI director, Comey testified that he never had leaked confidential information or asked a subordinate to do so.

Trump’s personal lawyer, Kasowitz, speaking to reporters at the National Press Club after Thursday’s hearing, asserted that Comey now was an admitted leaker.

“It is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications,” Kasowitz said. “Mr. Comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers.”

Kasowitz continued:

Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the president. The leaks of this privileged information began no later than March 2017 when friends of Mr. Comey have stated he disclosed to them the conversations he had with the president during their January 27, 2017, dinner and February 14, 2017, White House meeting.

Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to friends his purported memos of these privileged conversations, one of which he testified was classified. Mr. Comey also testified that immediately after he was terminated he authorized his friends to leak the contents of these memos to the press in order to ‘prompt the appointment of a special counsel.’

Although Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that The New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies Mr. Comey’s excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and appears to be entirely retaliatory.

(For more from the author of “7 Unexpected Takeaways From James Comey’s Testimony” please click HERE)

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Trump’s EPA Chief Backs Approach to Science That Could Upend the Global Warming ‘Consensus’

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Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt reignited a long simmering debate over a method of scientific inquiry that could upset the supposed “consensus” on man-made global warming.

In an interview with Breitbart’s Joel Pollak on Monday, Pruitt said he supported a “red team-blue team” set up to test climate science. Pruitt was inspired by an op-ed by theoretical physicist Steven Koonin, but others have been pushing this idea as well.

“If truth is what we are all after, why would any scientific organization object to an independent look at the claims of the climate establishment?” climate scientist John Christy said.

Christy has testified on the value of “red teams” for climate science many times in the past decade. This time, however, environmentalists and “consensus” scientists are worried Congress will take him seriously.

Red teams would challenge blue teams on global warming hypotheses on “what do we know, what don’t we know, and what risk does it pose to health, the United States, and the world,” Pruitt told Breitbart. (Read more from “Trump’s EPA Chief Backs Approach to Science That Could Upend the Global Warming ‘Consensus'” HERE)

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The IRS Can Seize Your Money Based on a Hunch. This Bill Will Bring That to an End.

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The federal government currently wields a tremendous amount of power over the citizens of the United States, far more than the Founders intended.

One manifestation of federal overreach is civil asset forfeiture. This practice allows the federal government to confiscate the wealth of its citizens upon the mere suspicion of wrongdoing.

The IRS, not content with expropriating the wealth of its citizens on April 15 every year, has now taken up the practice of seizing funds that have been involved in perfectly legal transactions on the basis of a hunch.

Thankfully, legislation in the House and the Senate has been introduced to bring this practice to a halt. Both chambers should act on the bills swiftly.

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, financial transactions of over $10,000 trigger bank reporting requirements. If there are multiple transactions of just under $10,000—by a business, for example—the IRS may become suspicious that there is nefarious activity occurring.

That suspicion can result in assets being seized from innocent Americans. As the House Committee on Ways and Means reported last year:

Current law allows the Federal government, including the IRS, to use civil procedures to seize assets the government believes are involved in illegal activity without ever having to prove that the owners of the assets actually were engaged in criminal activity.

Current law circumvents ancient concepts like due process and innocence until guilt is proven. The federal government then places the burden of reclaiming the assets on the citizen it targeted.

This situation threatens the liberty of American citizens.

The Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration conducted a review of this practice and concluded in a March 30 report that the IRS “criminal investigators mainly pursued law-abiding citizens and businesses when seizing assets in civil forfeiture cases because they were easier to go after.”

The report found that the extent of the problem was significant. In fact:

The inspector general found money seized and forfeited by the IRS was legally obtained in 91 percent of a sample of 278 structuring investigations it reviewed occurring between fiscal years 2012 and 2014. Altogether, those funds totaled $17.1 million and involved 231 cases.

Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., made progress in righting this wrong in the last session of Congress. He introduced the Restraining Excessive Seizure of Property through the Exploitation of Civil Asset Forfeiture Tools (RESPECT) Act.

The RESPECT Act would require that the IRS first prove “that the money was connected to a crime,” and would also “exempt from federal income tax any interest that the Treasury pays on seized funds that are returned.”

The bill had bipartisan cosponsors and passed the House by a vote of 415-0 last September. The Senate did not take up the bill, and it languished. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s companion bill also was never acted on.

Roskam introduced the bill again in the House, and Scott has introduced the bill in the Senate this year, on the same day that the Treasury’s tax inspector general released his critical findings about the IRS seizing money from innocent Americans.

This bill is a bipartisan ray of light in an increasingly fractured political process. Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., joined Roskam in introducing the bill.

Republicans and Democrats agree that the IRS is overstepping its authority and needs to be restrained. Scott has also introduced the Senate companion bill.

There is clear bipartisan consensus that civil asset forfeiture is an abuse that needs to be halted. To protect taxpayers, small businesses, and the basic integrity of rule of law, the RESPECT Act needs to get to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature. (For more from the author of “The IRS Can Seize Your Money Based on a Hunch. This Bill Will Bring That to an End.” please click HERE)

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Operation Temperer – U.K. Will Likely Institute Martial Law Measures Within a Year

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After the Manchester suicide bombing only two weeks ago I warned my readers that the repetition of terror attacks is breeding complacency within the public, in Europe most acutely. It is not uncommon now for attacks killing dozens to be forgotten within a week of the event. The news feeds are awash in distraction and, of course, sometimes these events themselves act as distractions.

In a recent newscast of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, BBC anchor Katty Kay stated:

Europe is getting used to attacks like this, Mika. They have to, because we are never going to be able to totally wipe this out…

To me, this attitude is rather indicative of the European victim-culture mindset. Many in Europe (not all, but many) seem to enjoy a steady routine of self-flagellation. Countless centuries of the feudal serf system will do that to a society. The British still pay taxes to maintain a royal family, after all. I also think that the results of the Brexit vote in the UK might mislead those of us in America into thinking that the British are turning over a new leaf in terms of liberty and conservative-like values. While I do think there is a fierce underlying drive to protect sovereignty of the British nation, the British individual has all but abandoned any hope of their own personal sovereignty and self-determination.

In mainland Europe the self-loathing natural born citizen has become a bit of a mainstay and has been exploited quite successfully by the globalist establishment. In particular, the great fear among predominantly liberal Europeans is a return to the nationalist fervor that they believe spawned the rise of Nazism and the Third Reich (I have written numerous articles outlining the involvement of the corporate and banking elite in funding and supplying vital technology to the Nazis before and during WWII). It is this “guilt” of association with the Nazi legacy that has left Europe vulnerable to manipulation from the other end of the political spectrum – the socialist/Marxist end.

It is also this mindset that allowed globalists to forcefully inject millions of Muslim immigrants through open border policies and refugee policies into EU nations without proper vetting procedures. The majority of Europeans that saw the policy as irrational and dangerous were afraid to say anything for fear that they would be labeled “fascists.”

The greatest threat is not only the conditioning of the population to accept cultural invasion without assimilation. Nor is the greatest threat the pacification of the populace in the face of rampant terror attacks. No, the pinnacle threat is what will inevitably come next – the apathy of a nation in the wake of incremental martial law and the death of personal liberty.

This past week, a team of three Muslim men struck pedestrians with a white van, then emerged wielding hunting knives in a rampage through a crowded London night spot. This is only one attack in a steady stream that has plagued Europe ever since the Cloward-Piven program of Muslim relocation allowed millions of “refugees” into the EU’s borders. The vaporous ISIS terror group has since claimed responsibility.

In response, Prime Minister Theresa May has declared “enough is enough,” and demanded a review of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy. London police have been asked to adjust to new tactical conditions, patrolling streets heavily armed and utilizing surveillance helicopters with the aid of special forces units.

NOTE – After finishing this article on Sunday, I find this quote from Theresa May on Tuesday:

We should do even more to restrict the freedom and the movements of terrorist suspects when we have enough evidence to know they present a threat, but not enough evidence to prosecute them in full in court.

And if human rights laws get in the way of doing these things, we will change those laws to make sure we can do them…

The deployment of over 5000 British troops at strategic locations by Theresa May is all part of a plan established in 2015 called “Operation Temperer.” The plan calls for the deployment of troops within the UK border in response to “major terrorist threats.” Essentially, it is a martial law program that acts incrementally, rather than overtly. Once implemented, Temperer would be difficult to reverse. As UK military chiefs warned when the operation was publicly exposed, troops would likely not be pulled back after commitment unless the terror threat was “reduced,” leaving the definition of the “threat level” open for rather broad interpretation.

Operation Temperer is now in full swing as police departments ask for military aid. The prime minister has obliged, replacing officers in numerous locations with military units on patrol. So, is this “martial law?” Perhaps not quite, but it is damn close to the line, and this is how tyranny is commonly implemented; not all at once, but a stepping stone at a time.

First, I would point out that May introduced Temperer measures after the Manchester bombing, and they do not seem to have done much to disrupt the latest attack in London. Second, I would also point out that the UK general elections for parliament are only a few days away, and it is highly likely that the latest attacks will solidify Theresa May and her Brexit base. The timing is rather interesting….

Many in the Liberty Movement would say that this is a good thing; that finally the British will be able to reverse the forced cultural invasion of an incompatible Muslim mass. I would say that this is all part of the plan.

As I have argued since before the Brexit vote last year, we are witnessing perhaps the largest 4th Gen psy-op in history. The globalists have deliberately engineered conditions by which European nations in particular will either be enveloped by an alien ideology with no protection from their own governments, or they will have to respond with overarching countermeasures. Meaning, Europeans have been given a false choice between the ideological cult of multiculturalism, or, martial law conditions.

In my view, the UK has been slated for the latter measure, and this makes perfect sense if you understand the game plan of the globalists.

Brexit and by extension the rise of Donald Trump in the US has been ALLOWED to happen. Despite the delusions of some in the Liberty Movement, the so-called “deep state” is perfectly positioned to take advantage of both events. They are not opposed in the slightest. Why? Because this is about destroying the name of sovereign nationalism and conservative principles. This is about the long game.

The UK appears to be first in the line-up. Terror attacks are mounting, May has already initiated Operation Temperer, and the attacks have continued anyway. The solution they will present will be MORE militarization, not less. It is my prediction that after a year of incrementalism and continued attacks, the entire UK will be in the midst of what many would define as full-spectrum martial law. The UK government might not openly call it that, but that is what it will be.

While I personally find Muslim-based societies to be abhorrent in their attitude towards individual liberty, I do see a disturbing trend developing on the other side of the coin. Western nations like the UK and the US have every right to defend their borders, to deny immigration from ANYWHERE for any reason, and to deport illegal immigrants and immigrants with provable ties to terror groups. However, the line that should not be crossed but probably will be crossed is the persecution or deportation of people merely for holding particular ideological views.

Even if the majority of citizens don’t necessarily support an outright broad-brush response towards all people who hold Muslim views as potential terrorists, the temptation will be overwhelming, and our respective governments will oblige it. Once we step into the world of thought crime, there is no turning back.

And, what this does is paint conservative/nationalist movements as monstrous in the eyes of future generations. They will be taught that the globalists “warned the world” about the dangerous “racist” populists and alt-right groups, and look what happened when they came to power; they vaporized the economy (see my previous articles on the Trump scapegoat narrative) and rounded up innocent people because of their belief system even though they committed no specific crimes. My fear is that what is happening here is that conservative movements are going to be driven to such madness in the name of security that we will actually make the globalists look like “good guys” by comparison.

So, what is the solution? Well, look at the choices the British people have been given: Accept multicultural sublimation without question, or initiate complete military oversight and sacrifice personal liberty. Are there no other options available?

What about this: The UK citizenry DEMANDS the return of their right to self-defense and the legalization of firearms ownership for those without a criminal background? The real solution is for UK citizens to begin providing their own security, not handing over their country to militarization because they are all disarmed and afraid.

Will this happen? I seriously doubt it. But, I do want to point out that there is clearly another path far superior to the two being offered.

Again, I believe the UK will be under martial law in a year’s time. Unless the people of the UK do something NOW to assert their right to determine their own security, they will fall to a complete totalitarian framework. And, in the long run, they will only be helping the very globalists the Brexit movement in particular sought to fight against. They will do this by trampling the image of nationalism and sovereignty with the jackbooted philosophy of externalized security and government dependency, making globalism, the offered antithesis, look pleasant and tolerable in retrospect. (For more from the author of “Operation Temperer – U.K. Will Likely Institute Martial Law Measures Within a Year” please click HERE)

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‘Wonder Woman’ Is a Box Office Hit in US, but Its Star Is Controversial in Middle East

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The new Wonder Woman movie has been a smash at the box office, having grossed $129 million in its first five days in U.S. theaters and more than $220 million worldwide.

While many movie fans are anxious to see the new Warner Bros. film, people in Lebanon won’t get the opportunity. That’s because the film was banned last week by the country’s ministry of economy and trade.

The ban was not because of content the country deems offensive but rather because of its lead actress, Gal Gadot. She is an Israeli.

Lebanon bans Israeli products because it is at war with Israel.

Supporters of the boycott say it’s not Gadot’s nationality prompting the boycott, but rather the time she spent in the Israeli military — a requirement for Israeli men and women over 18 — and her public support of the Israeli military in the 2014 Israeli-Gaza conflict in which more than 2,200 people died, many of them civilians. More than 2,000 of those casualties were Palestinians.

In a Facebook post in 2014, Gadot said she was sending prayers for Israeli soldiers “who are risking their lives protecting my country against the horrific acts conducted by Hamas.”

A group called Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel urged the Lebanese government to ban the film.

“The state took the right decision,” Samah Idriss, a member of the boycott campaign, told The Associated Press.

Officials in Jordan are also considering banning the movie in that country.

“We remind the Jordanians of their obligation to boycott the film, and we refuse to be partners to the crimes of the Zionists and to increase their profits from this film. The Arab audience will not be involved in projects that represent Zionism and the Israeli army,” said a statement from one of the Jordanian campaigns against normalization with Israel, according to Ynet, an Israeli website.

Not everyone in Lebanon agrees with the decision to ban the film.

“Resist what?” wrote popular Lebanese blogger Elie Fares of her government’s decision. “A movie about an iconic superhero who’s been part of pop culture for over 70 years. A movie in which the lead actress happens to be Israeli but who’s not portraying ANYTHING related to her ‘country’ in any way whatsoever.”

In Jerusalem, Gadot’s performance and the movie’s success are being hailed.

The Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv displayed electronic billboard messages for Gidot this week that read, “We’re proud of you Gal Gadot” and “Our Wonder Woman,” according to The Jerusalem Post. (For more from the author of “‘Wonder Woman’ Is a Box Office Hit in US, but Its Star Is Controversial in Middle East” please click HERE)

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Tolerance Will Not Stop Terrorism

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At some point, leaders in the West will have to recognize that they share very little in common with the worldview of Islamic terrorists. At some point, they will have to take seriously Islamic theology and the mindset of a radical Muslim. At some point, they will have to come to grips with the fact that they cannot combat Islamic terrorism with tolerance.

Better Opportunities Won’t Combat Terrorism

In his significant new book, The Islam in Islamic Terrorism: The Importance of Beliefs, Ideas, and Ideology, Ibn Warraq writes:

There are many contemporary political commentators and intellectuals who do not accept what seems an obvious starting point in trying to explain the behavior of Islamic terrorists, namely their beliefs, their ideology as laid down in tract after tract, statement after statement, interview after interview, and book after book — books that are the careful work of Muslim scholars of Islam, lavishly sprinkled with quotes from the Koran, which is the very word of Allah, the hadīth (the sayings and deeds of Muhammad and his Companions), the sira (life of the Prophet), all used to justify their heinous acts, even against civilians, including women, children, and the old.

Because of this, Western leaders are always looking for other causes of Islamic terrorism. The problem is unemployment. Or poverty. Or lack of education. Or the history of Western colonialism in the Muslim world. Or something else. Anything but Islamic theology and beliefs.

Just last month, former Secretary of State John Kerry advised graduates of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government that the way to solve the terror problem in Middle East was to provide better educational and vocational opportunities for the youth. He said, “Surely we can begin to prevent tomorrow’s extremism by offering young people the promise of modernity and good governance, not the destruction of strapping on a suicide vest and blowing yourself up and a whole bunch of innocent people.” (He said this in the aftermath of the Manchester suicide bombing.)

The reality is that many terrorists come up from upper- and middle-class families. Many are well educated (including Ph.D.’s and medical doctors). And many have all the opportunities a young person could ask for. (Remember that Osama bin Laden was a friend of Saudi royalty and came from a rich, influential Saudi family.)

It is Islamic theology that drives the terrorist, and jobs, educational opportunity, and all the benefits of the West will not deter him. He is at war with the unbelievers, whether he finds them in London or Algeria. His sacred duty is holy war.

Denying the Root Cause

Speaking of the Charlie Hebdo slaughter in France, Ibn Warraq writes,

After the massacre “White House press secretary Josh Earnest suggested that ‘these are individuals who carried out an act of terrorism, and … later tried to justify that act of terrorism by invoking the religion of Islam and their own deviant view of it.’” This sounds as if the Charlie Hebdo terrorists set out to commit a random act of violence, and then, when they realized they needed some justification afterwards, plucked “Islam” out of the air by sheer chance.

Precisely. This is what our “enlightened” leaders would have us believe. These attacks have nothing to do with Islam. If we can understand what is upsetting these people, then we can live together in peace.

Not so. What is upsetting them is their theology.

After the most recent terrorist attack in London, major security questions are being asked. How did these terrorists slip through the cracks? Some were already known to the police and national security. Yet they were able to operate freely enough to concoct and carry out their murderous plot.

One of the London terrorists previously appeared in a UK documentary called The Jihadis Next Door in which he was seen praying with an unfurled ISIS flag. Yet he was able to remain in the UK and, quite obviously, was not that closely monitored.

Do the British authorities want to stop terrorism? Of course they do, with all their hearts and souls. Do they care deeply about the wellbeing of their people? Without a doubt. I’m sure many would give their lives to save the lives of others. And I imagine their system is strained to the max as they try to stay one step ahead of the killers.

But that illustrates a large part of the problem. Any country that thinks it can tolerate the presence of thousands of jihadi Muslims is deceiving itself. Soon enough, blood will be shed — lots of it.

Italy’s Intolerance — And Safety

I just spent three days in Italy and Germany. While in Italy, I spoke with a colleague who served as a policeman for years. He had dealt with high-level security cases in the past and explained to me why, so far, Italy has not had a rash of Islamic terror attacks. (He is not boasting; rather, he is grateful.)

One factor is that many Islamic immigrants pass from Africa into Italy on their way to other countries, so they are not as likely to launch an attack. They want Italy to be a safe haven for them.

Another is how the military police and local police are involved in their communities, constantly gathering and sharing information.

Yet another factor (only in Italy!) is that in Sicily, where I was staying, the mafia controls the building industry, including access to explosives, and they are not going to sell explosives to terrorists.

Finally, there is Italy’s intolerance of radical Muslims. My friend explained that the moment someone is caught going in this direction (in other words, acting like the jihadi next door), that person is arrested and deported. This is also widely reported in the media so as to send out a warning as well.

Because Italy is intolerant of this terrorist ideology, the government combats it more aggressively.

This does not guarantee the nation’s safety, but it goes a long way to preserving it, since you cannot fight terrorism with tolerance. Quite the contrary. It is only a strategic, wide-ranging, and uncompromising intolerance that can combat Islamic terrorism. That will never happen as long as Western leaders refuse to recognize the Islamic roots of Islamic terror. (For more from the author of “Tolerance Will Not Stop Terrorism” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Pro-Life Filmmaker Documents Quest by Victims of ISIS to Revoke Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize

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I learned of filmmaker and pro-life activist Jason Jones’ new project in the usual way (for Jason): He called me from the front lines where he was already making it.

I mean “front lines” quite literally. He told me on the crackling phone call that he was five or ten miles, max, from ISIS-controlled territory in Iraq. It was just him, a few Kurdish militiamen, and a camera guy. They were driving from ruined town to town, from makeshift refugee camps to blasted shells of churches. He was talking to women, children, bishops, pastors, fathers who’d lost their families, and volunteer freedom fighters. On a shoestring and a bunch of rapidly maxing out credit cards, he was determined to capture the footage. “Who knows if all these people will still be alive next year?” he said. “If ISIS turns the tide.” He said he could smell the cordite from exploding IEDs.

Later on he would figure out how to pay for editing, post-production, and distribution, he promised. Now that he’s safely back in the States, Jason settled in to tell me much more about the project.

Stream: You’re a father of seven. What on earth moved you to go to one of the most dangerous regions on the planet to make a film?

Jones: What has driven me since age 17 was a passion to protect the vulnerable from violence. That started when I couldn’t protect my own daughter. So I swore then, for her sake, to fight with every fiber of my being to defend people like her: the abandoned, the forgotten, who would otherwise die in darkness.

The unborn are still treated as public enemy number one. But a close second are religious minorities in the Middle East, such as the Christians and the Yazidis.

Some might ask why you don’t concentrate your efforts closer to home. Focus on the homeless in America’s streets….

Jones: I do work with the homeless in U.S. cities. And I’ve spoken out against the abuses of capital punishment. But those causes get a great deal of attention from Americans already. I’ll give some liberals and a lot of Christians credit for taking those issues on.

But there are certain victims whom Americans really don’t want to look at. I feel especially called to put those victims’ stories in the public eye. We don’t really want to see the Planned Parenthood videos. That’s why you have judges perverting the law to try to ban them. News organizations falsely claiming that the videos were doctored. Prosecutors trying to put the journalists who made them in prison. Kamala Harris of California rode her persecution of David Daleiden all the way to the U.S. Senate.

What other victims don’t Americans want to see?

The victims of our own country’s failed foreign policy. You and I were among the few conservatives who opposed the Iraq war back in 2002. We saw that there was no plan for protecting religious minorities, or keeping that fragile country from collapsing into chaos. Sadly, that’s what happened. U.S. forces obeyed their orders to stand down, while jihadis ethnically cleansed almost a million Iraqi Christians right under our troops’ noses.

Then we opposed Obama’s reckless decision to pull out American forces and abandon Iraq to its fate. Sure enough, ISIS emerged to fill the vacuum, and launch its campaign of genocide, religious persecution, mass rape and sex trafficking — not to mention terrorism in countries around the world. We protested again when Obama went further than the looniest neoconservative fantasy, and encouraged the “Arab Spring,” which replaced thuggish but secular dictators with howling Islamist mobs from Cairo to Benghazi to Aleppo.

You and I were both vocal during the 2016 presidential campaign in opposing reckless calls for the U.S. to do to Syria what it had done to Iraq. The best thing about Donald Trump was his refusal to keep on pursuing the same policies and expect a different outcome. The U.S. is being much smarter on Syria as a result — helping the Kurds to liberate themselves, their own way and on their own terms.

This is a documentary. So what are you trying to document?

The real-world impact, in the lives of hundreds of thousands of helpless people, of careless rhetoric. Of utopian daydreams cooked up in comfortable corner offices in Washington, D.C., with no regard for real-world constraints. Of shallow breast-thumping and hollow promises.

With abortion, there’s a clear causal connection between our sex-drenched culture and dumpsters full of the parts of unborn American babies. Well the same is true of foreign policy. You can draw a bright, unbreakable line between Obama’s messianic promises and sloppy “idealist” policies — and Iraq’s burned-out villages, ISIS-run rape camps, and shallow graves full of victims young and old.

Exposing How Obama Cleared the Field for ISIS

Does the film tell a story?

Instead of presenting a straight history lesson, we personalize it. On my visit to Iraq I met dozens of amazing people whom I’ll remember the rest of my life. Soldiers, pastors, parents…. But two really stuck out to me: A Kurdish Muslim surgeon, and a young girl whose name I can’t use — because she was a Yazidi captured by ISIS. They processed her into their computerized database of sex slaves, and tortured her for months. She finally escaped, and now she wants to tell her story. But these two women want to do something more.

When I met them in Iraq, they told me how scandalized Iraqi victims are by the fact that Barack Obama received and still holds a Nobel Peace Prize. That’s the highest international honor that exists. Yet the man who received it yawned his way through eight long years of outrages and horrors. He spoke like a prophet of peace. But his policies made the war worse. They empowered the vilest, most violent organization on earth to take over most of two countries. And that is an outrage.

So what do your Iraqi friends want to do?

They’re campaigning to get the Nobel Committee to revoke Obama’s peace prize. Who knows if they’ll make any progress? But their plan is to collect thousands of signatures, and hundreds of testimonies, from victims of Obama’s foreign policy. Then they will take them to Oslo, and present them to the Nobel Committee, maybe even the King of Sweden — who confers the prize. Imagine (Michael Moore’s breakthrough documentary) Roger and Me, if it focused not on lost auto jobs but rape camps and genocide.

What do you hope this film will achieve?

I want to help Americans understand how dangerous Islamist terrorists really are, and what we can do to help today. I hope that the film will be a powerful document of historical memory — and a powerful tool which activists, political leaders, clergy, and others can use to awaken the consciences of millions of Americans. We will record the testimonies of the most vulnerable, abandoned people on earth, and bring them to the U.S. media, the halls of Congress, and the White House.

What can Stream readers do?

Jones: They can visit our Indiegogo page, which is how we’re crowdsourcing the film. They can give, and share it, and spread the word. We want the world to remember, for the sake of the victims today — and the people who might be victims tomorrow.

(For more from the author of “Pro-Life Filmmaker Documents Quest by Victims of ISIS to Revoke Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

What to Expect During Comey’s Congressional Testimony

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Former FBI Director James Comey will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee [today] at 10 a.m. EST — but his just-released prepared testimony suggests what he will tell them. Democrats intend to ask him why President Trump fired him. They assert Trump fired him in order to shut down the FBI’s investigation into possible Trump campaign collusion with the Russians to influence the presidential election.

They are also expected to ask about Trump requesting that he shut down the FBI’s probe of former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn. Flynn resigned after it came out that he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about a conversation he’d had with the Russian ambassador. Democrats want to show that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice.

Trump’s Firing of Comey

Trump himself has contributed to the controversy. He has stated the reason he fired Comey was because he mishandled the probe of Hillary Clinton’s email server while she was secretary of state. He said that he based his decision to fire Comey on the recommendations of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein. He later said he had decided to fire Comey even before receiving their memo.

Comey announced on July 5 last year that he was recommending no prosecution of Clinton. Trump expressed his disappointment over Twitter.

A few days before the election, when Comey announced the FBI was re-opening the probe into Clinton’s server, Trump responded that it “took guts.” In early May, before he was fired, Comey testified that it made him “mildly nauseous” to re-open the Clinton probe.

Comey’s Testimony is Already Out

The Senate Intelligence Committee released Comey’s prepared statement today. He allegedly asked for it to be released, according to NBC News.

In it, he describes how he met with Trump to provide him with information about Russian efforts to influence the election. He describes the material in the so-called Trump dossier as “salacious and unverified.” Critically, Comey confirms that he said several times his investigation did not target Trump himself.

Comey describes a conversation with Trump where he told Trump he was “not reliable” in the traditional political sense. He kept quiet after Trump said he needed loyalty, but later conceded he could provide “honest loyalty.”

The FBI is “an independent investigative agency,” he said, even though the president has full authority to appoint and fire its director.

During another private conversation with the president, Comey says the president urged him to drop the investigation into Flynn. Comey said he agreed with Trump that Flynn is “a good guy,” but did not respond to the request.

Comey says he did not think the president was asking him to drop the broader investigation of whether the Trump campaign had colluded with the Russians. He admits that he decided not to pass along Trump’s request to the team investigating Flynn. Instead, the investigation “moved ahead at full speed.”

After those conversations, Comey said he implored Sessions to stop the president from directly communicating with him. Sessions did not respond, and the communications continued. Comey, who is 6’8, once tried to blend in with dark blue curtains in the Blue Room during an event in order to avoid the president.

Comey has made provocative — or even reckless — statements while testifying in Congress. In March, he took the extraordinary step of publicly disclosing for the first time that the FBI was investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. He admitted the FBI only discloses its investigations in rare circumstances. There was a rumor that Trump was going to claim executive privilege to prohibit Comey from testifying, but that turned out to be false.

Senators to Watch Tomorrow

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He has run the committee in a collegial, bipartisan manner with the ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). However, hinting at how valid he believes the accusations are of Russian interference with the election, Warner said that his work on the committee’s investigation is “probably the most important thing I’ve done in public life.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is the second-ranking Republican in the Senate and known for not holding back with grilling questions. Senators James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Roy Blount (R-Mo.) can also be expected to ask some piercing questions. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), as the most well-known senator on the committee, will probably steal much of the show.

The testimony will be aired on C-SPAN 3, which can be viewed online. Other cable outlets are also expected to broadcast the testimony with all the pomp and enthusiasm reserved for the Oscars.

(For more from the author of “What to Expect During Comey’s Congressional Testimony” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.