Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Two Terrible Possibilities in Trump Wiretapping

Two Terrible Possibilities in Trump Wiretapping 


Two Terrible Possibilities in Trump Wiretapping


Read the whole thing. The author is a 1983 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He served for over 22 years as an FBI special agent, supervisory special agent, and FBI SWAT team leader. If those responsible are not held to account, this will happen again.

Two Possibilities in Trump Wiretapping, and Neither Is Good

By Frank Watt. American Thinker, December 27, 2019:
The report of the I.G.’s findings on the use of FISA in the FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation is an outrage. As a 22 year FBI Agent, I have personally conducted multiple investigations using both Title III “wiretaps” and FISA authorized intercepts. From this perspective, I can only see two possible interpretations of the actions of the FBI and DOJ. Either scenario should anger and frighten every fair minded citizen who takes the time to read the report and understand its implications. To comprehend the magnitude of the wrongdoing, consider the following:
First, an American citizen, Carter Page, was targeted by our government for electronic surveillance under FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). Per the Act, his Fourth Amendment guarantee of privacy was judicially “suspended” to allow law enforcement to intercept and monitor his private communications. Ostensibly, the FISA court would allow this intrusion based on presented facts that indicated that Page was participating in an activity that was reasonably considered to be a threat to national security and was, in effect, the agent of a foreign power.
According to the I.G., the determination to surveil Page was based on second hand information provided by a member of a friendly foreign government and bolstered by reporting in the “Steele dossier”.  Accepting the subjective judgement that the investigation was adequately predicated does not mitigate the disaster that followed.
Typically, a FISA warrant is issued to target a foreign national and, in general, the resulting intercepts come largely from overseas communications. FISA generally requires a lower evidentiary threshold than a “Title III wiretap” (used to intercept and monitor communications in domestic criminal matters). To use a FISA surveillance against a US citizen is a somewhat exceptional step. Basically, it negates Constitutional protections afforded to all Americans based on the judicial determination that the citizen is acting as an agent of a foreign power.
Because electronic surveillance (wire tap) is so intrusive, it is rightfully subject to intense judicial scrutiny. Additionally, because the evidence gathered in its use is singularly effective,  law enforcement in general, and the FBI and DOJ in particular, scrupulously protect the integrity of the process. No law enforcement officer of any worth would stand before a judge and swear to an affidavit that he or she suspected was not completely true and accurate. No competent supervisory chain of command would permit that to happen. To risk the loss or restriction of that invaluable tool would be unacceptable.
In the course of my FBI career, I have authored multiple affidavits in support of “wire tap” investigations. Among these cases were investigations of sufficient profile to be included in the daily briefing of then Director Mueller (as well as to entities at the Pentagon, Department of State and to the White House). In every case, as I stood before the judge to obtain the authorization to conduct the wire tap, my supporting affidavit had been checked, rechecked, and approved by (at a minimum) the principal legal advisor at my field office, the line prosecutors at the US Attorneys Office for the appropriate jurisdiction,  DOJ attorneys at the Office of Enforcement Operations at Main Justice, and program managers, legal counsel, and Division heads at FBI Headquarters.
My point in describing this process is to illustrate the exhaustive and thorough review to which these (non headline generating) investigations are rightly subjected. Although many of my cases were relatively high profile, they all pale in comparison to the “once in a lifetime” historical magnitude of the Crossfire Hurricane case.
The implications of intercepting the communications of a U.S. citizen who is associated with the political campaign of a candidate seeking the presidency rings nearly every “bell” in the FBIs and Attorney General’s Guidelines for sensitive investigations. As discussed in the IG report, by regulation, these cases cannot be initiated without the written approval of the Director and the Attorney General.  In addition to the approval obviously granted by the Director and AG, the IGs report identified the following additional high level officials who reviewed and approved the Page FISA affidavit:  “NSD’s Acting Assistant Attorney General, NSD’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight over 01, 01’s Operations Section Chief and Deputy Section Chief, the DAG, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, and the Associate Deputy Attorney General responsible for ODAG’s national security portfolio.”
The suggestion that somehow, seventeen significant errors, omissions of fact, falsehoods, or deliberate misrepresentations made their way into a FISA affidavit/s (accidentally, at the hand of an anonymous case agent) and then were not immediately noted and corrected throughout the course of this exceptional review process is simply not believable. To further strain credulity, we are asked to believe that during the renewal process, which happened THREE times, no one involved in the process noticed that there was no inculpatory evidence being generated by the intercepts. Keep in mind, Page’s communications were continuously monitored for approximately eleven months.
In order for the intercepts to continue after the initial authorization period, the FBI Director and the Acting/Attorney General themselves had to review the “fruits of the wire”, judge them to be investigatively  significant, and determine that there was adequate justification to continue to “spy on” Carter Page. By signing off on the renewals, they were certifying to the FISA judge that they found the Page intercepts were producing evidence of an ongoing national security threat. The fact that they allowed an unnamed FBI Agent to swear to the renewal affidavits doesn’t relieve them of their responsibility for the outcome nor does it allow for the “I can’t be aware of every aspect of the case” excuse.
Based on what we are told by the I.G., there are only two possible conclusions that can be reached regarding the official conduct of those responsible for infringing on Carter Pages Constitutional freedoms:
The first is that the hand selected team of investigators, attorneys, and Senior Executive Service officials with decades of law enforcement, administrative, and judicial experience were abject failures at a task that they were hired to perform. Speaking from personal experience, in FBI, DEA, and state and local wire tap investigations, the slightest omissions, misstatements, and clerical errors are routinely identified and corrected by the street agents and line prosecutors who do these investigations for a living. To believe that a “varsity level” team, with unlimited time, support, and resources, somehow inadvertently overlooked seventeen major omissions, misstatements, and/or outright falsehoods, is simply not believable.
The second possibility is that nearly everyone who significantly participated in obtaining FISA coverage on Page knowingly and deliberately operated outside the law to one degree or another. The reasons behind the decision to do so are irrelevant. The particulars regarding the seventeen I.G. findings are startling, taken individually. It’s difficult to see how any of the individual omissions or misstatements could have happened accidentally. Viewed collectively, the apparent intentionality is nearly impossible to reconcile as anything but corruption.
In light of the I.G findings, the presiding FISA court judge seems to have come down on the side of intentional abuse. In a recent court order, Judge Rosemary Collyer gave the FBI until January 10 to explain to the court why the FBI should be allowed to continue to utilize FISA. The statement that the FBI “withheld material information” and that “FBI personnel misled NSD” suggests that the judge isn’t buying the “series of unfortunate events” excuse peddled by prominent figures in defense of the indefensible.
Whichever explanation seems more likely, the end result should be infuriating to every American. Either your nation’s premiere law enforcement agency was breathtakingly incompetent when the stakes were the highest, or select officials in that organization made deliberate decisions to break the law, undermine the Constitution, and illegally spy on a fellow American. Either possibility has deeply damaged the reputation of the FBI and DOJ in addition to the reputations of thousands of honest FBI Agents and DOJ attorneys. Despite the legitimate concerns of civil libertarians, the FISA process has indisputably proved an invaluable resource in safeguarding the country from terrorism. If the heinous abuses documented in the I.G.s report result in a weakening or loss of FISA, we will all be the worse for it. If those responsible are not held to account, this will happen again. There is no happy face to put on this episode.
The author is a 1983 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.  He served for over 22 years as an FBI special agent, supervisory special agent, and FBI SWAT team leader.

After his old master wanted him back, the freed slave’s response is a literary masterpiece

After his old master wanted him back, the freed slave’s response is a literary masterpiece 


After his old master wanted him back, the freed slave’s response is a literary masterpiece

Anderson’s letter showed compassion, defiance, and dignity.


In 1825, at the approximate age of 8, Jordan Anderson (sometimes spelled “Jordon") was sold into slavery and would live as a servant of the Anderson family for 39 years. In 1864, the Union Army camped out on the Anderson plantation and he and his wife, Amanda, were liberated. The couple eventually made it safely to Dayton, Ohio, where, in July 1865, Jordan received a letter from his former owner, Colonel P.H. Anderson. The letter kindly asked Jordan to return to work on the plantation because it had fallen into disarray during the war.
On Aug. 7, 1865, Jordan dictated his response through his new boss, Valentine Winters, and it was published in the Cincinnati Commercial. The letter, entitled “Letter from a Freedman to His Old Master," was not only hilarious, but it showed compassion, defiance, and dignity. That year, the letter would be republished in the New York Daily Tribune and Lydia Marie Child's “The Freedman's Book."
The letter mentions a “Miss Mary" (Col. Anderson's Wife), “Martha" (Col. Anderson's daughter), Henry (most likely Col. Anderson's son), and George Carter (a local carpenter).

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jordon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy, — the folks call her Mrs. Anderson, — and the children — Milly, Jane, and Grundy — go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.
In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.
Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
From your old servant,
Jordon Anderson

Monday, December 30, 2019

​American College Of Pediatrics Reaches Decision: Transgenderism Of Children Is Child Abuse

​American College Of Pediatrics Reaches Decision: Transgenderism Of Children Is Child Abuse 


American College Of Pediatrics Reaches Decision: Transgenderism Of Children Is Child Abuse


The American College of Pediatricians issued a statement condemning gender reclassification in children by stating that transgenderism in children amounts to child abuse.

“The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.”

The policy statement, authored by Johns Hopkins Medical School Psychology Professor Paul McHugh, listed eight arguments on why gender reclassification is harmful.
1. Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of health – not genetic markers of a disorder.
2. No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one.
3. A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking. When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such.
4. Puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous. Reversible or not, puberty-blocking hormones induce a state of disease – the absence of puberty – and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously biologically healthy child.
5. According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.
6. Children who use puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex hormones in late adolescence. Cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer.
7. Rates of suicide are twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBQT – affirming countries.

Friday, December 27, 2019

Barr Indicts Eight Individuals for Illegally Funneling Millions In Foreign Money To Clinton’s Campaign in 2016

Barr Indicts Eight Individuals for Illegally Funneling Millions In Foreign Money To Clinton’s Campaign in 2016


Barr Indicts Eight Individuals for Illegally Funneling Millions In Foreign Money To Clinton’s Campaign in 2016


This is big big news coming out of the Attorney Generals office today, and it’s being shadowed by the Impeachment Hoax in Washington, D.C.

Attorney General William Barr just arrested 8 people and charged them with illegally funneling foreign money to Hillary Cliton’s 2016 Presidential Campaign.
One of the men arrested, just happened to be a Star Witness for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe…
From the Department of Justice:
Earlier today, an indictment was unsealed against the CEO of an online payment processing company, and seven others, charging them with conspiring to make and conceal conduit and excessive campaign contributions, and related offenses, during the U.S. presidential election in 2016 and thereafter.
Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Assistant Director in Charge Timothy R. Slater of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement.
A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia indicted Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, 48, of Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 7, 2019, along with George Nader, Roy Boulos, Rudy Dekermenjian, Mohammad “Moe” Diab, Rani El-Saadi, Stevan Hill and Thayne Whipple. The 53 count indictment charges Khawaja with two counts of conspiracy, three counts of making conduit contributions, three counts of causing excessive contributions, 13 counts of making false statements, 13 counts of causing false records to be filed, and one count of obstruction of a federal grand jury investigation. Nader is charged with conspiring with Khawaja to make conduit campaign contributions, and related offenses. Boulos, Dekermenjian, Diab, El-Saadi, Hill, and Whipple are charged with conspiring with Khawaja and each other to make conduit campaign contributions and conceal excessive contributions, and related offenses.
According to the indictment, from March 2016 through January 2017, Khawaja conspired with Nader to conceal the source of more than $3.5 million in campaign contributions, directed to political committees associated with a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 election. By design, these contributions appeared to be in the names of Khawaja, his wife, and his company. In reality, they allegedly were funded by Nader. Khawaja and Nader allegedly made these contributions in an effort to gain influence with high-level political figures, including the candidate. As Khawaja and Nader arranged these payments, Nader allegedly reported to an official from a foreign government about his efforts to gain influence.
The indictment also alleges that, from March 2016 through 2018, Khawaja conspired with Boulos, Dekermenjian, Diab, El-Saadi, Hill, and Whipple to conceal Khawaja’s excessive contributions, which totaled more than $1.8 million, to various political committees. Among other things, these contributions allegedly allowed Khawaja to host a private fundraiser for a presidential candidate in 2016 and a private fundraising dinner for an elected official in 2018.
The indictment further alleges that, from June 2019 through July 2019, Khawaja obstructed a grand jury investigation of this matter in the District of Columbia. Knowing that a witness had been called to testify before the grand jury, Khawaja allegedly provided that witness with false information about Nader and his connection to Khawaja’s company. Boulos, Diab, Hill, and Whipple also are charged with obstructing the grand jury’s investigation by lying to the FBI.
Currently, Nader is in federal custody on other charges.

Democrats Seek To Outlaw Suburban, Single-Family House Zoning, Calling It Racist And Bad For The Environment | The Daily Caller

Democrats Seek To Outlaw Suburban, Single-Family House Zoning, Calling It Racist And Bad For The Environment


Democrats Seek To Outlaw Suburban, Single-Family House Zoning, Calling It Racist And Bad For The Environment


(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Luke Rosiak Investigative Reporter

  • Virginia House Del. Ibraheem Samirah introduced a bill that would override local zoning officials to permit multi-family housing in every neighborhood, changing the character of quiet suburbs.
  • Oregon passed a similar bill, following moves by cities such as Minneapolis; Austin, Texas; and Seattle.
  • Proponents say urban lifestyles are better for the environment and that suburbs are bastions of racial segregation.
Democrats in Virginia may override local zoning to bring high-density housing, including public housing, to every neighborhood statewide — whether residents want it or not.
The measure could quickly transform the suburban lifestyle enjoyed by millions, permitting duplexes to be built on suburban lots in neighborhoods previously consisting of quiet streets and open green spaces. Proponents of “upzoning” say the changes are necessary because suburbs are bastions of segregation and elitism, as well as bad for the environment.
The move, which aims to provide “affordable housing,” might be fiercely opposed by local officials throughout the state, who have deliberately created and preserved neighborhoods with particular character — some dense and walkable, others semi-rural and private — to accommodate people’s various preferences.
But Democrats tout a state-level law’s ability to replace “not in my backyard” with “yes, in your backyard.”
House Delegate Ibraheem Samirah, a Democrat, introduced six housing measures Dec. 19, coinciding with Democrats’ takeover of the state legislature in November.
“Single-family housing zones would become two-zoned,” Samirah told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Areas that would be impacted most would be the suburbs that have not done their part in helping out.”
“The real issues are the areas in between very dense areas which are single-family zoned. Those are the areas that the state is having significant trouble dealing with. They’re living in a bubble,” he said.
He said suburbs were “mostly white and wealthy” and that their local officials — who have historically been in charge of zoning — were ignoring the desires of poor people, who did not have time to lobby them to increase suburban density.
In response to a question about whether people who bought homes in spacious suburbs have valid reasons, not based on discrimination, for preferring to live that way — including a love for nature and desire to preserve woods and streams — he said: “Caring about nature is very important, but the more dense a neighborhood is, the more energy efficient it is.”
He said if local officials seek to change requirements like setbacks to make it impossible to build dense housing in areas zoned to preserve a nature feel, “if they make setbacks to block duplexes, there’d have to be a lawsuit to resolve whether those zoning provisions were necessary.”
He wrote on Facebook, “Because middle housing is what’s most affordable for low-income people and people of color, banning that housing in well-off neighborhoods chalks up to modern-day redlining, locking folks out of areas with better access to schools, jobs, transit, and other services and amenities.”
“I will certainly get pushback for this. Some will call it ‘state overreach.’ Some will express anxiety about neighborhood change. Some may even say that the supply issue doesn’t exist. But the research is clear: zoning is a barrier to more housing and integrated communities,” he continued.
He tweeted Sunday that that would include public housing. “Important Q about new social/public housing programs: where are we going to put the units? Under current zoning, new low-income housing is relegated to underinvested neighborhoods, concentrating poverty more. Ending exclusionary zoning has to be part of broader housing reform,” he said.
Tim Hannigan, chairman of the Fairfax County Republican Committee — in one of the areas Samirah represents — said that urban Democrats were waging war on the suburbs. (RELATED: As School District Implements Busing Over Near-Unanimous Opposition, Immigrants From Communist Countries Fear Socialism Has Followed Them)
“This could completely change the character of suburban residential life, because of the urbanization that would develop,” he told the DCNF. “So much of the American dream is built upon this idea of finding a nice quiet place to raise your family, and that is under assault.”
“This is a power-grab to take away the ability of local communities to establish their own zoning practices … literally trying to change the character of our communities,” he said.
He said suburbs were not equipped to handle the increased traffic, and “inevitably it will just push people to places where they feel they’ll get away from that, they may move to West Virginia to get their little plot of land.”
Minneapolis became the first city to eliminated single family zoning in December 2018, after a push by progressive advocacy groups promoting “equity.” Austin, Texas, and Seattle soon followed suit.
But those cities were amending zoning codes that have always been the domain of local governments. Oregon passed state legislation blocking local governments’ single-family zoning in July, CityLab reported.
It quoted Alex Baca, a Washington, D.C., urbanist with the site Greater Greater Washington, saying that single-family zoning is a tool for wealthy whites to maintain segregated neighborhoods and that the abolition of low-density neighborhoods is necessary for equity.
CityLab acknowledged that “residents might reasonably desire to keep the neighborhoods they love the way they are,” but said that implementing the law at the state level makes sure that those concerns can be more easily ignored.
“By preempting the ability of local governments to set their own restrictive zoning policies, the state policy would circumnavigate the complaints of local NIMBY homeowners who want to block denser housing,” it wrote. (RELATED: Dem Prosecutors Fear For Suburbs’ Safety As Radical District Attorneys, Fueled By Soros Cash, Take Control)
While he implied that suburbs are prejudiced, Samirah himself has a history of anti-Semitic comments, including saying sending money to Israel is worse than funding the Klu Klux Klan.
“I am so sorry that my ill-chosen words added to the pain of the Jewish community, and I seek your understanding and compassion as I prove to you our common humanity,” he said in February.
He interrupted a speech in July by President Donald Trump in Jamestown, Virginia, and said, “You can’t send us back! Virginia is our home.”
His father is Jordanian refugee Sabri Samirah, who authorities banned from the U.S. for a decade after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, in part because of his membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, the Chicago Tribune reported in 2014.

IG Report Reveals Steele Funneled Claims Through John McCain After FBI Dropped Him | Breitbart

IG Report Reveals Steele Funneled Claims Through John McCain After FBI Dropped Him


IG Report Reveals Steele Funneled Claims Through John McCain After FBI Dropped Him

In this Aug. 25, 2009 file photo, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., holds a healthcare town hall meeting in Sun City, Ariz. McCain's family says the Arizona senator has chosen to discontinue medical treatment for brain cancer. (AP Photo/Matt York)
AP Photo/Matt York

Late Senator John McCain provided disgraced former FBI chief James Comey with five separate reports from Christopher Steele that the FBI didn’t previously possess related to unsubstantiated allegations of collusion between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 campaign, the Justice Department’s recent Inspector General report revealed.
There have long been questions about why it was necessary for McCain to pass Steele’s anti-Trump dossier to Comey on December 9, 2016, several weeks after the November 2016 presidential election. By then, Steele had already met numerous times with FBI agents to provide them with his controversial reports. Steele, however, was terminated as an FBI source in the fall of 2016 because he spoke to the news media.
The IG report discloses that McCain gave five new Steele reports to Comey that the FBI did not previously possess, showing that McCain served as a conduit for Steele’s information to reach the FBI even after the British ex-spy was formally cut off as an FBI source.
It is not clear whether McCain knew at the time that Steele had previously been terminated as an FBI source.
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The IG report also verifies that a McCain aid obtained the Steele reports directly from Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, meaning that when McCain transferred the anti-Trump charges to Comey he had to have known that the material originated with a firm that specializes in controversial opposition tactics.
Fusion GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Trump’s primary political opponents, namely Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) via the Perkins Coie law firm.
States the IG report:
Several weeks later, on December 9, 2016, Senator John McCain provided Comney with a collection of 16 Steele election reports, 5 of which Steele had not given the FBI. McCain had obtained these reports from a staff member at the McCain Institute. The McCain Institute staff member had met with Steele and later acquired the reports from Simpson.
The unnamed McCain staff member is known to be David J. Kramer, who also infamously provided BuzzFeed with the Steele dossier.
BuzzFeed published Steele’s full dossier on January 10, 2017 setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.
Prior to his death, McCain admitted to personally handing the dossier to Comey but he refused repeated requests for comment about whether he had a role in providing the dossier to BuzzFeed, including numerous inquiries sent to his office by this reporter.
In his book published last year, McCain maintained he had an “obligation” to pass the dossier charges against Trump to Comey and he would even do it again. “Anyone who doesn’t like it can go to hell,” McCain exclaimed.

Think Obama Administration Wasn't Corrupt? Think Again

Think Obama Administration Wasn't Corrupt? Think Again 


Think Obama Administration Wasn't Corrupt? Think Again

Obama Scandal: Former President Obama and his political supporters have repeatedly stated that his administration was scandal-free, unlike administrations before and after. "We're probably the first administration in modern history that hasn't had a major scandal in the White House," Obama himself said. A new book puts the lie to that statement.
Never mind that the left-leaning big media basically ignored major scandals during the Obama years, ranging from the IRS targeting scandal and the VA's deadly waiting lists for veterans to Hillary Clinton's illegal use of an unsecured, hackable home-brew server for her official duties as secretary of state and the Fast and Furious gunwalking program.
These and others were epic scandals that the media simply ignored or downplayed.
The media have contrasted Obama's supposed honesty and forthrightness with President Trump's supposed venality and political unscrupulousness, as embodied in the year-and-a-half long Russia-Trump scandal investigation that shows few signs of letting up.
But now comes Peter Schweizer's new book, "Secret Empires: How Our Politicians Hide Corruption and Enrich Their Families and Friends," which shows that the Obama administration and its cronies were up to their necks in questionable business deals and may even have intentionally distorted public policy to accommodate their own profit-making.
The book claims "Obama and his administration would deem industries either destructive to the environment or exploitative for the financial and professional gain of his friends, including industries such as coal mining, offshore drilling, cash advance companies, and for-profit colleges,"  wrote Katelyn Caralle of the Washington Examiner.
Schweizer's book, based on extensive research, says that Obama acted to regulate certain industries in such a way that the regulations lowered the value of some of the companies, wrote Katelyn Caralle of the Washington Examiner. These actions let two family friends to profit handsomely on deals through their own investment firm.
Here's how it worked: Obama buddies Marty Nesbitt and Harreld Kirkpatrick III formed a private equity investment firm called Vistria, right around the time Obama was re-elected in 2012.
Nothing wrong with that, except, as Schweizer notes in his book, "A curious pattern began to emerge. Obama and his administration would attack industries with government power, which led to substantially lower valuations for these companies. Nesbitt and Vistria, or others close to Obama, could then acquire those assets for pennies on the dollar."
As an example, Schweizer cites the case of for-profit higher education schools like University of Phoenix, ITT Technical Institute, and DeVry University. In 2013, Obama blamed the schools for taking advantage of students by saddling them with massive amounts of student debt, ruining their credit and making a profit on it. He ordered the Federal Trade Commission to go after them.
In the case of the University of Phoenix, its parent Apollo Education Group was suspended after a Federal Trade Commission investigation in 2015. The following year, three companies, including Vistria, swooped in to buy what remained of Apollo at a price 90% below its share price before the investigation.
As Vistria's education investment portfolio bulged, a number of Obama Education Department officials, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, ended up taking high-level jobs with Vistria.
That's just one example. There are others.
Schweizer noted in his book, for instance, that both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry were deeply involved in trade and security talks with China even as that country began its aggressive campaign to expand its military and physical presence in the South China Sea. Contrary to standard diplomatic practice, however, both played "good cop," not seriously confronting China on its misbehavior.
Remember, Biden and Kerry were close friends from their years spent together in the Senate. So there was little surprise when Biden's son, Hunter, and Kerry's stepson, Christopher Heinz, one of the heirs to the Heinz ketchup fortune, went into business together in 2009.
They created a number of equity and real estate investment firms allied to Rosemont Capital, "the alternative investment fund of the Heinz Family Office."
So far so good. Except, "Over the next seven years, as both Joe Biden and John Kerry negotiated sensitive and high-stakes deals with foreign governments, Rosemont entities secured a series of exclusive deals with those same foreign governments."
In December of 2013, for instance, Biden traveled to China for talks. He brought Hunter Biden along. While there, the senior Biden soft-pedaled China's clear aggression, and played up the bilateral trade partnership. Ten days after the trip concluded, China's central bank, the Bank of China, set up a $1 billion investment joint venture called Bohai Harvest RST. For the record, the "RS" referred to Biden's son's firm, Rosemont Seneca.
That's questionable enough.
But months later, in July 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to China, also for talks. Kerry talked little of China's clear aggression, but did conspicuously note that "China and the United States represent the greatest economic alliance trading partnership in the history of humankind."
He should know. In the ensuing months, Chinese government-linked firms took major stakes in several of the firms owned or controlled by Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz, and provided them with massive funding totaling billions of dollars. Nor is this the only scandal involving John Kerry.
And this just scratches the surface. The book is a catalog, a virtual roadmap, to the way corrupt business gets done in Washington — and why Americans are smart to question why their representative go to Washington as paupers, and return as millionaires.
We can only hope that as Biden or Kerry gears up for a challenge to Trump in the 2020 presidential contest, they will receive the same relentless scrutiny that a Republican with the same record of venality would get. But we won't hold our breath.

Obama's Plan To Seize Control Of Our Economy And Our Lives

Obama's Plan To Seize Control Of Our Economy And Our Lives


Obama's Plan To Seize Control Of Our Economy And Our Lives


  WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 1:  In this handout image...
(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
President Obama has made clear that he’s determined to continue pushing his “progressive” agenda, regardless of constitutional limitations on his power.  He aims to have his way by issuing more and more executive orders.
The most ominous sign of possible things to come appeared on March 16, 2012, when President Obama signed executive order 13603 about “National Defense Resources Preparedness.”
This 10-page document is a blueprint for a federal takeover of the economy that would dwarf the looming Obamacare takeover of the health insurance business.  Specifically, Obama’s plan involves seizing control of:
*  “All commodities and products that are capable of being ingested by either human beings or animals”
*  “All forms of energy”
*  “All forms of civil transportation”
*  “All usable water from all sources”
*  “Health resources –  drugs, biological products, medical devices, materials, facilities, health supplies, services and equipment”
*  Forced labor ( or “induction” as the executive order delicately refers to military conscription)
Moreover, federal officials would “issue regulations to prioritize and allocate resources.”
Each government bureaucracy “shall act as necessary and appropriate.”
To be sure, much of this language has appeared in national security executive orders that previous presidents have issued periodically since the beginning of the Cold War.
But more than previous national security executive orders, Obama’s 13603 seems to describe a potentially totalitarian regime obsessed with control over everything.  Obama’s executive order makes no effort to justify the destruction of liberty, no effort to explain how amassing totalitarian control would enable government to deal effectively with cyber sabotage, suicide bombings, chemical warfare, nuclear missiles or other possible threats.  It’s quite likely there would be greater difficulty responding to threats, since totalitarian regimes suffer from economic chaos, colossal waste, massive corruption and bureaucratic infighting that are inevitable consequences of extreme centralization. Such problems plagued fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, communist China and other regimes.  Totalitarian control would probably trigger resistance movements and underground networks like those that developed in Western Europe during the Nazi occupation.  Totalitarian control could provoke more political turmoil than there was in the Vietnam War era of the 1960s.  There would probably be a serious brain drain as talented people with critical skills escaped to freedom wherever that might be.  Canada?
There’s nothing in executive order 13603 about upholding the Constitution or protecting civil liberties.
Obama’s executive order seems to assume that the next war will be like World War II or World War I, where vast armies of unskilled conscripts went at each other.  But current trends suggest that future conflicts are more likely to involve smaller numbers of military personnel – highly-trained professionals, perhaps thousands of miles away from a battlefield, who remotely-control drones, pilotless combat helicopters, unmanned ground vehicles, unmanned ships, mobile security robots and related military technologies.
Even if Obama’s 13603 were no different than previous national security executive orders, it’s more worrisome because it was issued by the president who rammed Obamacare and runaway spending bills through Congress, who racked up $5 trillion of debt and surrounded himself with hardcore “progressives” hostile to the private sector and America as we have known it.
In what circumstances, one might ask, would a president try to carry out this audacious plan?
Executive order 13603 says with ominous ambiguity: during “the full spectrum of emergencies.”
Well, the United States is already in a state of national emergency declared by President George W. Bush on September 14, 2001 and extended last year by President Obama.
To better understand the potentially explosive impact of his plan, let’s take a tour through the dark world of executive orders, a type of presidential power that most people know little, if anything, about.
Many presidents have pushed to expand their power beyond constitutional limits, particularly during crises.  Issuing executive orders is the easiest way to do it.  A president doesn’t have to propose an executive order, debate the issues, endure hearings or solicit votes.  An executive order can be issued in a few minutes — behind closed doors and away from bright lights.

An executive order may be about all sorts of things large and small.
Paul Begala, who was an advisor to President Bill Clinton, reportedly remarked, “Stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda cool.”
What about the Constitution?  It describes presidential power broadly.  There isn’t anything in the Constitution that authorizes an executive order or limits what a president can do with it.
Executive orders arise from “implied constitutional and statutory authority,” the Congressional Research Service reported.  “If issued under a valid claim of authority and published in the Federal Register, executive orders may have the force and effect of law.”
The Supreme Court tried to establish some limitations.  It asserted the principle that an executive order (1) “must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself” and (2) “an executive order must not be “incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress.”
But many executive orders are in a twilight zone of dubious constitutional legitimacy if not open defiance of the Constitution, especially when they amount to lawmaking without congressional approval.
Very few of the thousands of executive orders have ever been challenged legally.
Members of Congress don’t always seem to know much about them.  At one point, for example, they were shocked to discover that there were executive orders providing the president with enormous standby powers that could be implemented on a moment’s notice.
Sometimes a president issued executive orders to bypass Congress when his party didn’t control it.  But Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued more executive orders than any other president, starting in his early years when he was most popular.  Often executive orders seemed to have been issued because a president was in a hurry – and often there were unfortunate consequences.  An executive order isn’t a reliable cure for any serious problem.
Executive orders go back to the beginning of our country, although they weren’t called that. Usually they were referred to as proclamations.
Until the early 20th century, executive orders were generally undocumented.  They were addressed to a particular government agency which had the only copy.  Nobody seemed to know how many executive orders there were.  As late as the 1930s, there was an account, published in the New York Times, claiming that “there are no readily available means of ascertaining the true texts and history of the thousand or more executive orders issued since March 4, 1933.”
In 1907, the State Department began compiling and numbering executive orders going back to one that Abraham Lincoln issued on October 20, 1862.  That became known as executive order 1.  As I write, the most recent is Obama’s executive order 13603.
President George Washington’s first proclamation was on October 3, 1789.  He said, “Both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving.”  So, this was authorized by Congress.
Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation wasn’t authorized by Congress.  Issued on April 22, 1793, it declared that the United States would be neutral in the war between France and Great Britain, which had begun two months before.  Members of Washington’s cabinet, including Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, agreed that the United States was too fragile to become involved in another war.
Abraham Lincoln expanded presidential powers via proclamations and executive orders.  He did this in the name of suppressing rebellion rather than waging war, since the Constitution gave Congress the power to declare war.
Lincoln famously suspended habeas corpus, the legal action that requires a prisoner to be set free if authorities don’t file charges promptly and proceed to a jury trial, so the accused can have an opportunity to prove innocence.
In April 1861, a Maryland militia officer named John Merryman was arrested and detained at Fort McHenry in Baltimore.  He was said to have damaged Union facilities and trained Confederate soldiers.  His lawyer obtained a writ of habeas corpus from Chief Justice Roger B. Tawney who directed George Cadwalader, the commander at Fort McHenry, to produce Merryman and explain the facts and the legal basis for detention.  Cadwalader refused, saying that Lincoln had suspended habeas corpus.  Tawney cited him for contempt, but a marshal couldn’t enter the fort to deliver the contempt citation.  Tawney wrote what became known as the Ex Parte Merryman opinion, saying, in part, that “If the authority which the Constitution has confided to the judiciary department may upon any pretext be usurped by the military power, the people of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws.”
Lincoln went to Congress, offered an uncertain defense of his action and expressed the hope that Congress would “ratify” his action.  Pulitzer Prize winning historian Mark E. Neely, Jr. noted that “the president seemed to agree that the legislative branch was the proper body to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.”  On September 24, 1862, Lincoln issued a proclamation officially suspending habeas corpus, which meant that the government could detain people indefinitely.  Lincoln “managed the home front, in part,” Neely wrote, “by means of military arrests of civilians – thousands and thousands of them.”
Lincoln had issued executive orders expanding the amount of Union territory subject to military control, particularly southern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio where “copperheads” were operating.  In 1864, the Union army arrested Lambdin Milligan and four others in southern Indiana.  They were charged with plotting to free Confederate prisoners-of-war.  A military court sentenced the men to death, but they appealed for their constitutional right to habeas corpus.  After the Civil War, in 1866, the Supreme Court noted that Indiana wasn’t under attack, and civilian courts were functioning, so Milligan and the others were entitled to a jury trial there.  Justice David Davis wrote: “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of protection all classes of men, at all times, in all circumstances.”
Historian James G. Randall reflected, “No president has carried the power of presidential edict and executive order – independently of Congress – so far as [Lincoln] did.  It would not be easy to state what Lincoln conceived to be the limit of his powers.”
Lincoln’s best-known executive order was the Emancipation Proclamation.  He hoped to provoke a slave revolt in the Confederacy and make it easier for the Union to win the Civil War.  Accordingly, on September 22, 1862, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.  It applied to any state that didn’t return to the Union by January 1, 1863.  No states returned.  At that point, Lincoln issued the historic Emancipation Proclamation.  It applied to slaves in the Confederacy – territory that the Union didn’t control.  It neither abolished slavery nor extended citizenship to former slaves, but it did make the abolition of slavery a war aim.
The peacetime expansion of federal power began with Theodore Roosevelt who issued 1,006 executive orders, more than any previous president.  They performed a wide range of administrative functions, especially the disposition of government-owned land.
TR emphatically rejected the view that “what was necessary for the nation could not be done by the President unless he could find some specific authorization to do it…it was not only [the president’s] right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws.”
TR also said: “I think [the presidency] should be a very powerful office, and I think the President should be a very strong man who uses without hesitation every power the position yields.”  He continued, “I believe in a strong executive.  I believe in power.”

According to biographer Henry Pringle, “It seldom occurred to Roosevelt that the duty of the executive was to carry out the mandates of the legislative.  In so far as he was able, he reversed the theory.  Congress, he felt, must obey the president.”  He wanted the Supreme Court to obey him, too.  Roosevelt acknowledged, “I did greatly broaden the use of executive power.”
At times, TR seemed drunk with power, as when he remarked: “I don’t think that any harm comes from the concentration of power in one man’s hands.”
Woodrow Wilson issued 1,791 executive orders.  For instance, executive order 1810 (August 7, 1913) prohibited anyone from operating a flying machine or balloon across the Panama Canal Zone.   Wilson issued executive order 1860 (November 11, 1913) to dictate interest rates for the Canal Zone – a surprising number of Wilson’s executive orders had to do with administering that little territory.
Most of Wilson’s executive orders were issued during World War I.  For instance, on April 14, 1917, he issued executive order 2594 to establish the Committee on Public Information – war propaganda.  On April 28th, he issued executive order 2604 for censorship of messages sent via the trans-Atlantic cables.  Executive order 2679-A (August 10, 1917) established the Food Administration.  Executive order 2697 (September 7, 1917) required that anyone wishing to export coins, bullion or currency must file an application in triplicate with the nearest Federal Reserve bank.  Executive order 2736 (October 23, 1917) authorized Food Administrator Herbert Hoover to requisition food.  Executive order 2953 (September 12, 1918) authorized the sale of property seized in accordance with the Trading with the Enemy Act.
Franklin D. Roosevelt issued 3,723 executive orders.  In his Inaugural Address, he said: “I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the [depression] crisis – broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”
On March 6, 1933, FDR issued Proclamation 2029 that cited Wilson’s Trading with the Enemy Act to justify ordering banks closed for a National Bank Holiday.
FDR sent his Emergency Banking bill to the House of Representatives, and it was passed after only 38 minutes of debate – apparently without members reading it.
In 1933, FDR issued executive order 6102 that made it illegal for Americans to own gold bullion or gold certificates, even though historically gold provided the best protection against inflation and monetary crises.  Violators faced the prospect of a fine up to $10,000 or up to 10 years in prison.
Since economic fascism was popular during the early 1930s, FDR issued executive orders to suspend antitrust laws and establish German-style cartels in dozens of industries, restricting total industry output, allocating market shares and fixing above‑market wages and prices.  Above‑market wages discouraged employers from hiring, and above-market prices discouraged consumers from buying.  Among these executive orders:
*  6204-A, for the rayon weaving industry
*  6205-C, for the silk manufacturing industry
*  6216, for the ship building and ship repairing industries
*  6242-B, for electrical manufacturing
*  6248, for the corset and brassiere industries
*  6250, for theaters
*  6253, for the fishing tackle industry
*  6254, for the iron and steel industries
*  6255, was for the forest products industry
*  6256, was for the petroleum industry
*  6543-A, for the drapery and upholstery industries
With executive orders, FDR multiplied the number of government bureaucracies.  He established the Civilian Conservation Corps by issuing executive order 6101.  The Public Works Administration followed with executive order 6174.  Then came these executive orders:
*  6225, the Central Statistical Board
*  6340, the Commodity Credit Corporation
*  6420-B, the Civil Works Administration
*  6433-A, the National Emergency Council
*  6470, the Public Works Emergency Housing Corporation
*  6474, the Federal Alcohol Control Administration
*  6514, the Electric Home and Farm Authority
*  6581, the Export-Import Bank of Washington
*  6623, the Federal Employment Stabilization Office
*  6632, the National Recovery Review Board
*  6770, the Industrial Emergency Committee
*  6777, the National Resources Board
*  7027, the Resettlement Administration
*  7034, the Works Progress Administration
As one reflects on FDR’s New Deal executive orders, one thing seems clear: while some of the programs provided relief for desperate people, they failed to achieve a sustained revival of private sector job creation.  Indeed, relief spending was the main reason government spending doubled and taxes tripled during the New Deal era (1933-1940).  Where did the tax revenue come from?  The biggest source of federal revenue was the federal excise tax on cigarettes, beer, soda, chewing gum and other cheap pleasures consumed disproportionately by poor and middle income people.  This means the cost of relief programs for poor and middle income people was borne mainly by poor and middle income people.  In May 1939, FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau lamented, “We are spending more than we have ever spent before, and it does not work.  After eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when he started.”

New Deal unemployment averaged 17 percent, and it didn’t go down significantly until the government began removing more than 10 million men from the civilian work force via military conscription for World War II.
In 1974, the Senate Committee on National Emergencies and Delegated Emergency Powers revealed that “Since March 9, 1933, the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency.  There are now in effect four presidentially-proclaimed states of national emergency.  In addition to the national emergency declared by President Roosevelt [during the Great Depression], there are also the national emergency proclaimed by President Truman on December 16, 1950, during the Korean conflict, and the states of national emergency declared by President Nixon on March 23, 1970 and August 15, 1971.
“These proclamations give force to 470 provisions of Federal law, delegating to the President extraordinary powers, ordinarily exercised by the Congress, which effect the lives of American citizens in a host of all-encompassing manners…The President may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all Americans.”
As a result of these revelations, in 1976 Congress passed the National Emergencies Act.  It limited a president’s declared emergency to two years, which may be extended.
A comment about two of Nixon’s major executive orders.
On August 15, 1971, he announced his New Economic Policy, which happened to be what Bolshevik firebrand Vladimir Lenin called one of his misadventures.  Nixon issued executive order 11615 that declared: “to stabilize the economy, reduce inflation, and minimize unemployment, it is necessary to stabilize prices, rents, wages, and salaries.”  These controls failed to stop inflation which hit double-digits during the 1970s, and they caused chronic shortages, rationing and business disruption – making it harder to create private sector jobs.  By maintaining below-market prices, controls simultaneously encouraged producers to provide less, while encouraging consumers to demand more.  Hence, the shortages.
Although this experience with price controls had been a flop, Nixon decided to try again.  On June 13, 1973, he signed executive order 11723 that called for a freeze on prices, while he continued to control wages, salaries and rents.
Nixon’s executive orders made a bad situation worse.  For instance, his price control administrator C. Jackson Grayson confessed: “lumber controls were beginning to lead to artificial middlemen, black markets and sawmill shutdowns.  Companies trapped with low base‑period profit margins were beginning to consider selling out those with higher base periods, sending their capital overseas, or reducing their efforts.  Instances of false job upgrading – which were actually ‘raises’ in disguise – were reported.  To keep away from profit-margin controls, companies were considering dropping products where costs, and thus prices, had increased.  And shortages of certain products (like molasses and fertilizer) were appearing because artificially suppressed domestic prices had allowed higher world prices to pull domestic supplies abroad.”
In 1999, Bill Clinton waged war with executive orders.  He issued executive order 13088 that declared the governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and the Republic of Serbia posed “an extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”  Therefore, Clinton proclaimed a “national emergency.”  He ordered the seizure of property belonging to the named governments in the United States, and he prohibited Americans from conducting commercial transactions with those governments.  Clinton’s executive order 13119 declared that the region was a war zone.  Executive order 13120 summoned military reserve units for active duty.
None of this was authorized by Congress.  On the contrary, Congress voted down a resolution to declare war.  Congress wouldn’t “authorize” the air war.  Clinton ignored Congress and kept America in the war.  When, on June 10, 1999, NATO announced it was over, Clinton ordered American soldiers to serve in the Kosovo Force.  There are still some American soldiers in harm’s way.
Once again, we find ourselves in an open-ended national emergency, declared on September 14, 2001 and extended since then.  President Obama notified Congress that he was extending it again.  This means the president has still has standby powers from hundreds of statutes.
Okay, how can an executive order be revoked?
First, an executive order can be revoked by another executive order.  Probably all presidents revoke some executive orders by their predecessors.
For example, Bill Clinton’s executive order 12919, issued on June 3, 1994, was about national security.  It revoked all or part of more than a dozen executive orders issued between 1939 and 1991.
President Obama revoked executive orders 13258 (2002) and 13422 (2007), both of which were issued by George W. Bush and amended executive order 12866 (1993) which had been issued by Bill Clinton.  These executive orders had to do with regulatory processes.
While executive orders seem irresistible to presidents because they can be issued quickly, they can be revoked quickly, too.
Second, an executive order can be revoked by legislation.  A 1999 congressional hearing on executive orders, before the House Rules Committee, the Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process, indicated that every president since Grover Cleveland has had some of his executive orders modified or revoked by legislation.
The Congressional Research Service cited a number of recent examples: “in 2006, Congress revoked part of an executive order from November 12, 1838, which reserved certain public land for lighthouse purposes.  Congress has also explicitly revoked executive orders in their entirety, such as the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which revoked a December 13, 1912 executive order that created Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 2.”  A executive order by President George H.W. Bush, to establish a human fetal tissue bank for research purposes, was revoked when Congress declared that ‘the provisions of Executive Order 12806 shall not have any legal effect.’”
In addition, Congress has denied funding needed to implement various executive orders.
If a president’s adversaries have a veto-proof majority in Congress, the threat of passing a law can deter a president from issuing a controversial executive order.  For instance, Christopher J. Deering and Forrest Maltzman, at Washington University, pointed out: “In 1993 President Clinton swiftly backed away from an executive order prohibiting the military from excluding gays from service once it became clear that Congress was likely to overturn such an order by legislative action.”
In recent decades, however, Congress has acquiesced to the expansion of arbitrary presidential power.  For example, Congress hasn’t used its power to declare war since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor more than seven decades ago, although the United States has been drawn into a number of wars during this period.
Congress adopted the War Powers Resolution (1973) in the aftermath of the undeclared Vietnam War.  The law required that the president obtain Congressional authorization before entering a war and that he keep Congress informed about what was going on.  Presidents have continued to enter undeclared, unauthorized wars.
Third, an executive order can be revoked by a federal appeals court or the Supreme Court.
However, courts as well as Congress commonly have acquiesced to expanded presidential power.

For instance, during World War II, FDR issued executive order 9102 (1942) that established the War Relocation Authority to forcibly move Japanese-Americans away from the Pacific Coast into “relocation camps” for the duration of World War II.  This was upheld by the Supreme Court, 6-3, in Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944).  Justice Hugo Black wrote the majority opinion.  He asserted that protecting against potential Japanese espionage was more important than protecting Fred Korematsu’s individual rights.
In recent times, too, the Supreme Court generally has deferred to the president in cases involving executive orders.  In 1979, Iranian revolutionaries seized 52 Americans working at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and held them as hostages for more than a year.  President Jimmy Carter issued an executive order that declared a national emergency and blocked Iranian assets in the U.S.  Dames & Moore, a U.S. contractor owed more than $3 million for work performed in Iran, filed a lawsuit seeking payment.  After Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president, he entered into an executive agreement with Iran, bypassing the Senate which had the constitutional power to ratify treaties.  The executive agreement provided that hostages would be released if legal proceedings in U.S. courts against Iran were suspended.  On February 24, 1981, Reagan signed executive order 12294 to suspend such legal proceedings.
Dames & Moore filed another lawsuit claiming that the president lacked the power to do that.  In Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654 (1981), the Supreme Court implicitly upheld the president’s authority to negotiate executive agreements and explicitly affirmed his power to issue an executive order that suspended court proceedings.  Chief Justice William Rehnquist cited statutes “indicating congressional acceptance of a broad scope for executive action in circumstances such as those presented in this case…we can conclude that Congress acquiesced in the President’s action… [Since] Congress has acquiesced in the President’s action, it cannot be said that the President lacks the power to settle such claims.”
There seem to have been only two cases of an executive order being overturned by a court.
This happened with Harry Truman’s 1952 executive order 10340 that ordered the Secretary of Commerce to stop a steelworkers strike by seizing privately-owned steel mills.   Truman insisted that a prolonged strike would impair the government’s ability to fight an undeclared “police action” as the Korean War has been called.
The steel mill seizures were contested in Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952).
The U.S. Solicitor General claimed that Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution “constitutes a grant of all the executive powers of which the Government is capable.”
Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson was incredulous.  He said, “The example of such unlimited executive power that must have most impressed the forefathers was the prerogative exercised by King George III.  The description of its evils in the Declaration of Independence leads me to doubt that they were creating their new Executive in his image. Continental European examples were no more appealing.  And, if we seek instruction from our own times, we can match it only from the executive powers in those governments we disparagingly describe as totalitarian.  I cannot accept the view that the clause is a grant in bulk of all conceivable executive power.”
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court rejected every argument made on behalf of  Truman’s seizure: “The Executive Order was not authorized by the Constitution or laws of the United States, and it cannot stand…There is no statute which expressly or impliedly authorizes the President to take possession of this property as he did here… In its consideration of the Taft‑Hartley Act in 1947, Congress refused to authorize governmental seizures of property as a method of preventing work stoppages and settling labor disputes… Authority of the President to issue such an order in the circumstances of this case cannot be implied from the aggregate of his powers under Article II of the Constitution…The Order cannot properly be sustained as an exercise of the President’s military power as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces…Nor can the Order be sustained because of the several provisions of Article II which grant executive power to the President… The power here sought to be exercised is the lawmaking power, which the Constitution vests in the Congress alone, in both good and bad times…the President’s power to see that laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker.”
President Clinton’s 12954 was the other case of an executive order known to have been revoked by a court.  Clinton banned the federal government from hiring contractors who replaced strikers.  He argued that strikers can become violent when they’re replaced, so it would be better to appease strikers and support union workplace monopolies by banning replacements.  Attorney Charles T. Kimmett, writing in the Yale Law Journal, defended the president’s position while acknowledging union violence.  “When striking Greyhound workers were permanently replaced,” he wrote, “replacement bus drivers and bus riders became targets of sniper fire.  Similarly, the Hormel Company’s decision to hire permanent striker replacements was accompanied by such violence that Minnesota’s governor called in the National Guard.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit revoked Clinton’s executive order in Chamber of Commerce v. Reich, 74 F.3d 1322 (D.C. Cir. 1996).  This was an important case, because during the past seven decades, there have been more than a hundred executive orders regulating private employment, and legal challenges have been rare.
Clinton’s executive order 12954 conflicted with a 7-0 U.S. Supreme Court decision in NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Company, 304 U.S. 333 (1938),.  In part, that court decided “[The employer] is not bound to discharge those hired to fill the places of strikers.”
D.C. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman said, “We think it untenable to conclude that there are no judicially enforceable limitations on presidential actions [enabling] the President to bypass scores of statutory limitations on governmental authority.”
As all this experience suggests, executive orders make it easy for presidents to consolidate more power and difficult for anyone to stop them.  People acquiesce with the hope that a president will do good, but if he or she does harm – remember, there’s no reliable way of keeping bad or incompetent people out of power – then Americans will find themselves in a very bad place.
Hopefully, President Obama will never try to implement his executive order 13603 – the plan for seizing control of our economy and our lives.  But the plan is ready-to-go, awaiting the right moment.  One morning, Americans could wake up to the news that suddenly Obama is activating the plan because of cyber sabotage, a terrorist incident, a crisis in nuclear Pakistan, a war with Iran or some other state of emergency, perhaps the state of emergency he extended last year.  Or perhaps the president might simply decide that to win the fall election he needs an “October surprise.”

Scientists caught 'adjusting' sea level data to create false impression of rising oceans

Scientists caught 'adjusting' sea level data to create false impression of rising oceans -- Science & Technology


Scientists caught 'adjusting' sea level data to create false impression of rising oceans

ocean water sea waves
A scientific paper published by a team of Australian researchers has revealed a startling find: Scientists at the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) have been "adjusting" historical data regarding tide levels in the Indian Ocean. Their "highly questionable" activities have depicted rapidly rising seas - but the truth is that there is no reason to be alarmed at all. Scientists have found that sea levels are stable - and have been for the entirety of the 20th century.

To put it simply, these PSMSL "scientists" have been arbitrarily changing their data in order to create the illusion of a problem that doesn't actually exist.

According to the Australian research team, sea levels in the Indian ocean have remained stable for decades. Dr. Albert Parker and Dr. Clifford Ollier recently published their astounding research in the journal Earth Systems and Environment; their extensive research gives an in-depth look at how this massive deception was undertaken.

PSMSL "realigned" stable sea level trends

As the researchers report, there are multiple lines of evidence that show sea levels in the Indian Ocean are completely stable. Further, the scientific duo explains that the data-adjusters at PSMSL were taking "misaligned or incomplete" sea level data (which showed no rise in sea levels, or even decreasing sea levels) and "realigning" them.

As Parker and Ollier contend, "It is always highly questionable to shift data collected in the far past without any proven new supporting material." But what makes the PSMSL's data shifts even more questionable is the fact that older datasets were adjusted to look lower while all newer sets of sea level data were re-configured to appear higher. When these arbitrary adjustments are taken together, it creates the appearance of a significant and concerning rise in sea levels - one that is entirely artificial.

As reported:
The sea levels in India, including Mumbai, and in Karachi, Pakistan, have been recently analysed and discussed in Parker and Ollier (2015) and in Parker (2016). In both cases, it was shown that the latest positive trends in the PSMSL RLR [revised local reference, adjusted] data are only the result of arbitrary alignments, and alternative and more legitimate alignments reveal very stable sea-level conditions.
Further, the researchers state that there are even greater concerns regarding the PSMSL's so-called findings. They wrote:
What are more dangerous are the corrections recently introduced to the past to magnify the sea-level trend or the acceleration. As shown in the prior section, the adjustments introduced by PSMSL to make the RLR [revised local reference, or adjusted data] are arbitrary in Aden, Karachi, and Mumbai.
In one instance, Parker and Ollier referenced a 1991 study which showed that sea levels in Mumbai were falling by an average of 0.3 millimeters per year between the years of 1930 and 1980. The duo states that in PSMSL's latest report, they declare that sea levels in Mumbai were rising by 0.52 millimeters per year during the same time period.

In other words, PSMSL completely changed data collected decades ago to show an increase in sea levels, rather than the decrease that was actually reported at the time.

To sum it up, Ollier and Parker have found there is no reason to believe that sea levels are rising - and that PSMSL has been wantonly adjusting sea level data to create the appearance of a problem that doesn't actually exist.

Scientists use real data to show sea levels are stable

The Australian researchers declared in their paper, "Contrary to the adjusted data from tide gauges and the unreliable satellite altimeter data, properly examined data from tide gauges and other sources such as coastal morphology, stratigraphy, radiocarbon dating, archaeological remains, and historical documentation indicate a lack of any alarming sea-level rise in recent decades for all the Indian Ocean."

In other words, a non-biased look at the original data from the tide gauges indicates that there is nothing to be worried about; current sea levels are well within "normal" ranges. In fact, the pair states in the conclusion that sea levels across multiple sites of the Indian Ocean have been stable for "all of the 20th century."

The pair of scientists also state in their paper that all key data collection points have shown a sea level rise of 0.0 millimeters for at least the last 50 years - which is an indicator of stability in ocean levels.

A recent report by NASA even showed that sea levels are actually taking a downward turn for the last few years - findings that lie in stark contrast to PSMSL's alarmist report on sea level data.

There has been much controversy and fanfare over the alleged threat of rising sea levels, but it seems that much of this excitement is based on fiction rather than reality.

Ultimately, Parker and Ollier concluded that sea levels are, and have been, quite stable during the past century.