Hillary Clinton did not turn over an important email about the problems caused by her use of a private email server for classified information.
Clinton sent an email to her deputy chief of staff stating that she did not want some of her emails to be “accessible,” presumably to Congress or to the State Department itself. That email helped form the basis of a scathing inspector general report that found Clinton violated rules.
Now, we know that Clinton did not hand over that email to State Department investigators, proving that Clinton violated her sworn statement that she handed over all of her emails. Her inability to hand over this email could also provide more evidence that she violated the Espionage Act by allowing national defense information to be “lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed” through gross negligence.
“While this exchange was not part of the approximately 55,000 pages provided to the State Department by former Secretary Clinton, the exchange was included within the set of documents Ms. Abedin provided the department in response to our March 2015 request,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby in a statement to the Associated Press. (Read more from “SMOKING GUN: Hillary Did Not Turn Over Email Showing She Hid Information” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/19644280779_c25dd53a44_b-1.jpg5761024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-24 02:03:022016-06-24 02:03:02SMOKING GUN: Hillary Did Not Turn Over Email Showing She Hid Information
Many Americans are unsatisfied with the choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the United States’ 45th president. The organization Better For America was launched June 14 with just such Americans in mind and is planning running an independent candidate for president.
The group is made up of religious leaders and political operatives and is currently choosing a candidate to run. According to The Federalist, the organization’s chief strategist has confirmed that three names have committed to run if they are chosen.
Better For America’s website states that their mission is “to get a credible candidate on the ballot who can win both red AND blue states, presenting the nation with a third party option who changes the historically bad choice we’re facing this fall.”
No independent candidate has won an Electoral College vote since George Wallace in 1968. The Federalist reported:
Even Ross Perot, who netted nearly 20 percent in the 1992 election, failed to win a single state. So what makes Better For America believe this year can be different? The short answer is the unfavorable ratings of both Clinton and Trump.
Better For America’s launch corresponds with new polls showing Trump’s popularity decline. According to CBS News, polls this week showed Clinton up by between four and nine points. Trump is also falling behind in several swing states.
John Kingston III, a former Republican delegate and the founder and chair of Better For America, wrote an opinion piece for CNN about his decision to decline to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention.
“I could not support a candidate like Donald Trump, whose behavior disqualifies him to be a PTA member, let alone president,” Kingston wrote.
Kingston reached out to colleagues and friends who felt the same way. Better For America was born from a “remarkable grassroots coalition of lawyers, pollsters, ballot access professionals and others who shared the belief that something had to be done.”
Trump has also struggled to raise funds for his campaign, which has raised $3.1 million in private donations, while Clinton’s has pulled in approximately $26 million. CBS News reports that the super PACs supporting the candidates also had a large gap: the biggest pro-Trump group had $500,000, while the main pro-Clinton group had $52 million at the end of May.
Trump blamed some of these financial difficulties on the lack of support he is receiving from the Republican Party, Los Angeles Times reported. Although he feels Clinton is receiving more support from her party, he said he feels confident he can fund himself.
“I have a lot of cash; I may do it in the general election,” Trump said. “But it would be nice to have some help from the party.”
But Better For America “is not an attempt to undermine Trump,” according to The Federalist. Better For America plans to win.
Kingston pointed to the polling done by Data Targeting, Inc. on the viability of a third-party candidate, which suggests that 65 percent of respondents would be willing to support a candidate besides Trump or Clinton. The research also found that 90 percent of millennials wanted to see a third party candidate on the ballot.
A possible third party candidate is Libertarian Gary Johnson, though current support for him is quite modest. A CNN poll showed Johnson with 9 percent support nationwide. Jill Stein, the likely Green Party nominee, has 7 percent support.
CNN held a live town hall event Wednesday night with Johnson and his running mate Bill Weld. “The two-party system is a two-party dinosaur, and they’re about to come in contact with the comet here,” Johnson told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. (For more from the author of “Organization Seeks to Run Third Party Candidate for Unsatisfied Voters” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/6184710550_5ca587634a_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-24 01:33:202016-06-24 01:33:20Organization Seeks to Run Third Party Candidate for Unsatisfied Voters
The Obama administration released Guantanamo Bay detainee Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab despite a review board’s recommendation that he remain in United States custody.
Wahab was reportedly a bodyguard to Al Qaida leader Usama bin Laden and had a relationship with the former head of Al Qaida’s global operations, Nasir al Wuhayshi. The review board feared Wahab would return to the battlefield after spending his time in Afghanistan with bin Laden, “fighting on the frontlines, [his] possible selection for a hijacking plot, and significant training.”
U.S. authorities concluded that he continued lying to his interrogators as late as 2008, insisting he traveled to Afghanistan to “teach the Koran.” A leaked U.S. military report assessed all of Wahab’s statements “to be false” and found he was employing evasion strategies used by other trained terrorists.
The report further noted Wahab’s “ties to a relative who is a possible extremist, raises concerns about his susceptibility to re-engagement.” While Wahab is being released to Montenegro his future incarceration is no longer at the discretion of the United States government. Guantanamo Bay detainees have returned to the battlefield in the past, setting a troubling precedent.
In 2007 the U.S. released Taliban commander Abdul Qayyum Zakir from Guantanamo Bay to the government of Afghanistan. Zakir was subsequently released from Afghan prison for no apparent reason whatsoever and returned to the Afghan battlefield as a senior commander.
Zakir has since spent his time in Afghanistan masterminding plots to kill US soldiers in southern Helmand province, and reportedly makes millions of dollars in the illicit opium trade. Zakir is currently spearheading the successful Taliban advance against the Afghan National Security Forces in Helmand province, pacified by U.S. troops as late as 2012.
Despite significant ties to known high profile terrorists Wahab will be granted asylum in Montenegro for “re-socialization” and “a return to his family.” When Montenegro accepted another Yemeni detainee in January 2016 it specified the detainee would not required to remain in the country but would “eventually be free to choose the country they want to live in.” (For more from the author of “Obama Releases Bin Laden’s Bodyguard From Gitmo” please click HERE)
An Indiana pregnancy center won a victory for the pro-life message Wednesday when the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Fort Wayne city-bus system “unfairly censored” its pro-life ads.
LifeNews reports, that the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the pregnancy center—Women’s Health Link—celebrated the decision.
“A government shouldn’t be censoring ads from a group like Women’s Health Link when it is running nearly identical ads from other groups, such as The United Way. The 7th Circuit’s decision rightly understands that the First Amendment protects freedom of speech for all people, regardless of their political, moral, or religious views,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot, who argued before the 7th Circuit earlier this month. “The city of Fort Wayne’s bus system has a responsibility, like all other government entities, to ensure equal access to community advertising forums that it creates.”
Conservative Review’s Nate Madden reported on ADF’s lawsuit earlier this June.
According to the complaint from ADF, Citilink — Fort Wayne’s bus system — ran afoul of the First Amendment in its dealings with Women’s Health Link when it refused to ruse a series of ads “due to Plaintiff’s life-affirming viewpoint regarding the promotion of public health, association with a pro-life group, and alleged discussion of ‘controversial issues’ on its website, which constitutes unlawful viewpoint discrimination.”
The 7th Circuit’s ruling overturned a previous ruling from the U.S. District Court that sided with Citilink.
According to the ADF, the decision recognized that Women’s Health Link’s ad “complies fully with the conditions set forth in Citilink’s rules,” and found that the ad “is a public service announcement that does not so much as hint at advocating or endorsing any political, moral, or religious position… Yet the district judge granted summary judgment in favor of Citilink. He shouldn’t have.”
Women’s Health Link provides pregnant women with alternatives to abortion through counseling and material support. (For more from the author of “Pregnancy Center’s Pro-Life Message Will Not Be Silenced in Indiana” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/March_for_Life_Washington_D.C._2013-1.jpg34564608Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-24 01:17:262016-06-24 01:17:26Pregnancy Center’s Pro-Life Message Will Not Be Silenced in Indiana
University professors, existing as they do in the rarified air of academia, tend to be too clever for their own good. They look for complicated explanations when simple ones would do perfectly well.
Case in point: professors Lawrence Jacobs and Suzanne Mettler recently coauthored a slightly befuddled sounding op-ed, in which they fret over the continued unpopularity of the Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare. When a policy delivers benefits, they argue, it should be popular. So why do people continue to hate ObamaCare?
According the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 38 percent of Americans approve of the health care law, yet 49 percent disapprove. While there has been some fluctuation within the last year, the favorability gap has persisted over the last three years or so. In fact, the only tie when a majority of Americans consistently approved of the law was in 2010, before the actual effects of the government’s health care takeover could be felt.
To you and me, the reason for this widespread dissatisfaction is obvious, but not to Jacobs and Mettler, who conclude with obvious frustration that the real culprit is “partisanship.”
“Prevailing attitudes of distrust in government, strong partisanship and ingrained attitudes — not features of the law itself — are perpetuating the public’s negative opinion. The ACA remains highly politicized, to say the least. Republicans in the House have voted to delay, defund or repeal the law some 60 times, and its very nickname — ObamaCare — primes us to think of the ACA through a political lens.”
That’s right, gang. It’s those evil Republicans, poisoning our minds against Dear Leader’s health care law. Oh, if only we sheep weren’t so easily led astray by Fox News telling us what to think. Thank heavens for academics, selflessly leading us out of the darkness of our ignorance.
What never seems to occur to these people is that maybe Americans don’t like the law because it has made health care in America measurably worse. Deductibles for the least expensive ObamaCare plans have more than doubled since last year, and are now approaching $7,000 for an individual, an outrageous figure that few will be able to afford, much less the least fortunate, the very people the law was supposedly designed to help.
But even if you do manage to overcome the deductible hurdle, you’re not out of the woods, as many doctors and hospitals are now refusing to accept ObamaCare exchange plans, due to their low reimbursement rate. At the same time, health savings accounts, one of the few ways still possible of increasing price transparency and reducing medical costs, are being boxed out of the ObamaCare marketplace, and more than half of the co-ops created under the law have now gone out of business. Finally, United Healthcare Group, one of the nation’s largest insurance providers, is abandoning ObamaCare plans as unprofitable.
In short, everywhere you look, ObamaCare is reducing access to health care, not expanding it. Defenders of the Affordable Care Act keep boasting about how many more people are “covered” than before, but coverage itself means nothing if you can’t afford the deductible, and if your doctor won’t accept your coverage.
It’s insulting to imply that Americans are insensitive to these problems, incapable of feeling the pain that comes from mandatory reduced access to health care, and incapable of forming informed political opinions based on these observations. I shouldn’t have to point out that people dislike a bad policy because it is bad, but in today’s world of over-analysis and eagerness to ignore obvious truths, apparently such demonstrations are necessary.
Then again, when you consider that ObamaCare, like all big government programs, was passed by people who regard consumers as incapable of tending to their own well-being, and who need to be cared for by a paternalistic state, I suppose it isn’t all that surprising after all. (For more from the author of “What’s the Real Reason Americans Hate Obamacare?” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/maxresdefault-158.jpg768948Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-24 01:08:082016-06-24 01:08:08What’s the Real Reason Americans Hate Obamacare?
If a state has a law defining marriage as between a man and woman — as has been the case since the dawn of civilization — apparently it is discriminatory and in violation of the 14th Amendment. Yet, a state CAN pass a law blatantly discriminating against whites in order to admit lower performing minorities in pursuit of diversity. That is the outcome of today’s 4-3 decision (Justice Kagan recused herself) in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the same author of the gay marriage decision.
We live in a society where the 14th Amendment has been flipped on its head to violate natural law and mandate even on private individuals and employees accommodation for gay marriage and transgenderism, ideals that never existed when the Constitution was written or the 14th Amendment was adopted. Anything short of that is deemed as discriminatory in the eyes of the legal profession. The most basic common sense policies are deemed in violation of the Equal Protection Clause if they don’t favor a particular class of individuals that are in vogue with the legal profession. Yet, when it came time to call a strike on a true case of state-sanctioned racial discrimination, the same justices had no problem ignoring the 14th Amendment.
The case deals with an admissions policy at the University of Texas (UT) system’s flagship school in Austin. From 1997 to 2004, the University attempted to boost its diversity statistics through a quantitative “Top Ten Percent” system, which meant that every student in Texas in the top ten percent of their graduating high school class was granted automatic admission. This meant that even students at underperforming schools would be admitted, even if they wouldn’t have made the cut previously, so long as they did better than 90 percent of their own graduating class. They were admitted even if they performed below those in the lower tier of better performing schools. Abigail Fisher, a white woman who was denied admission to the school even though she would have met the qualifications under the true color-blind fair system, sued the university for violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
After being sent back from the Supreme Court to the lower courts in 2013 to analyze the law under a standard of strict scrutiny, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld UT’s policy. Today, Justices Kennedy, Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Breyer affirmed the 5th Circuit. Thus, even with Scalia on the Court, a 4-4 split would have resulted in a win for the Left, but it would not have created a precedent (to the extent one believes courts have such power over social issues) emboldening state race-conscious affirmative action policies. Alas, this is the first major case where Scalia’s absence is felt.
Writing for the dissenting members, which also included Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Alito cut through the clutter:
What is at stake is whether university administrators may justify systematic racial discrimination simply by asserting that such discrimination is necessary to achieve “the educational benefits of diversity,” without explaining — much less proving — why the discrimination is needed or how the discriminatory plan is well crafted to serve its objectives. Even though UT has never provided any coherent explanation for its asserted need to discriminate on the basis of race, and even though UT’s position relies on a series of unsupported and noxious racial assumptions, the majority concludes that UT has met its heavy burden. This conclusion is remarkable—and remarkably wrong.
And as always, Justice Thomas sums up the originalist truth in one paragraph in a separate dissent:
I write separately to reaffirm that “a State’s use of race in higher education admissions decisions is categorically prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause.” Fisher v. University of Tex. at Austin, 570 U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (slip op., at 1). “The Constitution abhors classifications based on race because every time the government places citizens on racial registers and makes race relevant to the provision of burdens or benefits, it demeans us all.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 2) (internal quotation marks omitted). That constitutional imperative does not change in the face of a “faddish theor[y]” that racial discrimination may produce “educational benefits.” Id., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 5, 13). The Court was wrong to hold otherwise in Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 343 (2003). I would overrule Grutter and reverse the Fifth Circuit’s judgment.
The Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed to grant existing liberties and property rights to freed slaves, and in the words of its drafters established “no new right” and declared no new principle,[1] has been used as a garbage can to trash the Constitution by creating super rights and privileges for favored classes under the guise of equality. Yet, when a state actually flagrantly violates the true ideals of equality based on race, the court has no problem upholding it.
Raise your hand if you believe these four liberal justices would have upheld a state university’s admission scheme to collegiate basketball if they allowed lower performing students in high school basketball programs form predominantly white schools to take slots away from higher-performing black students in predominantly African American schools? This is all outcomes-based jurisprudence.
As I warn in my upcoming book, the courts have contorted fundamental rights in the most grotesque ways imaginable. What’s in the Constitution is taken out of it and what’s absent is enshrined as a fundamental liberty interest. With each decision, they create a precedent from which to build further deviations from the Constitution. If we fail to strip the courts of their power as the sole and final arbiter of all social and political questions, this precedent will metastasize to encourage discrimination in all ways imaginable, so long as the “right” people benefit from the policy. (For more from the author of “SCOTUS: Here’s a License to Discriminate… on Behalf of the RIGHT People” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/SCOTUS_Marriage_Equality_2015_58149_18578505644.jpg12212799Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-23 23:14:352016-06-23 23:14:35SCOTUS: Here’s a License to Discriminate… on Behalf of the RIGHT People
Coca Cola’s funding of the Republican convention dropped from 660,000 dollars four years ago to just 75,000 pledged for this year. The company has reportedly taken heat from a civil rights group demanding the beverage company completely defund the Republican convention in light of Trump’s controversial comments involving minorities.
Trump criticized Ford Motor Company for opening up a new factory in Mexico, but it is uncertain whether his criticism had anything to do with the company deciding not to fund the Democratic or the Republican convention in 2016.
Hewlett Packard’s CEO Meg Whitman is a Republican, but has reportedly been critical of Trump throughout the campaign. Trump’s disparaging remarks about former CEO Carly Fiorina may have contributed to HP’s decision not to fund the convention this year, even though the company has a long history of doing so.
The Republican National Committee set a goal of raising 64 million dollars for its convention set to take place in Cleveland, Ohio in July. However, while the RNC says they are well on their way to reaching their goal, they are not receiving help from many companies who funded the convention in years past.
With Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee, a number of major companies are either pulling their funding or greatly diminishing what they have previously given to previous conventions.
According to the Independent Journal, Apple has stated it will not fund the Republican convention and will not provide any support. The move may come as no surprise to some as Trump called for an Apple boycott after Apple CEO Tim Cook refused to work with the FBI in unlocking the iPhone belonging to one of the terrorists in the San Bernardino shooting.
The list of companies foregoing funding the Republican Party’s convention goes on, including but not limited to JPMorganChase, Metlife, Microsoft, Motorola, Walgreens, Wells Fargo, and UPS. It seems Trump’s campaign to “Make America Great Again” will go on without the support of many of America’s greatest corporations. (For more from the author of “Major Companies Pull Support for Republican Convention” please click HERE)
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions is reportedly GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s top choice for a running mate, with less than a month to go until the Republican National Convention.
Newsmax’s John Gizzi reported that sources close to the candidate say that Sessions is getting top billing at the moment.
“The square Sessions seems to fit many square holes for Trump: he’s conservative and nails down the party’s right flank, he endorsed Trump early and has been extremely loyal, he has Washington legislative experience — a key requirement — and importantly, he can be totally trusted never to criticize Trump no matter what he might say in the coming months,” writes Gizzi.
“The selection will reassure conservatives,” said G. Terry Madonna, a Franklin & Marshall College professor and a top pollster in the swing state of Pennsylvania. “Sessions is one of the more conservative senators — that should be reassuring to economic conservatives and the religious right.”
Sessions scores 80 percent on the Heritage Action scorecard, well above the Republican average of 58 percent. Further, he hits over 94 percent in the lifetime rating for the American Conservative Union (the sponsor of CPAC).
The Alabama senator’s top issues have been fighting illegal immigration, Obamacare and abortion.
As reported by Western Journalism, Trump listed political experience on Capitol Hill as one of the top qualifications he is seeking in a running mate. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is another name that has been bandied about as fitting that criteria and being supportive of Trump’s candidacy.
A Trump/Sessions ticket or a Trump/Gingrich ticket would be the oldest ever to seek the Oval Office. Trump just turned 70 earlier this month, while Sessions is 69 and Gingrich is 73. Ronald Reagan was the oldest to win the presidency in 1980 at the age of 69, until he ran again in 1984 at 73 years old. Reagan’s running mate, George H.W. Bush, was 56 in 1980.
According to Gizzi, nothing is concrete at this time with Trump likely planning to hold off making the announcement until the convention, which begins on July 18. In addition to Sessions and Gingrich, former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin and former Defense Intelligence Agency Director Michael Flynn also reportedly make the short list.
Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, are two others who have been mentioned as a possible Trump running mate. (For more from the author of “Senator Reportedly Trump’s Top Choice for Vice President” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/maxresdefault-157.jpg10801920Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-23 23:01:052016-06-26 02:26:24Senator Reportedly Trump’s Top Choice for Vice President
A bipartisan version of the “no fly, no buy” gun control legislation sought by congressional Democrats survived a procedural vote Thursday, but remains short of enough votes to be adopted.
The bill was proposed by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. Her plan would ban people on two federal terror lists from buying guns, but include an appeal process to address Republicans’ concerns that people will be unjustly stripped of their Second Amendment rights if they are wrongly included on a government list. She offered the proposal as an amendment to a spending bill.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., proposed tabling the measure, which would have pushed it to the sidelines and all but killed it. By a 52-46 vote, the Senate kept the bill alive.
However, because the bill needs 60 votes to pass, its eventual fate remains uncertain.
Majority Whip Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, had called the voting a “test vote to see what it looks like.”
The Collins bill would ban sales to about 109,000 people, including 2,700 Americans, who are on two lists: The no-fly list and a so-called selectee list, which allows individuals to fly but requires extra scrutiny at airports. The bill gives individuals the right to take the federal government to court to appeal a denial. It also notifies authorities if a prospective gun buyer was on broader terrorism watch lists within the past five years.
The measure was one of two voted on by the Senate.
A proposal by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., received only 31 votes in support. Although his goal was similar to that of Collins, his bill put the burden of proof on the government, forcing it to go to court to show why an individual should be blocked from buying a gun.
“We were trying to get something merged between Sen. Collins’ approach and we were unsuccessful in doing that,” Cornyn said. Of the two bills, he said, one “provides for due process, and one … does not. “
Cornyn said he also thought it was time to debate other subjects.
“I think we need to be engaged in something more constructive that would’ve actually stopped the Orlando shooter,” he said. (For more from the author of “Senate Takes Test Votes on Gun Bills; One Remains Alive” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/maxresdefault-156.jpg7201280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-23 22:52:192016-06-23 22:52:19Senate Takes Test Votes on Gun Bills; One Remains Alive
Earlier this year, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, issued an executive order to restore voting rights to felons who have completed their prison sentences.
McAuliffe’s action is being challenged in lawsuits from Judicial Watch and Republican leaders of Virginia’s House and Senate. They say McAuliffe violated the state constitution and exceeded his authority by restoring voting rights to 206,000 released felons all at once, rather than individually through an application process.
We take a look at the debate and explain what’s at stake. So what do you think? Leave a comment below. (For more from the author of “Should Released Felons Have Their Voting Rights Restored?” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Voting_United_States-2.jpg28484288Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-23 22:46:572016-06-23 22:46:57Should Released Felons Have Their Voting Rights Restored?
