The Probe into the Russia-Trump Investigation Has Been Going on for Awhile

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Earlier in the week, as promised, Attorney General Bill Barr assigned a US attorney to oversee the events and tactics that set into motion the lengthy and politically-explosive federal probe that was eventually inherited and concluded by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Barr has infuriated Democrats by stating that he was planning to do so, inflaming them further by using the word “spying” in reference to certain government surveillance of Trump campaign associates. But as even former DNI James Clapper has admitted, the Obama-era DOJ’s actions met the “dictionary definition” of spying. In any case, we’re learning that the current investigation of the previous investigation has already expanded.

Recall that the Justice Department’s tough and respected Inspector General is on the brink of completing his look at potential FISA abuses, which is rumored to contain very critical assessments of the FBI’s reliance on the infamous (and heavily discredited) Steele Dossier. How many people knew about Steele’s serious credibility problems as they leaned so heavily on his work to obtain warrants? And was the fact that his dodgy (and possibly Russia-planted) opposition research was bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC hidden or obscured from the judges who approved those warrants? These are important questions, but their scope only goes so far — which is why Barr has moved to assign the job of rendering a more comprehensive account to someone else. And boy, does this process, still being presented as a “review,” appear to be escalating:

Attorney General William Barr is working closely with the CIA to review the origins of the Russia investigation and surveillance issues surrounding Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, according to a source familiar with the matter, broadening an effort that the President has long demanded to involve all major national security agencies. Barr is working in close collaboration with CIA Director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and FBI Director Christopher Wray, the source said. There had been speculation as to why Haspel had been spotted at the Justice Department in recent weeks. Wray testified last week he was assisting Barr.

The CIA is in the mix? We’ve also learned that the probe has already been underway for some time:

(Read more from “The Probe into the Russia-Trump Investigation Has Been Going on for Awhile” HERE)

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2020 Dem Has an Idea Prepared to Make Abortion Permanent in U.S.

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In light of Alabama’s recent decision to make abortion almost entirely illegal, 2020 democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Book (D-NJ) proposes making Roe v. Wade a permanent part of the law by having Congress draft legislation.

Before Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill into law, Booker took to Twitter to reiterate his position:

“The injustices we’re seeing in Alabama right now with this legislation, it’s important that all of us understand that this is a threat to women’s freedoms and women’s rights all over our country, not just there,” he said.

“Right now I am calling for it [a bill to make abortion permanently legal], even though obviously with Mitch McConnell and a [majority Republican] Senate we would not see a vote” should it be introduced.

“We need to pass it through the House and Senate, and I look forward to signing that law when I become president,” he added. (Read more from “2020 Dem Has an Idea Prepared to Make Abortion Permanent in U.S.” HERE)

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WATCH: Feminist Charges, Physically Assaults Pro-Life Protester

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A pro-life woman in Huntsville, Alabama, was physically assaulted by a feminist earlier this month as she was protesting abortion outside the Alabama Women’s Center abortion clinic.

The pro-life woman, identified as Mary Baggett, captured the assault on video and posted it to social media; her caption read: “This lady attacked me at the baby murdering mill! I believe the deathscorts were inciting her and her friend/boyfriend. I saw them being buddies with them earlier and hugging them. I’m ok but my hand is bruised and swelling up. My hands, feet and back are hurting. It could have been worse. Thank You Father for Your protection”

In the video, Baggett is on the sidewalk with other pro-lifers holding signs about abortion. Then a car pulls up and shouting begins. Soon enough, Baggett is being charged and physically assaulted by a female upset about their pro-life speech and is screaming that she did not give them “permission” to film her.

“The woman who came up to me punched my hands. I must have been holding the camera with both hands, cause one is bruised pretty bad but the one hand I hold the phone with is hurting too,” Baggett recalled to Live Action. “Then she grabbed my phone and ran to her car. I went after her and demanded she give me the phone back [and she] finally threw it in the grass.”

Apparently abortion escorts were yelling at the pro-life activist to leave after she was assaulted. “The man who was in the first car, who she was with apparently, he came back before the police showed up,” she claimed. “I thought he was going to try to harm us so I started taking his picture and telling him the police were on the way. He left in a hurry. I called the police and filed a report.”

(Read more from “WATCH: Feminist Charges, Physically Assaults Pro-Life Protester” HERE)

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WATCH: Reporter Fires Hostile Question at Pro-Life Governor. Governor Flattens Her.

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Before she signed the strongest anti-abortion bill in the nation on Wednesday, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey faced down a hostile question from a CBS reporter and immediately flattened her. CBS reporter Jericka Duncan asked, “Where is the money coming from to support people who aren’t ready to be mothers or aren’t financially stable to take care of a child?” Ivey fired back, “You simply cannot defer protecting the lives of unborn children because of costs.”

Ivey served as Alabama State Treasurer from 2003 to 2011, then served as lieutenant governor from 2011 to 2017. She became Alabama’s second female governor and first female Republican governor after the resignation of Governor Robert Bentley; she won a full term in 2018.

Ivey has not flinched from holding staunchly conservative positions; in April 2017 she signed into law a bill stating that juries that imposed capital punishment could not be overruled by judges. Frank Knaack, executive director of Alabama Appleseed, asserted, “We should all agree that if we have a death penalty then the process should be fair and accurate. SB 16 will help minimize unreliable and arbitrary death sentences and move Alabama one step closer to ending its outlier status. We commend Senator Brewbaker, Senator Sanders, and Representative England for their leadership in this effort. And, we thank Governor Ivey for her quick action to finally put an end to judicial override in Alabama.” (Read more from “WATCH: Reporter Fires Hostile Question at Pro-Life Governor. Governor Flattens Her.” HERE)

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DOJ Report: 43% of All Offenders Last Year Were Non-Citizens

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While jailbreak, known by its proponents as “criminal justice reform,” is misguided on the state level, it is downright built upon a false premise on the federal level. The latest report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission demonstrates that the 800-pound gorilla in the room clogging up the federal criminal justice system is immigration, not “low-level” domestic offenders.

If we only solved our border problem and deported illegal aliens before they commit more crimes, not only would we be safer, but we’d save a ton of money on the federal criminal justice system – without irresponsibly releasing American criminals back into our communities, as proposed by jailbreak proponents.

According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, in its recently published 2018 report on federal sentencing statistics, 54.3 percent of the 69,425 federal offenders last year were Hispanic, and 42.7 percent of offenders were non-citizens. The two biggest offense categories were immigration (34.4 percent) and drugs (28.1 percent).

This is why methamphetamine was actually the most common drug charge, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The biggest increase in drug activity from the cartels was meth, not marijuana or even heroin. Thus, our federal drug prosecutions are all about the most violent transnational cartels and gangs. Federal prosecutors don’t waste their time with “low-level” Americans in New York or Chicago. Drug possession charges accounted for just 3.9 percent of federal offenders, and almost all of those were in border districts because they involved immigration cases.

The notion that the feds go after drug possession is just a straight-up lie. 63 percent of all non-citizens charged for drug trafficking in 2018 were illegal aliens. Moreover, because illegal alien networks are the antecedent for much of the trafficking from the cartels, if we were to enforce our immigration laws on the front end, many Americans who get roped into drug trafficking would never have the opportunity to do so.

As Robert Murphy, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Atlanta office, told me last year, “Predominantly, what we arrest here is illegal aliens.” He noted that were we to close our border and deport all criminal aliens, the cartels would struggle to survive. “Sure, you might find some Americans who would be willing to go to Mexico and work for the cartels, but it won’t be the level that they need to have the control of the U.S. market like they do now with the illegals and Mexican nationals.”

To begin with, the federal prison population overall has plummeted over the past decade, the exact opposite of the jailbreak narrative. The imprisonment rate for sentenced prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction decreased 2.1 percent from 2016 to 2017 and 13 percent since 2007, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The imprisonment rate for sentenced prisoners older than 18 was the lowest since 1995.

The decline in the federal system is even sharper. The federal system, to begin with, only accounts for 12 percent of the incarcerated population, and if they are not in the system for immigration charges, they are usually those who’ve graduated to big-time crimes. Yet since just 2012, the federal prison population has declined by 16 percent.

Still, the jailbreakers think that all of the releases, under-sentencing, and lack of convictions are not enough “progress” in dismantling law and order in this country.

What these numbers also demonstrate is the degree of criminality from illegal aliens in this country. Defenders of open borders will retort by noting that the overwhelming number of non-citizen offenders are in the system for immigration violations, which is self-fulfilling and doesn’t demonstrate that they commit more crime in general. However, they miss the point that most U.S. attorneys will not waste their time prosecuting someone for a standard immigration charge unless they believe they are engaged in trafficking for the cartels or have committed other crimes.

Most illegal aliens now are either given de facto amnesty and released, or they are deported. If they are turned over to the DOJ for prosecution, there is usually more than just immigration violations, though they charge them with immigration violations, which are open-and-shut cases, in order to save time and resources. In fact, in 2012, the DOJ adopted a “fast-track” prosecutorial procedure in the border districts to allow criminal aliens to plead down for the purpose of deporting them expeditiously. Were they to remain in the country, as many weak-on-crime and open-borders advocated want, they would be prosecuted for other crimes. And had we not deported millions of criminal aliens over the past two decades, we would be dealing with an unimaginable level of crime from those who would remain in the country. Remember, we actually have deported some of the worst criminal elements among illegal aliens, and yet there are still this many coming into the justice system.

So the next time you hear someone complaining about too many people locked up in federal prison for “stupid drug charges,” ask them their position on immigration. (For more from the author of “DOJ Report: 43% of All Offenders Last Year Were Non-Citizens” please click HERE)

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House Republicans Move Ahead with Effort to Force Dems to Vote on Pro-Israel Bill

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House Republicans are making a move to force Democrats into a potentially party-splitting pro-Israel vote on the House floor.

Wednesday morning, standing alongside a sign that said “We stand with Israel,” members of the House Republican conference discussed their latest procedural move to force a vote on a bill combatting the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestiture, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, the world’s only Jewish state: A discharge petition.

“As elected leaders we have a duty to address the rising trend of anti-Semitism we are seeing across the nation and around the world,” reads a statement from Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. “The BDS movement is a vile manifestation of anti-Semitism that seeks to isolate and shame an American ally; its fundamental motives run counter to our core American principles and ideals.”

H.R. 336, or the Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019, is currently before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and contains provisions designed to protect the world’s only Jewish state from efforts to stymie and cripple it economically.

“The reason that BDS is such a concern,” explained House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., at Wednesday’s press conference, “is that it’s an attempt to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state.”

Between a growing wave of anti-Israel sentiment on the political Left, media attention from multiple high-profile anti-Semitic statements from far-left Democratic freshmen Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and the watered-down resolution responding to some of those comments, the Democratic Party’s stance on Israel has come into serious question over the past few months.

The House is a majoritarian body by design, leaving very few options for the minority party to control the legislative schedule. A discharge petition, as Republicans are gathering signatures for here, allows for an end run around the majority party’s power, so long as the bill being discharged from committee can get signatures from a House majority.

“We have witnessed the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel hate throughout the world, in our nation, on college campuses and within the halls of Congress, and whether this bigotry is brazen or it’s blatant anti-Semitism deceptively called ‘legitimate’ we must crush it wherever it exists,” said Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., said in a statement about the discharge petition.

“Members of Congress can no longer hide behind procedural roadblocks. The American people deserve to know where each and every one of us stand and what we are willing to do about it,” Zeldin’s statement continues, “which is why we’re doing what House Democratic leadership won’t; unapologetically bringing legislation to the floor that not only condemns the BDS movement but helps stop it.”

This is not the first time this session that Republican leaders have attempted to force their Democratic colleagues to vote on a potentially divisive issue in the House chamber. Earlier this year, GOP members launched a discharge petition campaign to bring up a high-profile anti-infanticide measure after national attention to the issue led to a widely covered vote on the Senate version.

The anti-BDS petition was filed back in April but “ripened” for signatures this week. It will need 218 signatures to bring it out of committee and force a floor vote, which means that all 197 House Republicans would need 21 House Democrats to join them.

According to an emailed statement from the office of House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, no fewer than 27 current House Democrats cosponsored similar legislation in the last Congress.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., however, told reporters Wednesday that he intends to move quickly on the pro-Israel measure.

“The committee is considering this, and I expect to be moving something out of the committee in the relatively near future,” Hoyer said during a press briefing elsewhere in the Capitol complex. “My inclination is to put it on the floor, yes, but I want to see what the committee does first before I make that decision.”

Full video of Wednesday’s Republican press conference can be found here.

(For more from the author of “House Republicans Move Ahead with Effort to Force Dems to Vote on Pro-Israel Bill” please click HERE)

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For a Successful Second Term, Trump Will Need a New Strategy in Senate Primaries

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When the president and his administration help Senate RINOs, they are helping senators who are sandbagging his campaign agenda.

The AP obtained a copy of an invitation to an event sponsored by President Trump’s campaign committee and the RNC to a joint fundraiser with Vice President Mike Pence and North Carolina’s junior senator, Thom Tillis, next week in Greensboro. Local media is reporting this as a signal of support from the White House for Tillis’ re-election.

Hasn’t the president learned his lesson of supporting RINOs only to have them bite him on every issue he campaigned on?

Senate Republicans are more liberal than ever before. Even if Republicans win back the House and Trump is re-elected, he will be no closer to passing any of his priorities on immigration, spending, or health care than he was during his first two years of trifecta control, because there are very few Republicans in the Senate who truly believe in his campaign promises.

Confirming conservative judges was one of the few unifying ideals of Senate Republicans, yet Mitt Romney voted against a well-qualified district judge nominee yesterday because he felt the nominee said mean things about Obama. But Trump endorsed Romney in the primary last year, thereby ending any attempt to challenge him.

This has been a broader point of frustration during Trump’s first term. He continuously endorses the very RINOs whom his party’s voters elected him to vanquish and then complains about the Senate undermining his campaign promises. Trump’s endorsement has the singular power to catapult struggling primary challengers into the lead against liberal Republican incumbents. At the very least, if Trump would remain neutral in the primaries, some challengers might have a fighting change, especially in North Carolina, where Tillis is now vulnerable to a challenge. But if Trump supports an incumbent, that is the kiss of death for any primary challenger.

Take a look at the Senate landscape this cycle. There are a number of open seats or incumbents in states where Trump won, often by large margins, in 2016.

Trump has the power to create for himself a more conservative Senate that will push for market-based health care, pass his budget proposals, back an America-first foreign policy, and codify his immigration priorities. Yet if he reflexively endorses incumbents and establishment picks, he is consigning his second term to complete doom.

Tillis has a 38% Liberty Score and is not a conservative on a single issue – social, fiscal, or national security. He has promoted amnesty from the day he set foot in the Senate. Tillis initially opposed Trump’s emergency declaration but changed course after he realized he’d face primary challengers.

At a time when House Democrats are trying to push back against Trump by codifying transgenderism into civil rights, Tillis is being honored by a “Republican” transgender group.

If you remember, Tillis refused to stand up for his former colleagues in the North Carolina legislature when they were combatting liberal cities that were allowing men into private female dressing rooms.

We are seeing the same thing with Lindsey Graham. Just because he is talking tough on Mueller and the FBI Hillary email scandal doesn’t mean he is suddenly a conservative on policy. Just because he is rhetorically cozying up to Trump doesn’t mean that the minute he is safe from a primary challenge, he will not give Trump hell on immigration and on his realist vision on foreign policy, especially since Graham is a shill for Qatar. Indeed, he is cozying up to Trump only for the purpose of avoiding a primary challenge. In fact, just yesterday, he had the nerve to say that “we need a conversation about the 11 million [illegal aliens already here]” at a time when his own policies have incentivized the current overwhelming flow.

The reality is that every Republican will come to Trump in a time of need. But they will not be there for him when he needs support in the Senate. Just the opposite: They will sandbag him with media virtue-signaling at every turn.

Every piece of leverage the president has is enmeshed in the budget process. Yet during every single budget battle since January 2017, McConnell and company have worked to give the Democrats everything they wanted on both spending and immigration. They are in the process of once again moving Trump to the Left on the disaster bill and on the budget caps and debt ceiling in September.

The president needs to think long and hard what his second term will look like if he continues supporting Republicans like Mitt Romney, Thom Tillis, and Lindsey Graham. But changing course in Senate electoral strategy will likely require a change in White House personnel. (For more from the author of “For a Successful Second Term, Trump Will Need a New Strategy in Senate Primaries” please click HER)

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This Is the GOP Senator Who Is Keeping The Russian Collusion Myth Alive

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By Townhall. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), what the he** is going on? No, seriously, why did you subpoena Donald Trump Jr. over this Russian collusion nonsense? Special Counsel Robert Mueller has debunked this story. The report was definitive. There was no Trump-Russia collusion. There was zero evidence to back up any of the claims the liberal media has peddled for two years. A lot of us knew this from the get-go. When no evidence was unearthed to back up the Russian collusion myth, which was a massive red flag that the Left ignored, that was the sign. Liberals hoped for a smoking gun and got a nothing burger. Trump won. And even the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Burr chairs, noted that there was zero evidence to back up Russia-Trump collusion. Yet, Burr wishes to keep the conspiracy theory wingnuts of the Left thirsty for more when he issued a subpoena for Donald Trump Jr.’s testimony.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) channeled his inner 2.0-self and advised Trump Jr. to ignore it. We’ve already won. But now it’s being reported that a deal has been hashed out for the president’s son to answer two-to-four hours worth of questions. It won’t be an open-ended session and it’s most likely going to be behind closed doors. A June date has been set (via NYT):

Donald Trump Jr. and the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee reached a deal on Tuesday for the president’s eldest son to sit for a private interview with senators in the coming weeks that will be limited in time, an accord that should cool a heated intraparty standoff.

The deal came after an aggressive push by the younger Trump’s allies, who accused the Intelligence Committee’s chairman, Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, of caving to Democrats by issuing a subpoena for the president’s son’s testimony. They called the effort a political hit job against the White House, using the president’s son as fodder.

(Read more from “This Is the GOP Senator Who Is Keeping This Russian Collusion Myth Alive” HERE)

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At odds on many fronts, U.S. and Russia hope for better ties

By The Associated Press. Russia and the United States voiced hope Tuesday that badly strained relations could begin to improve despite wide differences on multiple fronts and deep mutual suspicion deepened by Russian meddling in American elections.

With tensions running high over Iran, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed vindication from the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and said he thought it was time to move on. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo conveyed President Donald Trump’s interest in restoring better ties.

In the highest-level face-to-face contact between the two countries since special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released last month, Putin told Pompeo he hoped relations with the U.S. would now improve. (Read more from “At odds on many fronts, U.S. and Russia hope for better ties” HERE)

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Three-Year-Old Girl Dies After Rabies Shot, Raising Fears of Another Vaccine Scandal

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A three-year-old girl in China’s Jiangsu province died after receiving a rabies vaccination last month, an ominous development in light of persistent scandals over low-quality and improperly-handled vaccines. . .

According to the South China Morning Post’s summary, the girl’s pet dog scratched her on the finger and she received a rabies shot after her father took her to the hospital. Medical staff cautioned her father she might run a mild fever after the vaccination, but instead she developed an uncontrollable fever overnight and died the following afternoon.

The family agreed to an autopsy and also asked for the vaccine to be examined along with medical records and hospital surveillance camera footage. Guangzhou Promise Biological Products, a company with no previous record of vaccine problems, reportedly produced the vaccine. . . .

Parents alarmed by the case began investigating their children’s vaccination history and found the government gave them expired doses for diseases other than polio. Parents held rare public demonstrations as fears of a government cover-up grew, driven by a history of vaccine problems turning out to be much worse than Chinese officials originally admitted, combined with the government’s tendency to suppress popular discontent and suppress those who ask awkward questions. (Read more from “Three-Year-Old Girl Dies After Rabies Shot, Raising Fears of Another Vaccine Scandal” HERE)

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State Senate Passes Nation’s Strictest Abortion Ban

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Late Tuesday, the Alabama State Senate passed what would be the nation’s strictest abortion laws should it be signed by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey.

House Bill 314 passed the Senate by a 25-6 vote, and it does not include exceptions for rape or incest. Earlier in the day, the Senate had rejected an amendment that would have added such exceptions by a 21-11 vote margin. . .

“We aimed for language that addresses the language of Roe v. Wade,” the bill’s sponsor Rep. Terri Collins (R-Decatur) said at a public event last week. “The decision was based on someone in utero, someone pregnant so we don’t get into conception. We don’t get into birth control. We don’t get into the morning-after pill, but in utero, which is the language they used that when a woman is pregnant. This bill criminalizes abortion through the doctor. And not the woman, but the doctor.

“The reasoning is the same reasoning, Roe v. Wade was decided that the baby in the womb was not a person,” she continued. “So this bill bases its reasoning that the baby in the womb is a person. And we based it on the fact that in Alabama law, we currently consider the baby in the womb a person. If you were a drunk driver and you killed a pregnant woman, you have a double homicide on your hands. We voted as a state to be a pro-life state.” . . .

The debate over the bill received national attention during the State House’s deliberations after State Rep. John Rogers (D-Birmingham) made some impolitic remarks regarding the issue of abortion. (Read more from “State Senate Passes Nation’s Strictest Abortion Ban” HERE)

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