by Alana Goodman | August 27, 2019 06:30 AM
Washington Examiner "Hunter Biden cut a deal with an oligarch-owned Ukrainian gas company in 2014, according to internal State Department correspondence obtained by the Washington Examiner. The correspondence adds to the questions about Biden's business activities, which have dogged the 2020 Democratic primary campaign of his father Joe. Hunter Biden's long history of drug and alcohol abuse, which contributed to his divorce and his dismissal from the Navy Reserve, has also attracted unwelcome publicity for the Democratic front-runner. An email released to the Washington Examiner shows that Biden’s decision to join the board of Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings sparked immediate concern within his inner circle about the political optics. Biden’s father Joe — now vying for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination — was then vice president and overseeing the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy. At the time, Hunter Biden, now 49, and Christopher Heinz, the stepson of then-Secretary of State John Kerry, co-owned Rosemont Seneca Partners, a $2.4 billion private equity firm. Heinz’s college roommate, Devon Archer, was managing partner in the firm. In the spring of 2014, Biden and Archer joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company that was at the center of a U.K. money laundering probe. Over the next year, Burisma reportedly paid Biden and Archer’s companies over $3 million. Hours after Biden’s board appointment went public on May 13, 2014, Heinz emailed Matt Summers and David Wade, two of his stepfather’s top aides at the State Department. “Apparently Devon and Hunter both joined the board of Burisma and a press release went out today,” wrote Heinz. “I cant speak why they decided to, but there was no investment by our firm in their company.” .... (more in the Washington Examiner articles sourced below) Source: - www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/john-kerrys-son-cut-business-ties-with-hunter-biden-over-ukrainian-oil-deal - www.washingtonexaminer.com/joe-bidens-son-gets-job-with-major-ukrainian-natural-gas-company
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Fruits of Banana Republic Corruption - from middle-class to zillionaire! By the time Barack Obama left office on January 20th, 2017, he already owned THREE mansions: 1. $5.3 million mansion in the Kalorama section of Washington, D.C., the posh neighborhood of diplomats and D.C. old money
2. Multi-million dollar home in Rancho Mirage, California, a community known for its world-class golf courses 3. A second vacation home in Hawaii, which some speculate is the famous Robin Masters Estate from the 80's hit show Magnum P.I.
"So if you're keeping count, that's three homes by 1/20/2017 on three different coasts, on a salary of $400,000 a year, plus rent free living, 270 days of golf during 8 years in office, and leaving behind $20 trillion in National Debt." 4. Add Barack and Michelle Obama buying a mega-mansion in Martha's Vineyard in 2019
In 2008, Obama called on Americans to “lead by example” on global warming: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … That’s not leadership,” Obama said. And what kind of fool would waste 15 MILLION DOLLARS on a superb mansion if he believes it will be underwater in 12 years? Below are some photos of the Obama's Royal Palace in Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts: Sources:
- www.dailywire.com/news/11024/obama-purchases-california-mansion-go-along-his-chase-stephens - variety.com/2016/dirt/real-estalker/obama-home-purchase-rumors-rancho-mirage-persist-1201924007 - www.tmz.com/2019/08/22/barack-michelle-obama-buying-mega-mansion-marthas-vinyard - twitter.com/MattWolking/status/1164722953650675714 - twitter.com/MattWolking/status/1164726014234320902 By Hans A. von Spakovsky - @HvonSpakovsky Election Law Reform Initiative and Senior Legal Fellow The Heritage Foundation This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal Jan 16th, 2017 Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues – including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration. "You often hear that the Obama administration, whatever its other failings, has been “scandal-free.” Valerie Jarrett, the president’s closest adviser, has said he “prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn’t had a scandal and he hasn’t done something to embarrass himself.” Even Trump adviser Peter Thiel seems to agree. When the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd observed during an interview that Mr. Obama’s administration was “without any ethical shadiness,” Mr. Thiel accepted the premise, saying: “But there’s a point where no corruption can be a bad thing. It can mean that things are too boring.” In reality, Mr. Obama has presided over some of the worst scandals of any president in recent decades. Here’s a partial list: State Department email. In an effort to evade federal open-records laws, Mr. Obama’s first secretary of state set up a private server, which she used exclusively to conduct official business, including communications with the president and the transmission of classified material. A federal criminal investigation produced no charges, but FBI Director James Comey reported that the secretary and her colleagues “were extremely careless” in handling national secrets. Operation Fast and Furious. The Obama Justice Department lost track of thousands of guns it had allowed to pass into the hands of suspected smugglers, in the hope of tracing them to Mexican drug cartels. One of the guns was used in the fatal 2010 shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Congress held then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt when he refused to turn over documents about the operation. IRS abuses. Mr. Obama’s Internal Revenue Service did something Richard Nixon only dreamed of doing: It successfully targeted political opponents. The Justice Department then refused to enforce Congress’s contempt citation against the IRS’s Lois Lerner, who refused to answer questions about her agency’s misconduct. Benghazi. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were killed in the attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya. With less than two months to go before the 2012 election, the State Department falsely claimed the attack was not a terrorist attack but a reaction to an anti-Muslim film. Emails from the secretary later showed that she knew the attack was terrorism. Justice Department prosecutors even convinced a magistrate judge to jail the filmmaker. Hacking. Mr. Obama presided over the biggest data breach in the federal government’s history, at the Office of Personnel Management. The hack exposed the personnel files of millions of federal employees and may end up being used for everything from identity theft to blackmail and espionage. OPM Director Katherine Archuleta, the president’s former political director, had been warned repeatedly about security deficiencies but took no steps to fix them. Veterans Affairs. At least 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at a Phoenix VA facility, many of whom had been on a secret waiting list—part of an effort to conceal that between 1,400 and 1,600 veterans were forced to wait months for appointments. A 2014 internal VA audit found “57,436 newly enrolled veterans facing a minimum 90-day wait for medical care; 63,869 veterans who enrolled over the past decade requesting an appointment that never happened.” Even Mr. Obama admitted, in a November 2016 press conference, that “it was scandalous what happened”—though minutes earlier he boasted that “we will—knock on wood—leave this administration without significant scandal.” All of these scandals were accompanied by a lack of transparency so severe that: 47 of Mr. Obama’s 73 inspectors general signed an open letter in 2014 decrying the administration’s stonewalling of their investigations. One reason for Mr. Obama’s penchant for secrecy is his habit of breaking rules—from not informing Congress of the dubious prisoner swap involving Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and the Taliban, to violating restrictions on cash transfers to Iran as part of a hostage-release deal. Obama's journalistic allies are happily echoing the “scandal-free” myth. TIME’s Joe Klein claims Mr. Obama has had “absolutely no hint of scandal” in his presidency. The media’s failure to cover the Obama administration critically has been a scandal in itself—but at least the president can’t be blamed for that one." Source: www.heritage.org/political-process/commentary/obamas-scandal-free-administration-myth Add the Spygate Revealations, the most egregious subversion of democracy by an incumbent government in American history: Sources: - www.youtube.com/watch?v=PseDla0l9xE&feature=youtu.be - www.theepochtimes.com/spygate-the-inside-story-behind-the-alleged-plot-to-take-down-trump_2833074.html - www.theepochtimes.com/spygate-the-true-story-of-collusion_2684629.html Each of us has to make our own determination whether or not Joe Walsh is a racist. I have concluded that Joe Walsh is, indeed, a racist. Below is a detailed fact check on why I came to this conclusion (including screenshots of Joe Walsh's tweets): From Daily Wire:
On Thursday [8/22/2019], in response to a question about deleting old tweets, Walsh tweeted the following: "I don't delete tweets. If I tweet something, it's mine. I've probably got 50,000? tweets out there. There are easily a few hundred where I went over the line, got ugly, or tweeted something demanding an apology. I've done my best to own them & apologize where necessary." Walsh has also been replying to twitter users bringing up his past remarks. Source: www.dailywire.com/news/51028/watch-trump-primary-challenger-joe-walsh-frank-camp Below are screenshots of some of the racist tweets of Joe Walsh: Confirmed by Aaron Blake, Washington Post: "Joe Walsh on MSNBC: "I never, ever got into birtherism." Uhhhhh." Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) was named one of the most corrupt members of Congress. Fact Check: TRUE8/26/2019 "Washington, D.C. – Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) is a deadbeat dad who claimed he was too broke to pay child support for years, yet somehow managed to loan his campaign over $35,000. At the same time, he was paying more for rent than he reported in income. It’s no wonder he has been named by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) as one of the Most Corrupt Members of Congress.
“Rep. Walsh cares about his own ambition far more than he cares about his kids,” said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan. “What is sleazier than lying about your income to avoid paying child support? If Speaker Boehner is serious about holding caucus members accountable for their actions, Rep. Walsh would be an excellent place to start.” Court records show Rep. Walsh was ordered to pay his ex-wife $2,134 a month in child support beginning in November 2005, but he made only partial payments through March 2008. Between April 2008 and December 2010, Rep. Walsh allegedly made no payments at all, leaving him with a debt of $117,437.25. The congressman failed to disclose this obligation on his personal financial disclosure forms. Rep. Walsh’s reports of his income have been inconsistent. He told a reporter his 2009 income was between $30,000 and $40,000, and he reported about $65,000 to the IRS. On his financial disclosure forms for the first 9 months of the year, he claimed $21,000 in earned income with an additional $20,000-$60,000 in other income. On the other hand, he told his ex-wife he had no income, and in a 2011 court filing reported just $29,000 for the year. Oddly enough, Rep. Walsh also paid $3,300 per month in rent in 2009, totaling almost $40,000 for the year, which would have left him penniless or in debt. Nevertheless, Rep. Walsh still managed to loan his election campaign $35,500 between November 2009 and August 2010. The freshman congressman has a long history of financial problems, including tax liens, lawsuits regarding failure to pay debts, and a foreclosure on a condominium. “Rep. Walsh has vocally called for fiscal responsibility in Washington, yet has demonstrated a shocking lack of personal responsibility,” said Ms. Sloan. “Failure to pay child support is a serious crime. For that matter so is filing inaccurate financial disclosure forms and lying to a court. A criminal investigation into this deadbeat dad is clearly warranted. Rep. Walsh shouldn’t get a pass just because he’s in Congress.” This is the 7th edition of the CREW’S Most Corrupt Report, an annual look at a bipartisan collection of Washington’s worst. This year’s list includes seven Democrats, and 12 Republicans. Five are repeat offenders. Since 2005, CREW has named 70 members of Congress to the list, 32 of whom are no longer in office. Source: www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/joe-walsh-named-most-corrupt-member-of-congress BY BRIAN MONTOPOLI
NOVEMBER 9, 2011 / CBS NEWS Republican Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois said Wednesday he became a "bit too passionate" during an interaction with his constituents in which he appeared angry and deemed their comments "crap" that "pisses me off." Walsh made the comments, seen in the video above, at a constituent event last weekend. Seemingly frustrated, he responds to a constituent's comment by saying "don't blame banks, and don't blame the marketplace for the mess we're in right now." "I am tired of hearing the crap," Walsh says. When a woman starts speaking in response, Walsh repeats the phrase before cutting her off, walking up to her and speaking loudly and demonstrably close to her face. "You don't have to scream at me, I'm not screaming at you," the woman says. Walsh replies: "No, you know what? 'Cause this pisses me off. Too many people don't listen." ...." Source: - www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb73zqY6lZM - www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-walsh-i-got-a-bit-too-passionate-with-my-constituent Joe Walsh owed $117,000 in child support, lawsuit by his ex-wife in 2011 said. Fact Check: TRUE8/25/2019 Joe Walsh is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Walsh is now a radio show host and an extreme critic of President Donald Trump. Walsh has launched a Presidential run against Trump in the 2020 Republican Primary. By Katherine Skiba Tribune Reporter Jul 28, 2011 "WASHINGTON--U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh of McHenry owes more than $100,000 in child support and interest to his former wife, she alleges in a Cook County Circuit Court filing. The dispute, set out in a court filing last December, remains unsettled. Walsh's ex-wife says he is $117,437 behind in payments. Walsh, 49-year-old Republican, entered Congress in January, swept into office with help from tea-party activists. He often appears on television demanding the country drastically cut its spending and pay its bills. The child support claim was first reported today in the Chicago Sun-Times. Walsh denounced the Sun-Times story in a statement, calling it a "hit piece." He added: "These latest attacks against me are false and I will fight them in the appropriate venue." Walsh also used the statement to profess his love for his children. He was married for 17 years to Laura J. Walsh and they have two sons, ages 23 and 16, and a daughter, age 20. The next court date in the case is Sept. 14, when a status report regarding settlement is scheduled, according to Tom Coladarci, a law clerk at the firm representing Laura Walsh. Walsh, who lives in McHenry and has remarried, won office in November even after problems surfaced with respect to his financial history. He had a condo in Evanston that he lost to foreclosure and state and federal tax liens, which ultimately were satisfied." Source: www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/chi-congressman-owes-117000-in-child-support-suit-says-20110728-story.html By James Delingpole
February 11th, 2019 "Theresa May and her Remainer civil servants secretly sabotaged an offer made by the EU Council President Donald Tusk of a free trade deal exit from the EU because all they ever really wanted was Brexit In Name Only. Of the many things I’ve heard about the Establishment’s outrageous scheming to scupper Brexit this is by far the most damning – and it deserves much wider coverage. It was Martin Durkin (director of Brexit: the Movie) who drew my attention to it Steve Baker MP is a member of the (ardently pro-Brexit) European Research Group. He was also – till he resigned in protest at Mrs May’s handling of the Brexit negotiations – a minister in the government’s Department for Exiting the European Union (DEXU). Baker made his revelation at the end of last month while appearing before an MP committee, in which he criticised the “governing class” for its deliberate attempts to thwart Brexit in defiance of the Referendum vote. Baker told the committee hearing: “The entire approach is suffused by a reluctance to deliver what the public wanted, which is us controlling our laws in our parliament with all that that means. So the relationship between Number 10 [Downing Street] and the DEXU ministers was always one of instinctive tension because I think the DEXU ministers believed overwhelmingly in exiting the European Union. Whereas, overwhelmingly, the staff of Number 10 seemed not to be people with a heart for it. And I think that that tension suffused the entire process. We were regularly overruled. For example, after President [of the EU Council] Donald Tusk made his offer of security co-operation, participation in institutions of research, innovation, education and culture, dealing with absurdities – flights we’ve already mentioned, driving licences data and so on. He also made an advanced free trade agreement – all sectors, no tariffs, you know what he offered. Once he’d made that offer I was very pleased because it matched the policy which DEXU ministers had decided. And I wanted to start putting it in my speeches. And one speech in particular, I remember, was edited by Number 10 to remove references to that offer because it was not the offer that the system as a whole wanted.” I gather from other sources that Britain’s trade negotiating team – led by Liam Fox – is under orders from Number 10 to ensure that nothing is done to change the post-Brexit status quo. That is, when – as has happened in at least one case – a country negotiating a new bilateral, post-Brexit deal with the UK proposes to make it as tax- and regulation-lite as possible, Britain turns down the offer flat. Despite Brexit, Mrs May is absolutely set on keeping Britain’s trading relationship with the world the same as it was while Britain was a member of the European Union. No longer, I think, can there be any doubt that the failure of the Brexit negotiations has nothing to do with Brexiteer intransigence and everything to do with Mrs May and the Remainer Deep State." My comments: If Theresa May had not rejected Donald Tusk's offer of an advanced free trade agreement, the United Kingdom would have smoothly left on March 31st 2019 without the country being so deeply divided and the future of the Union itself at risk. And it is quite possible that Theresa May's secret goal was to reverse the "Leave" result of the 2016 referendum, sabotage Brexit and keep Britain in the European Union. The British people and history should never forgive nor forget Theresa May's betrayal of Great Britain. And the British Parliament should open an inquiry to investigate if the globalist elite corrupted Theresa May or influenced/compromised her in any other way to adopt a secret agenda of sabotaging Brexit. Source: www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/02/11/eu-president-tusk-offered-free-trade-brexit-mrs-may-sabotaged-it Watch carefully 00:40 - 01:00 of below video: 1/ Donald and Melania arrive 2/ Obamas shake hands with Melania, lecherous Bill also shakes Melania's hand! 3/ ALL retract hands ASAP 4/ Donald holds out his hand and Obamas very reluctantly shake Donald's hand. Bill and Hillary do not even look at Donald! How is this representative democracy? Recall Petition time? List of MPs from LEAVE THE EU Constituencies with REMAIN IN EU positions: Former President Bill Clinton's charitable foundation disclosed the names of 205,000 donors on a Web site Thursday, ending a decade of resistance to identifying the sources of its money. Below, see the list of people and institutions who donated at least $100,000, sort by name or amount: Sources:
- online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/st_clintondonor_20081218.html - William J. Clinton Foundation: www.clintonfoundation.org/contributors Only 5% of donations to the Clinton Foundation went to charitable grants domestic and foreign. The below pie chart also shows what how this "charity" spent the remaining 95% of "charitable" donations! 406 out of 632 constituencies in the United Kingdom voted FOR Brexit in 2016. Fact Check: TRUE8/18/2019 64% (almost an absolute 2/3rds majority) of constituencies voted for Brexit. Any MP elected from those constituencies is betraying her or his voters if s/he votes to delay Brexit at end of October 2019. The #Brexit Party should get to work and collect enough signatures for RECALL in those constituencies! By Ilya Shapiro
This article appeared in The Federalist on January 19, 2017. THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN THE MOST LAWLESS IN U.S. HISTORY. HERE ARE JUST A FEW EXAMPLES TO PROVE IT. "The Obama administration has been the most lawless in U.S. history. I don’t mean that in the Nixonian sense of personal corruption, whereby the president is personally above the law, although the idea that Barack Obama’s tenure has been ethically pure is laughable. No, my accusation rests on the 44th president’s seeing himself as professionally above the law, ignoring the executive branch’s legal limits and disrespecting constitutional bounds like federalism and the separation of powers. But don’t just take it from me. Liberal law professor Garrett Epps (a professional acquaintance) admits that “even for those like me who admire Barack Obama, the constitutional record is disturbingly mixed. Obama leaves the Constitution weaker than at the beginning of his terms.” Epps labels Obama’s posture to be one of “aggressive compliance,” torturing statutory language as far as it can go in order to avoid constitutional claims. Obama Only Furthered the Imperial Presidency He points first to the 2011 Libya intervention. It involved neither a congressional authorization of the use of force, nor compliance with the 1973 War Powers Act, which requires at least congressional notification of troop commitments and affirmative permission after 60 days. Every president since the WPA’s enactment has claimed that it’s an unconstitutional limit on inherent executive authority over military power. Obama instead claimed that hundreds of missile strikes and dozens of air missions didn’t trigger the WPA because they only constituted “kinetic military action” rather than war. It just doesn’t pass the smell test. Neither does at least some of the National Security Agency’s robust program of domestic surveillance, about which Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has lied to Congress. And then there’s the aggressive posture towards and persecution of journalists. It’s as if the goal was to show Donald Trump how it’s done. The Obama administration has been the most lawless in U.S. history. Here are just a few examples to prove it. This is all a world away from candidate Obama, who said this on the campaign trail in 2008: “The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m president.” As George Mason law professor David Bernstein quipped, foolish voters thought that Obama was taking issue with the imperial presidency, when really he was only complaining that the wrong man occupied the throne. How Obama Ignored Constitutional Checks and Balances Indeed, once he lost the congressional majority that allowed him to sign breathtakingly unconstitutional legislation like Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, Obama began using his pen in other ways. Hearkening to Woodrow Wilson’s progressive view of the administrative state, President Obama steadily took out his frustrations with the checks and balances that inhibited his ability to “fundamentally transform” the country. A lack of congressional acquiescence didn’t stop this president. Even in Obama’s first term, the administration launched a “We Can’t Wait” initiative, with senior aide Dan Pfeiffer explaining that “when Congress won’t act, this president will.” And when the reelected President Obama announced his second-term economic plans, he said that “I will not allow gridlock, or inaction, or wilful indifference to get in our way.” But no matter how much you hold it up to the light—and no matter what textual penumbras you induce—there’s no “gridlock clause” in the Constitution by which the president’s power increases to the extent Congress doesn’t support him. Indeed, gridlock is a feature of our system, not a bug, meant to check executive abuse and majoritarian populism both. As we mark another peaceful transfer of power, let’s pause to note the 10 most significant ways in which Barack Obama violated the Constitution, in rough chronological order. 1. The Chrysler Bailout Building on the Bush administration’s illegal use of TARP funds to bail out the auto industry, the Obama administration in 2009 bullied Chrysler’s secured creditors—who were entitled to “absolute priority”—into accepting 30 cents on the dollar, while junior creditors such as labor unions received much more. This subversion of creditor rights violates not just bankruptcy law, but also the Constitution’s Takings and Due Process Clauses. This blatant crony capitalism—government-directed industrial policy to help political insiders—discourages investors and generally undermines confidence in American rule of law. The Supreme Court ultimately vacated the Second Circuit ruling that allowed this farce to proceed; Chrysler’s creditors are still out of luck, but there’s no legal precedent. 2. Obamacare Implementation One can, and many have, written whole articles about how the Affordable Care Act is such an affront to the rule of law that its individual mandate and Medicaid coercion—both of which Chief Justice John Roberts rewrote—are just the tip of the lawless iceberg. On implementation, we can’t blame Congress or courts. Here’s a sample: The Labor Department announced in February 2013 that it was delaying for a year the part of the law that limits how much people have to spend on their own insurance. This may have been sensible, but changing a law requires actual legislation. Later that year, the administration announced via blogpost on the eve of the July 4 holiday that it was delaying the requirement that employers of at least 50 people provide complying insurance or pay a fine. This time it cited statutory authority, but the cited provisions allow the delay of reporting requirements, not the mandate itself. The famous pledge that “if you like your plan, you can keep it” backfired when insurers started cancelling millions of plans that didn’t comply with Obamacare. So Obama called a press conference to proclaim that people could continue buying non-complying plans for another year—despite the ACA’s language to the contrary. He then refused to consider a House-passed bill that would’ve made this action legal. A little-known part of Obamacare requires congressional staff to get insurance from health exchanges, rather than a taxpayer-funded program. Obama directed the Office of Personnel Management to interpret the law to maintain the generous benefits. Obamacare grants tax credits to people whose employers don’t provide coverage if they buy a plan “through an Exchange established by the State”—and then fines employers for each employee receiving such a subsidy. No tax credits are authorized for residents of states where the exchanges are established by the federal government, as an incentive for states to create exchanges themselves. Because so few (16) states did, however, the IRS issued a rule allowing subsidies (and fines) for plans coming from “a State Exchange, regional Exchange, subsidiary Exchange, and federally-facilitated Exchange.” Yes, we can also blame the Supreme Court for upholding this. The Department of Health and Human Services granted more than 2,000 waivers to employers seeking relief from Obamacare’s regulations. Nearly 20 percent of them went to gourmet restaurants and other businesses in former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district. Nevada, home to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, got a blanket waiver, while GOP-controlled states like Indiana and Louisiana were denied. Beyond political favoritism, such dispensations violate a host of constitutional and administrative law provisions like equal protection and the “intelligible principle” needed for congressional delegation of authority to cabinet agencies. HHS also continues paying insurance companies to compensate them for losses caused by Obamacare’s ignorance of basic economics. Alas, Congress never appropriated these funds, so the House of Representatives is suing the administration and won in the district court. Now on appeal, House v. Burwell is stayed until the D.C. Circuit hears from the incoming Trump administration. (Full disclosure: My wife joined the House general counsel’s office last month and is litigating the appeal.) 3. Political Profiling by the IRS After seeing a rise in the number of applications for tax-exempt status, the IRS in 2010 compiled a “be on the lookout” (“BOLO”) list to identify organizations engaged in political activities. The list included words such as “Tea Party,” “Patriots,” and “Israel”; subjects such as government spending, debt, or taxes; and activities such as criticizing the government, educating about the Constitution, or challenging Obamacare. The targeting continued through May 2013, with no consequences other than Lois Lerner, the chief of the exempt-organizations unit, being held in contempt of Congress—and then being allowed to peacefully retire despite erased records and other cover-ups. Okay, this one qualifies as Nixonian. 4. Recess Appointments In January 2012, President Obama appointed three members of the National Labor Relations Board, as well as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, during what he considered to be a Senate recess. But the Senate was still holding “pro forma” sessions every three days—a technique developed by Sen. Harry Reid to thwart Bush recess appointments. (Meanwhile, the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB, provides that authority remains with the Treasury Secretary until a director is “confirmed by the Senate.”) In 2014, Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the NLRB appointments were illegal, while last year the D.C. Circuit found the CFPB’s structure to be unconstitutional. 5. DACA and DAPA Congress has shamelessly failed to pass any sort of immigration reform, including for the most sympathetic victims of the current non-system, young people who were brought into the country illegally as children. Nonetheless, during his 2012 reelection campaign, President Obama directed the Department of Homeland Security to issue work and residence permits (Deferred Action to Childhood Arrivals) to the so-called Dreamers. Then, after the 2014 midterms, the president decided that he had been wrong 22 times in saying he couldn’t give temporary legal status to illegal immigrants. The administration engineered this Deferred Action for Parents of Americans in the wake of Congress’s rejection of the same policies, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, immigration law, and the Constitution’s Take Care Clause. A district court enjoined DAPA in February 2015, which action the Fifth Circuit twice affirmed, as did the Supreme Court by a 4-4 vote. 6. Assault On Free Speech and Due Process On College Campuses In 2013 the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, in conjunction with the Justice Department, sent the University of Montana a letter that became a national “blueprint” for tackling sexual harassment. The letter urged a crackdown on “unwelcome” speech and requires complaints to be heard in quasi-judicial procedures that deny legal representation, encourage punishment before trial, and convict based on a mere “more likely than not” standard. As noted civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate explained this week, the administration construed Title IX—the federal law barring sex discrimination by federally funded schools—as a mandate to punish students and faculty accused of sexual misconduct using procedures that make it extraordinarily difficult for innocent people to defend themselves. 7. The Clean Power Plan In June 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule for regulating power-plant emissions. Despite significant criticism, it finalized the rule in August 2015, giving states until 2018 to develop plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, with mandatory compliance beginning in 2022. The EPA cites Section 111 of the Clean Air Act as justification for this Clean Power Plan, but that section can’t give the agency such authority. Section 111 doesn’t permit the government to require states to regulate pollutants from existing sources when those pollutants are already being regulated under Section 112, like those deriving from coal-fired plants. The late Justice Scalia’s last public act was to join an order staying the rule pending further litigation (or, as is likely, a rescinding of the rule). 8. The WOTUS Rule In May 2015, the EPA announced its new Clean Water Rule, which aims to protect streams and wetlands from pollution. The agency insists that the rule doesn’t affect bodies of water not previously regulated, but several groups have sued on the basis that the rule’s definitions of regulated waters greatly exceed the EPA’s authority under the Clean Water Act to regulate “waters of the United States” (WOTUS). The Supreme Court has thrice addressed the meaning of that phrase, making clear that, for the EPA to have regulatory authority, a sufficient nexus must exist between the location regulated and “navigable waters.” The Clean Water Rule, however, purports to give EPA power far beyond waters that are “navigable” by any stretch of the word’s definition. Litigation is ongoing. 9. Net Neutrality In the works throughout the Obama presidency, the Open Internet Rule was adopted in February 2015 and went into effect that June, forbidding internet-service providers (ISPs) from prioritizing different kinds of internet traffic. The real issue, beyond this “net neutrality,” is the Federal Communications Commission’s manufacture of authority to regulate the internet despite clear congressional instruction that the internet remain unregulated. In 2014, courts struck down the FCC’s 2010 self-aggrandizement under the 1934 Communications Act and 1996 Telecommunications Act, so the agency doubled down by writing a new rule that equated the internet with telephony. That creative interpretation allowed the FCC to claim the sweeping discretion it had used to manage the AT&T phone monopoly throughout the 20th century. Moreover, while the FCC touts the regulation as ensuring that the internet remains free of censorship, the rule impinges on the First Amendment rights of internet-service providers. 10. EPA’s Cap-And-Trade In October 2015, the EPA issued a carbon-emissions cap-and-trade regulation, establishing for each state limits on carbon dioxide emission, with four interim steps on the way to the final goal. EPA says that this rule, too, is authorized by Section 111 of the Clean Air Act, but Congress considered and rejected such a cap-and-trade program in 2009. Far from being authorized by the Clean Air Act or lying in some zone of statutory ambiguity, this massive new regulatory scheme contradicts the express will of Congress. That’s Only The Beginning It was obviously difficult to narrow that enumeration to just 10—and I cheated by putting all the Obamacare shenanigans under one item. Some may complain that I should’ve prioritized other kinds of executive actions, whether regarding guns or transgender bathroom access or electricity regulation. Others may prefer to invoke President Obama’s decision not to subject the Iran nuclear treaty to a Senate vote—aided by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker’s naïve complicity—or engaging in the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap without notifying Congress. Sadly, the possibilities for this parlor game are nearly endless. Then, of course, there’s the administration’s abysmal performance before the Supreme Court, where its win percentage hovers around 45 percent (as against a historical norm of 60-70 percent). The Justice Department has even suffered nearly 50 unanimous losses, half again as many as under George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. These cases have come in such disparate areas as criminal procedure, religious liberty, property rights, immigration, securities regulation, tax law, and the separation of powers. They have nothing in common other than incredible assertions of federal power. The government’s arguments across this wide variety of cases would essentially allow the executive branch to do whatever it wants without constitutional restraint. Are these really the kind of powers President Obama and his progressive enablers would want their worst enemies to have? As my colleague Gene Healy writes in the latest issue of Reason, “the very idea of ‘President Trump’ seemed like a thought experiment a libertarian might have invented to get a liberal friend to focus on the dangers of concentrated power. Now it’s an experiment we’re going to run in real life, starting January 20, 2017.” If you live by executive action, you die by executive action—whether that means reversing President Obama’s policies or pocketing his constitutional excesses for future use." Ilya Shapiro is a senior contributor to The Federalist. He is a senior fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute and Editor-in-Chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Source: www.cato.org/publications/commentary/top-10-ways-obama-violated-constitution-during-presidency Gabriel Thy 4/29/2010:
HOLDER AND OBAMA IGNORE SUBPOENA "A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for not going to church on Sunday." —Russell Baker THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SAID TUESDAY it would provide more information to Congress about the Fort Hood shootings but continued to defy a subpoena request for witness statements and other documents. After reading the presentation on Islam that Major Nidal Hasan gave to his professional colleagues, one even mildly educated in the form can easily declare the assassin's appeal to the massacre was classic Islam; in other words, there was nothing remotely 'radical' about it. His testament to Islam is clearly stated in the Qu'ran, with supporting Hadiths and Sira— Islam's core texts prescribing an Islam that has been has carried out for almost 1,400 years throughout most of Europe, north and central Africa, the Near and the Far East, and is now making its way into the Americas with unfortunate ease success, thanks to a hapless host strategically softened by a lack of political will maintained by the treachery of the multiculturalist's creed." Newsmax 6/18/2013: MCCAIN SLAMS OBAMA FOR IGNORING SUBPOENAS "Sen. John McCain blasted President Barack Obama Monday for allowing administration officials to ignore congressional subpoenas for information and for setting up private email accounts to conduct government business out of public view. 'Your administration’s disdain towards congressional authority and its failure to disclose public records feeds into its adversarial relationship with Congress and fuels public distrust in government,' the Arizona Republican wrote in a letter Monday to the president. The letter accused Obama of violating his own ideals. 'In your first week in office you wrote to your cabinet with regards to the open-records law and affirmed that in the 'face of doubt, openness prevails,' ' McCain wrote. 'However, four years later, your administration has revealed that in the face of doubt, transparency fails.' McCain voiced particular displeasure with Thomas Perez, Obama's controversial nominee for Labor secretary. As assistant attorney general for the Justice Department Civil Rights Division Perez 'allegedly used his personal e-mail account almost 1,200 times since 2009 to conduct government business,' McCain wrote. 'Last March, these e-mails were subpoenaed by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. However, Mr. Perez has only turned over 34 of the 1,200 e-mails.' But McCain's complaints went beyond Perez and the private e-mail accounts. 'Mr. Perez’s case is not the only time your administration has avoided disclosing subpoenaed information,' McCain wrote. 'During the Fast and Furious investigation, Attorney General Eric Holder was cited for contempt when he refused to turn over subpoenaed documents. To this date, he has turned over only a small fraction of requested internal documents.'" © 2019 Newsmax. All rights reserved. U.S. Congressman Doug Lamborn 9/11/2014 MORE CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENAS IGNORED BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION "This week in a House Natural Resources Committee, Congressman Doug Lamborn grilled the Department of the Interior's Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall. Deputy IG Kendall has failed to fully respond to lawful Congressional subpoenas and has misled the committee in previous testimony. 'The time for talking is over. Deputy IG Kendall should be held in contempt of Congress for failing to fully comply with our subpoenas. Members of Congress are representatives of the American people, sent to Washington to exercise our Constitutional role in overseeing the executive branch of the government. When executive branch officials do not cooperate, they are denying American citizens their Constitutional rights. It is past time for credibility to be restored and that will require new leaders and employees in the Inspector General's office.'" - Congressman Doug Lamborn (CO-05) Background Information from the House Natural Resources Committee "Since 2011, the Committee has conducted oversight on the Obama Administration’s rewrite of a coal production regulation, the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule. Shortly after taking office, the Obama Administration discarded the 2008 rule that went through five years of extensive public comment and environmental review. Since then, the Administration has spent over $10 million taxpayer dollars working to rewrite this rule, including hiring new contractors, only to dismiss those same contractors once it was publicly revealed that the Administration’s proposed regulation could cost 7,000 jobs and cause economic harm in 22 states. Committee investigations have exposed gross mismanagement of the rulemaking process, potential political interference, and widespread economic harm the proposed regulation would cause. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report with similar findings, including significant on-going problems with the rulemaking process. However, the OIG is refusing to disclose these problems to Congress. For example, there’s an entire section of the report entitled "Issues with the New Contract" that has been almost completely blacked out. The Committee has made multiple requests, including the issuance of a subpoena, for the unredacted copy of the report and related documents. According to Deputy Inspector General Kendall, the unredacted report is being withheld from the Committee at the request of the Department of the Interior." Daily Caller 5/28/2019: NYT REPORTER: OBAMA WH OFFICIALS IGNORED SUBPOENAS TOO "New York Times reporter Nick Confessore jabbed at Trump critics Tuesday over their claims that White House officials bucking subpoenas might herald the end of democracy. In just two tweets, Confessore pointed out that there is precedent for a showdown between a White House and an oppositional Congress over who does and who doesn’t comply with the inevitable subpoenas. 'Another crazy NYT story here about the White House ignoring a congressional subpoena, like it’s a choice or something,' Confessore tweeted, along with a NYT story about an Obama official refusing to comply with a subpoena. He followed that with a story about Harriet Miers, White House Counsel to former President George W. Bush, doing the same. 'These are staple battles between a White House controlled by one party and a House or Senate controlled by another, not some weird thing Maggie Haberman invented last week,' Confessore added. Confessore’s defense came on the heels of a number of critics who attacked his Maggie Haberman his colleague at the NYT, over her treatment of former White House communications director Hope Hicks. Haberman headlined a piece on the topic, 'Hope Hicks Left the White House. Now She Must Decide Whether to Talk to Congress' and was immediately attacked by critics who thought she had framed the article in a way that treated Hicks with kid gloves. The Rolling Stone’s Jamil Smith suggested that Hicks was escaping the threat of harsher punishment because she was 'white, wealthy, and connected.' Freshman Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused Haberman of framing the story as if it were 'a Lifetime drama' and using a 'glamour shot' of Hicks. Soledad O’Brien offered a similar critique of the story’s framing and photo. Veteran newsman Dan Rather did the same." Note: Dan Rather is the not a veteran "newsman", he is the grandfather of Fake News Sources: - scenewash.blogspot.com/2010/04/holder-and-obama-ignore-subpoena.html - www.newsmax.com/Politics/McCain-subpoenas-Obama-emails/2013/06/18/id/510535 - lamborn.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=899 - dailycaller.com/2019/05/28/nyt-obama-wh-officials-ignored-subpoenas Summary: PolitiFact: "One of our cardinal rules here at PolitiFact is: Never assume that something you see on social media is accurate." The mission of Snopes, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org is to reinforce the left's fake narratives, impugn conservatives and whitewash Democrats:
Examples: To illustrate, let us take a couple of Hillary quotes which Snopes and PolitiFact have declared "False". 1. Did Hillary really say: "If that fuckin bastard wins, we're all going to hang from nooses! You better fix this shit!"? Snopes says: "Categorically False". True Fact Check: PROBABLY! For details, see my fact check here: truefactchecks.weebly.com/politics--elections/did-hillary-really-say-if-that-fuckin-bastard-wins-were-all-going-to-hang-from-nooses-you-better-fix-this-shit-fact-check-probably 2. Did Hillary really say: "Yeah, I got him off. So what? Who cares? We get the evidence thrown out, so he walked. (Laughs) I mean, sure, we knew he did it. (Laughs) But it didn't matter." -- Hillary Clinton, audio recording from 1982 discussing a child rapist she defended when she was a criminal defense attorney in Arkansas. PolitiFact says: "Categorically False". True Fact Check: TRUE, although not quite in the same words. PolitiFact whitewashes Hillary Clinton by using the following minimizing rhetoric: "However, neither the recorded excerpts that were posted online nor the articles written about the release of the tapes mentioned the quote offered in the meme." Quite correct but please take a few minutes to listen to the recording of the interview itself where Hillary Clinton keeps laughing about her part in helping a rapist of a 12 year old child escape justice, and make up your own mind on whether or not she was proud of her achievement: Very unusually I am citing below a commentator on CNN as a reference of truth: (start at 05:34) Once again PolitiFact is proven to be twisting both facts and context to rubber-stamp liberal fake narratives, impugn conservatives and protect Democrats. They are NOT Fact Checkers.
Conclusions:
Sources: - www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/mar/23/hillary-clinton-quotes-Internet-complete - truefactchecks.weebly.com/politics--elections/did-hillary-really-say-if-that-fuckin-bastard-wins-were-all-going-to-hang-from-nooses-you-better-fix-this-shit-fact-check-probably - www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2f13f2awK4&feature=youtu.be - www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssMrvBuCqK0&feature=youtu.be (start at 05:34) What does Snopes say? First, let us check Snopes which naturally and automatically fake-checked the quote to be completely false: "Rumors holding that Hillary Clinton had a “meltdown,” threw a water glass at a staffer, and engaged in a curse-filled tirade following NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum with host Matt Lauer have been circulating since the Democratic presidential nominee participated in that forum, which aired on 7 September 2016. While these rumors did seem to be rooted in a little truth — the Clinton campaign was not happy with the questions Lauer asked (or didn’t ask) during the event — claims that Clinton threw a “hissy fit” over it were unfounded. The website Victurus Libertas was the first to promulgate this rumor, publishing an article headlined “Temper! Temper! Hillary Goes on Rampage for Over An Hour — Throwing Glass at Staffer’s Head.” Although Victurus Libertas linked to credible reports from NY Mag and Yahoo! News detailing that Clinton’s campaign was miffed with Lauer for not fact-checking Republican candidate Donald Trump during the event, they cited Politico as their source for the claim that Clinton had thrown a water glass at a staffer: [Victurus Libertas:] Hillary’s meltdown included throwing a water glass at a staffer — narrowly missing her head, and demanding Matt Lauer be fired! She was overheard threatening executives at NBC saying “If I lose, we all go down and that Fascist Fuck will have us swinging from nooses! What the fuck is wrong with you idiots?” Rumors that Clinton threw a “tantrum” after NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum started with a fictitious quote, and that narrative was later expanded with more fake quotes from other anonymous sources. Meanwhile, no actual evidence has surfaced to prove that any of these events actually transpired." Now let us dig: Hillary's quote was first reported, not by Victurus Libertas but by Bill Still. Bill is a former newspaper editor and publisher. He has written for USA Today, The Saturday Evening Post, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, OMNI magazine, and has also produced the syndicated radio program, Health News. "According to Still, during last year’s presidential campaign at the Commander-In-Chief Forum on September 7, 2016, moderator Matt Lauer went “off script” and asked Hillary about her using an illegal, private email-server when she was secretary of state. According to Bill Still’s source — an unnamed “NBC associate producer of the forum” — Hillary was so enraged that, after the forum, she went into a ballistic melt-down, screaming at her staff, including a racist rant at Donna Brazile, calling Brazile a “buffalo” and “janitor”. Brazile recently turned against Hillary — now we know why. This is the NBC associate producer’s account of what happened: “Hillary proceeded to pick up a full glass of water and throw it at the face of the assistant, and the screaming started. She was in a full meltdown and no one on her staff dared speak with her — she went kind of manic and did not have any control over herself at that point. How these people work with this woman is amazing to me. She really didn’t seem to care who heard any of it. You really had to see this to believe it. She came apart — literally unglued. She is the most foul-mouthed woman I’ve ever heard. And that voice at screech level — awful! She screamed she’d get that fucking Lauer fired for this. Referring to Donald Trump, Clinton said, ‘If that fucking bastard wins, we all hang from nooses! Lauer’s finished, and if I lose, it’s all on your heads for screwing this up.’ Her dozen or more aides were visibly disturbed and tried to calm her down when she started shaking uncontrollably as she screamed to get an executive at Comcast, the parent company of NBC Universal, on the phone. Then two rather large aides grabbed her and helped her walk to her car.”" Conclusion: It is clear that Snopes dishonestly misused the specter of "Victurus Libertas" to smear the truth and reinforce another liberal big lie "debunking" Hillary's alleged quote. Another question for Snopes: If "no actual evidence has surfaced to prove that any of these events actually transpired" as you say, why haven't liberal NBC executives and staff come out publicly on CNN and MSDNC and publicly refuted the quote attributed to Hillary Clinton? Unlike Snopes, PolitiFact and Factcheck.org, this is a REAL Fact Check site with strong respect for the truth. Given that there is no "smoking gun" confirming the quote attributed to Hillary Clinton, only circumstantial indicators, my personal feelings notwithstanding, even Hillary deserves the presumption of innocence, hence the rating is "PROBABLY" rather than confirmed "TRUE". Sources: - www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-threw-a-tantrum-with-matt-lauer - www.investmentwatchblog.com/hillary-clinton-if-that-f-ing-bastard-trump-wins-we-all-hang-from-nooses - www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfZRtO62RH4 - billstill.com In complete banana republic fashion, the House Democrat Majority of 2019-2020 is actively covering up the massive crimes and treason of Barack Obama while relentlessly pursuing a witch hunt against President Donald Trump based on ZERO crimes cited in the Mueller Report (by comparison Ken Starr cited 11 charges against Bill Clinton in his report). Impartiality is irrelevant and anathema to an organized crime syndicate! 12/07/18 - "Nadler: I'm ending investigation into FBI, DOJ when I become chairman." "Yes, because it is a waste of time to start with," Nadler said in response to a question about whether he would end the probe. Nadler characterized the Republican investigation as a political sideshow that aims to distract from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. "The entire purpose of this investigation is to be a diversion of the real investigation, which is Mueller. There is no evidence of bias at the FBI and this other nonsense they are talking about," he continued." Really, don Nadler? "Donations to the Clinton Foundation plummeted by 90% over a three-year period since Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to President Donald Trump.
John Solomon from The Hill dropped another bombshell that will keep the Clintons up at night. The former Chief Financial Officer of the Clinton Foundation has turned on the crime family and is now working as a government informant. It turns out that whistleblowers inside and outside the Clinton Foundation have amassed “6,000 pages of evidence attached to a whistleblower submission filed secretly more than a year ago with the IRS and FBI.” Among that evidence can be found:
Their own investigation! That’s hard to put down as politically motivated. Having the chief financial officer of the Clinton Foundation turn informant is a nightmare for the Clintons. The CFO has to process all the cash, and because that person usually is on the hook for any criminal violations, there is ample incentive to turn state’s evidence. That evidence was assembled by a private firm called MDA Analytics LLC, run by accomplished ex-federal criminal investigators, who alleged the Clinton Foundation engaged in illegal activities and may be liable for millions of dollars in delinquent taxes and penalties. In addition to the IRS, the firm’s partners have had contact with prosecutors in the main Justice Department in Washington and FBI agents in Little Rock, Ark." Sources: - www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/clinton-nightmare-chief-financial-officer-of-clinton-foundation-turns-government-informant-on-crime-family - thehill.com/opinion/white-house/420131-feds-received-whistleblower-evidence-in-2017-alleging-clinton-foundation - www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/revealed_clinton_foundation_whistleblowers_have_been_working_with_fbi_and_irs_since_last_year.html |
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