WHEN THE CHARGES ARE THE CRIME: Turkish court acquits HSBC Turkey CEO of insulting President Erdogan.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
April 12, 2019
IT ISN’T SPYING WHEN DEMOCRATS DO IT: James Comey breaks with Barr: ‘I don’t consider that spying.’
RELATED: Democrats’ railings about Barr and spying will end badly for them.
When A.G. Barr stated he would be investigating the “spying” on the Trump campaign, the Democrats on the committee were shocked, truly stunned. How dare he suggest such a thing? These folks, for over two years, have had their heads deep in ostrich sand. They are apparently completely unaware, or pretend to be, of the massive amounts of actual proof that the Obama administration illegally attempted to eliminate Trump from the running by trying to plant its own spies in the campaign and surveil under prohibited pretexts. Part of this plan was to create and amass fake evidence to be used against him. As almost everyone knows by now, the “Russia Collusion” hoax was just that, a hoax, devised by persons with power in the FBI, the DOJ, the NSA and the Obama administration. Once Hillary lost the election, her minions, such as the disreputable Rob Mook, were right there to get the claim out that she lost because “the Russians hacked the election.” Yeah, right. No way. Not a chance. Did she know then that her supporters in the Obama administration, the FBI, and the DOJ had already implemented a stratagem to undo his victory? Probably. That would explain her leap to blame her loss on “the Russians.” Hillary is a callous, nasty piece of work.
Can these people, these Democrats on the Oversight Committee and those media narcissists who melted down after Barr uttered those few words on Wednesday, be as truly uniformed as they seem to be?
They might not know much, but they know exactly what they’re doing.
IF YOU LIKE YOUR PLAN, SO WHAT? New ‘Medicare for All’ Bill Would Kick 181 Million Off Private Insurance.
Plus:
Under Section 303 of the new Senate bill, private contracts between doctors and patients would be discouraged. Doctors who choose to take private payment from patients outside the system would face a stiff penalty.
Under Section 303, the physician would have to sign an affidavit that he engaged in such a contract, submit it to the secretary of health and human services, and then forego all reimbursement from all other patients enrolled in the new federal entitlement for a period of one year. Few doctors, of course, would be able to do such a thing.
This is essentially the same policy embodied in the previous version of the Sanders legislation, and an even more restrictive version is embodied in the House bill (H.R. 1384).
This, along with the abolition of all insurance alternatives, would come as a striking restriction on patients’ personal liberty.
That’s a feature, not a bug.
SO MUCH FAKE NEWS, SO LITTLE REPORTING: From ‘no crisis’ to ‘breaking point’: Mainstream media changes its tune on border crisis amid illegal immigration surge.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: Are More Indictments of Obama Officials Coming?
April 11, 2019
BOOM: Avenatti Indicted on 36 Counts for Tax Fraud, Embezzlement, Defrauding Paraplegic Client. “Turns out Michael Avenatti scammed everyone — including Democrats.”
BULLSEYE: Eric Swalwell’s Anti-Gun Agenda Is a Dog That Just Won’t Hunt in America. “Don’t run against the Bill of Rights.”
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Did 19th Century Corsets Really Kill Women?
The practice prompted a public uproar, with doctors penning articles and books decrying corsets as a health “plague,” one on the same level as tobacco, gambling, strong drink, and illegal speculation, wrote Charles Dubois. Physicians blamed corsets for causing tuberculosis, cancer, liver disease, heart damage, and a host of other ailments.
These more frightening claims haven’t held up under modern scientific scrutiny, but a few concerns have. Tight corsets did make it slightly harder for wearers to breathe, an impediment which almost certainly led to a reduction in salubrious physical activity. Moreover, they caused muscles of the mid and lower back to atrophy, leading to chronic pain and weakness.
Still, Corsets did not destroy the health of women, nor did they condemn longtime wearers to early deaths. In fact, as Dr. Rebecca Gibson, a Visiting Assistant Professor in anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, discovered when analyzing collections of 18th and 19th century female skeletons, anatomical signs of corset use were actually linked to a longer lifespan.
I had no idea. But getting into — or in a rush, getting out of — one couldn’t have been any fun at all.
GOOD, BUT… F-35C Readiness Rises, Navy Fighter Shortfall Fades.
…the number of F-35s in service is still small, and getting the logistics spun up as the fleet grows will continue to be rocky. Just the way it goes.
RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES! Is Terry McAuliffe Running for President? This Alligator-Trump Tweet Is Mighty Suspicious…
NICE: Brilliant Optical Illusions Inspire Families To Adopt Rescue Pets. “There’s always room for more. Adopt.”
HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): 234 House Democrats, Two Republicans Co-Sponsor Bill Forcing Schools To Let Male Athletes Compete On Girls’ Sports Teams.
THE NOMENKLATURA DON’T NEED TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING TO THE PROLES: Bernie Sanders Asked to Explain $340k in Private Jet Flights.
THIS SEEMS LIKE A BIG DEAL: Lawyers for Greg Craig, ex-Obama White House counsel, say they expect him to be charged with foreign lobbying violations.
The case against Craig stemmed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, centering around the lobbying work he performed in 2012 for the Russian-backed president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, while Craig was a partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
Craig allegedly never registered as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, which requires lobbyists to declare publicly if they represent foreign leaders, governments or their political parties.
His attorneys on Wednesday night told The Associated Press in a statement that the “government’s stubborn insistence on prosecuting Mr. Craig is a misguided abuse of prosecutorial discretion.”
FARA violations were only rarely prosecuted until Mueller took aim at Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, for his lobbying work in Ukraine.
Yet another torpedo, circling back.
BILL GERTZ: China Using OPM Records for Spying.
China is mining intelligence from an estimated 23 million records of American federal workers, including intelligence and security personnel, stolen in cyberattacks against the Office of Personnel Management, according to a member of Congress.
Rep. Chris Stewart (R., Utah) said the Chinese are easily gaining information from the stolen records.
“They can run through those 23 million names in a heartbeat and connect dots in a heartbeat,” Stewart said during remarks to a meeting of the Committee on the Present Danger: China.
“Have we seen evidence that they’ve done that? Absolutely,” said Stewart, a former Air Force B-1 bomber pilot who is currently a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
He declined to provide further details.
The OPM hack was considered one of the most damaging breaches of personnel security for the U.S. government ever. The operation by China took place in 2014 and was discovered in June 2015. China’s role was kept secret during the Barack Obama administration.
Thanks, Obama.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: There was spying and much, much more. “Yesterday, an exchange between Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and AG William Barr during a Senate Appropriations hearing tore the space-time continuum for the institutional left. What appeared to careful observers of the Trump-RUSSIA collusion fable as a simple statement of fact, was an earth-shattering, scandalous, shocking blasphemy to those invested and implicated in the greatest political scandal in American history.”
GOOD: RNC, freed from consent-decree limits, goes on ballot security offensive.
A federal court consent decree, ended last year, had prohibited the RNC from engaging in ballot security activities for nearly 40 years. The aggressive new step, Fox News is told, is meant to level the playing field with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as close elections increasingly become litigious and, in turn, bring discord, division and fiery talking points.
In Georgia, for example, defeated Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has claimed democracy “failed” in that contest, though she lost by more than 50,000 votes and had previously criticized President Trump for suggesting he would not accept an unfavorable election outcome.
And as Senate and gubernatorial races in Florida headed to a prolonged, flawed and confusing recount process last year, Republicans warned that a swarm of Democratic lawyers were descending on the state in a deliberate effort to “steal the election.” In Texas, there were allegations on noncitizen voting.
In California, where Republicans suffered major defeats in the fall, Democrats changed the law to permit “ballot harvesting” — letting campaign operatives take residents’ ballots to the polls on their behalf. And in North Carolina, a new election is scheduled in a race that was initially won by a Republican, but that an investigation found to be marked by fraud.
The Republicans need to play just as hard at this as the Democrats always have.
THOSE AREN’T COVERED NOW: Bernie Sanders unveils Medicare for All proposal, suggests role of health care insurers would be reduced to ‘nose jobs.’
The move reopens the debate over his call to eliminate private health insurance and highlights Democratic presidential candidates’ disparate visions for the long-term future of health care. President Trump and Republicans have slammed the “Medicare for All” plan and say the costs are extraordinary.
Four of Sanders’ opponents in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination are co-sponsoring his universal health care plan in the Senate. They include New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, California Sen. Kamala Harris, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
The plan, Sanders told CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe, “guarantees, like every other major country on Earth, health care to every man, woman and child in this country.”
He added that Medicare for All would “get rid of insurance companies and drug companies making billions of dollars in profit every single year.”
Sanders, a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist, says his health care proposal isn’t socialism.
That’s right. It’s more like fascism.
OK: Iran Carrier Begins Direct Flights to Venezuela.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency says Mahan airline’s first flight to Venezuela left Tehran on Monday carrying a Foreign Ministry delegation.
The United States blacklisted Mahan in 2011 after accusing it of providing support to the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The carrier recently halted flights to Germany and France due to U.S. sanctions over its alleged military transport flights to Syria, where Iran supports President Bashar Assad’s forces.
I’m thinking Venezuela isn’t about to see a huge influx of Iranian tourist dollars.
TELL ME SOMETHING GOOD: Obama had it right — a circular firing squad is on the way.
But what have swing voters been hearing from Democrats, since switching their votes in the midterms over to the Dems? Socialism, anti-Semitism, resistance, more investigations. Not exactly a platform for re-election.
And the congressional Socialists led by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez are even threatening mainstream Democrats with primaries. Yup, replacing moderates in swing districts with left-wing democratic socialists is surely the way to expand the majority. Suburbanites are clamoring for them. Higher taxes is just what hard-pressed suburban voters with lots of responsibilities are seeking.
The public face of the party today is far removed from what created a solid group of freshmen in suburban districts. And they have been bombarded with a lot more than just slogans. Ocasio-Cortez, who pulled down about 15,000 votes in a Democratic primary in a safe district, is world-renowned now for the Green New Deal — just a little program to nationalize the energy industry while promising guaranteed incomes for all; its price tag has been put at $93 trillion. It’s Ocasio-Cortez who drove Amazon out of New York, not understanding that the tax breaks for the company would have come from 10 times the tax revenue that the new jobs would have created, or that their absence blows a $27 billion hole in future budgets. Comically, she thought you could spend the $3 billion on other things.
The other new face of the party has been Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who spread her anti-Israel positions by expressing anti-Semitic tropes about how Jews in America have divided loyalties and how Jews have bought support for Israel with “Benjamins.” Despite most voters believing Omar should be off the House Foreign Affairs Committee with these views, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has kept her on this prestigious assignment while passing over moderates.
Party on.