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July 2018

Strzok Strikes Out Evasive FBI agent only further tarnishes the image of the FBI. Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270730/strzok-strikes-out-lloyd-billingsley

“I have the utmost respect for Congress’s oversight role, but I truly believe that today’s hearing is just another victory notch in Putin’s belt and another milestone in our enemies’ campaign to tear America apart. As someone who loves this country and cherishes its ideals, it is profoundly painful to watch and even worse to play a part in.”

That was FBI counterintelligence boss Peter Strzok, the key player in the investigation of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, in his opening statement Thursday to a joint session of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. This was the same man who said in texts to his FBI girlfriend Lisa Page: “Fuck Trump,” “Trump is a disaster,” “I could SMELL the Trump support,” and that Trump supporters were “ignorant hillbillies.”

For Peter Strzok, Hillary Clinton would win “100 million to zero” and when Page raised the possibility of a Trump win, Strzok responded, “No, no he’s not. We’ll stop it.” The FBI man also alluded to an “insurance policy,” in the event that candidate Trump did prevail. The man who said all that, and much more, told the committee Thursday:

“Let me be clear, unequivocally and under oath, not once in my 26 years of defending my nation did my personal opinions impact any official action I took.” And agent Strzok was dead certain it was Russian election interference was “sowing discord in our nation and shaking faith in our institutions.” Democrats loved it, and Rep. Steve Cohen, Tennessee Democrat, wanted to recommend Strzok for a Purple Heart. For their part, Republicans weren’t buying it.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, a former prosecutor, said Strzok showed “textbook bias,” that got him booted off the Mueller probe. Strzok said that was only a “perception,” and did not “appreciate” Gowdy’s questioning. “I don’t give a damn what you appreciate,” said Gowdy, “I don’t appreciate having an FBI agent with an unprecedented level of animus working on two major investigations in 2016.”

The Democratic Party’s Favorite New Candidate Hits a Snag By Jim Geraghty

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-joe-crowley-democrats-star-snag/

Making the click-through worthwhile: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hits an unexpected complication for November; tough questions about whether opposing Brett Kavanaugh is worth it for endangered Senate Democrats; and whether America can continue to function if political parties see each other as enemies and threats instead of mere opponents.

The Road to Congress for New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Democrats’ favorite new congressional candidate, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, hit a bump in the road this week. New York State has lots of small political parties and allows candidates to run as the nominee of multiple parties. Ocasio-Cortez beat incumbent congressman Joe Crowley in the Democratic party’s primary. But the Working Families party had endorsed Crowley, and made him their nominee. The Working Families party asked Crowley to agree to remove his name from the ballot and . . . he won’t.

Ocasio-Cortez now accuses Crowley of bailing on three scheduled concession calls and “mounting a 3rd party challenge against me.”

House Democrats Introduce First Bill to Abolish ICE By Jack Crowe

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/house-democrats-introduce-first-bill-abolish-ice/

House Democrats introduced legislation on Thursday that would abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the first legislative manifestation of the anti-ICE rhetoric that has increasingly captivated Democrats in recent weeks.

The bill, sponsored by Representative Mark Pocan (D., Wisc.), provides Congress one year to terminate ICE in favor of a more “humane immigration enforcement system.” In practice, the legislation would empower a special commission to redesign the system for handling asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, absent any role for the White House.

The commission would comprise eight lawmakers from both parties as well as nine members selected from “major civil society and immigrants’ rights organizations and individuals directly impacted by ICE practices.”

“The ICE brand has been so damaged by the president that it can no longer accomplish its original mission,” Pocan said, reiterating a message that has become increasingly common among progressive Democrats. “Even ICE agents recognize that ICE doesn’t do what it was intended to.”

The commission would be tasked with identifying “all essential functions of ICE that uphold the Constitution,” and “the appropriate federal agencies that shall be tasked with executing activities such as combating financial crimes, cybercrimes, trade fraud, human trafficking and drug smuggling.”

Julian Assange, CrowdStrike, and the Russian Hack That Wasn’t By Michael Thau

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/13/julian-assange-crowdstrike-and-the

Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 presidential election is predicated on Russian intelligence having hacked the Democratic National Committee’s computers. Russia’s guilt is such an article of faith among our political class, that a Republican-controlled Congress imposed sanctions and President Trump signed on, substantially worsening relations with an important and potentially dangerous nation.

Outside the Acela Corridor, however, one finds more skepticism.

A lot of ordinary folks wonder why the DNC wouldn’t let any outside parties examine their server. Instead, the FBI accepted the word of CrowdStrike, a private contractor hired by the DNC, without any independent confirmation.

And a bunch of not so ordinary folks who know a thing or two about computers thinks there may be a simple explanation for the DNC’s unwillingness to let outsiders have a peek at the evidence: There isn’t any. The Russian hacking that’s caused so much division and turmoil at home and abroad never really happened. It was all a ruse concocted by CrowdStrike.

One such skeptic is an anonymous journalist and computer aficionado who goes by the pseudonym “Adam Carter.” Carter has spent the last couple of years cataloging evidence, unearthed by himself and others, that CrowdStrike engaged in a disinformation campaign, inventing not just a fake Russian hack but also a fake hacker called “Guccifer 2.0.” Much, but by no means all, of Carter’s evidence is technical. And he’s unquestionably found an inconsistency in the Russia narrative that ought to raise doubts in even the most computer illiterate congressman’s mind.

Julian Assange’s Threat
But first, why on earth would a private contractor hired by the DNC engage in such tactics? For motive, we need to go back to June 12, 2016, when Wikileaks founder Julian Assange made an announcement that was sure to worry Hillary Clinton and her closest advisers:

We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton . . . We have emails pending publication.

Fusion GPS Targets Jim Jordan By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/13/fusion-gps-targets-jim

Congress is slowly closing in on exposing the media’s shameful role in perpetuating the Trump-Russia collusion myth on the American people. Prominent news organizations are the accomplices—if not coconspirators—in the biggest political scandal in U.S. history. Now, two years later, there is no sign of surrender: A ludicrous article in New York magazine on July 8 suggested Donald Trump has been a Russian intelligence asset for 30 years.

Fully invested in pushing the phony Trump-Russia plotline in a malicious attempt to destroy Trump’s presidency, the media are intensifying this narrative and creating new villains in the process.

Enter Rep. James Jordan (R-Ohio).

The Ohio congressman has been under a relentless media siege since NBC News reported on July 3 that Jordan ignored “sexual abuse” by a team doctor when Jordan was an assistant coach for the wrestling team at The Ohio State University from 1986 to 1994. The article is short on evidence of sexual abuse but quotes a few of Jordan’s former teammates who insisted the congressmen knew of the inappropriate behavior by Dr. Richard Strauss and did nothing about it. In April, the university announced it would investigate allegations against Strauss, who committed suicide in 2005.

The NBC News report offered mostly innuendo from less-than-credible sources: One accuser is an ex-con who did time in prison for mail fraud, drug possession, and stealing from investors; another is a shady business owner with a “long history of litigation and an apparent bone to pick with the Jordan family” who allegedly sent a disturbing picture to the widow of a former OSU wrestler.

The Old versus the New Left By Robert Weissberg

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/the_old_versus_the_new_left.html

When it comes to being anti-American, the left’s current incarnation is certainly no slouch compared to its older Marxist namesake

Politics often evolves in strange, unpredictable ways. For example, what white Southern Democrat in 1960 would have foreseen that within forty years, the South would be solidly Republican? And that black voters would help elect a black Democrat as president?

An even more extreme transformation has been the American left. In a nutshell, if a leftist from the 1930s were transported to the present via a time machine, he would not only fail to recognize today’s left, but would denounce it as a fraud, the antithesis of its historic mission and a traitor to the working class. If this time-traveler were to return to the 1930s and recount what he had observed, nobody would believe him. Surely, he would be told, the left could not have evolved into such a perversion of its historic mission, and this ludicrous time machine tale is just a cover-up for a week of binge-drinking.

To understand the left’s bizarre transformation, begin with Marxism’s central principle: the centrality of class – namely, the idea that the division between those owning the means of production (the capitalists) and all others explains everything from politics to art and science. Moreover, it is the responsibility of the left (i.e., the Communist Party) to keep class central and thus advance interests of workers (sometimes called the proletariat). To be sure, political necessity periodically counsels promoting a non-class agenda (recall the U.S. Communist Party’s foray into the 1931 racially charged Scottsboro Boys case), but these are temporary tactics and are always ultimately subordinated to advancing class interests. Promoting policies based on religion, ethnicity, sex, geography, race, and all else thus makes for counterproductive distractions.

Strzok: ‘We’ll Stop It’ Text Was Response to Trump Going After Khizr Khan By Bridget Johnson

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/strzok-well-stop-it-text-was-response-to-trump-going-after-khizr-khan/

WASHINGTON — FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok told a joint hearing of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees today that a text to his then-lover, FBI attorney Lisa Page, about stopping candidate Donald Trump was anger expressed in response to Trump verbally going after Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan.

The Khans spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention to challenge Trump on comments he made on the campaign trail about restricting the entrance of Muslims into the country. Their son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in Baqubah, Iraq, on June 8, 2004, as he stopped a suicide bomber from driving into a compound.

In August 2016, Page texted Strzok, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok responded, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” The Justice Department’s inspector general determined that while texts between the two were inappropriate, investigators “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative actions we reviewed.”

“I think it’s important when you look at those texts that you understand the context in which they were made and the things that were going on across America,” Strzok told the committee. “In terms of the text ‘we will stop it,’ you need to understand that was written late at night, off the cuff and it was in response to a series of events that included then-candidate Trump insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero, and my presumption based on that horrible, disgusting behavior that the American population would not elect someone demonstrating that behavior to be president of the United States.”

“It was in no way, unequivocally, any suggestion that me, the FBI, would take any action whatsoever to improperly impact the electoral process, for any candidate.”

Strzok said he took “great offense” at suggestions to the contrary.

The agent also called Trump an “idiot” in an August 2015 message and texted “God Hillary should win 100,000,000 – 0” after a March 2016 GOP debate. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Smears Begin on Kavanaugh The left tries some #MeToo guilt by association.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-smears-begin-on-kavanaugh-1531438269

The political left is going to do whatever it can to defeat Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, and the smears have begun even earlier than usual. This week’s mud on the wall includes a claim of guilt by association when Mr. Kavanaugh was a law clerk 27 years ago.

In 1990-1991 Mr. Kavanaugh clerked for federal Judge Alex Kozinski on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Kozinski retired in December after he was accused by several women, including a former federal judge, of harassing behavior such as groping and showing them pornography.

The McClatchy news service reported Wednesday that a left-wing outfit called Ultraviolet is circulating a six-page memo demanding that Senate Democrats investigate whether Mr. Kavanaugh knew about Mr. Kozinski’s behavior a quarter-century ago. Think of this as the claims in the Christopher Steele Russia dossier without the evidence.

The Ultraviolet sleaze-slingers have no evidence that Mr. Kavanaugh knew about Judge Kozinski’s behavior and no witnesses to anything of the sort. They merely have insinuations that in the age of social media can spread around the world before the truth can even get a hearing. We’re told that journalists from several news organizations are also trolling former Kozinski clerks to see if they can find someone who will say that Judge Kavanaugh knew something, or should have known, about Judge Kozinski’s behavior.

All of which caused the White House to issue a statement Thursday addressing the smears by ancient association that are by now circulating widely on the internet and in the press corps. “Prior to the public reports late last year [about Judge Kozinski], Judge Kavanaugh had never heard any allegations of sexual misconduct or sexual harassment by Judge Kozinski,” White House spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement.

The White House also released a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee signed by 18 of Judge Kavanaugh’s former female clerks attesting to “our uniformly positive experiences with the Judge as a boss on issues of gender and equality in the workplace.” Amy Chua of Yale writes nearby of her rewarding experience placing law clerks with Judge Kavanaugh.

It used to be that the press required at least some evidence to report a story, but now a politically motivated group can write a memo without incriminating facts and get it reported as news. Fair-minded Americans should treat it as the drive-by innuendo it is.

Political Intermarriage and the Birth of the New Democrat Party by Linda Goudsmit

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/21383/political-intermarriage-and-the-birth-of-the-newhttp://goudsmit.pundicity.com/21383
http://lindagoudsmit.com http://goudsmit.pundicity.com

Intermarriage is not always a matter of race or religion – sometimes it is a matter of politics. In 2008 Barack Hussein Obama officiated at the wedding of the Democrat party and Socialism. In this case the bride and groom came from very different family backgrounds with diametrically opposed world views and political perspectives.

The bride’s family, Constitution, was 242 years old and deeply committed to individualism, equality, liberty, and limited powers of government. The groom’s family, Socialism, came to America in 1877 deeply committed to collectivism and centralized government powers. The young lovers ignored the differences and their families’ objections to the marriage in their determination to make their union work for themselves and their children. What happened?

The marriage enjoyed the sweetness of honeymoon oblivion for awhile but soon it became apparent to both bride and groom that the Constitution and Socialism families were divided along foundational lines and compromise was not an option. As with so many racial and religious intermarriages the problems did not become apparent until the children were born. The husband and wife began to argue about what to teach the children.

The husband argued the superiority of his Socialism family tradition of collectivism to govern their family publicly and privately. He extolled the values of dependence, eternal childhood, and cradle-to-grave government control. The wife insisted that her Constitution family values of individual liberty, equality, and personal responsibility were better suited to govern their family. The arguments grew more heated and the husband and wife decided to seek professional counseling. They went back to the spiritual advisor who married them – Barack Hussein Obama (BHO).

The husband and wife entered the counseling office with optimism and confidence that their officiant could help them sort it out. After all, they had chosen BHO to marry them because Obama said he taught Constitutional law and also studied the great socialist Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals. Obama listened to the husband and wife patiently.

Toxic Legacy of 1968 By:Srdja Trifkovic

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/toxic-legacy-of-1968

In the spring and summer of 1968 a wave of student protests erupted on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Their immediate causes were different, but they had two significant common features: contagious denial of the legitimacy of authority and a distaste for established norms of behavior and thought. The process was spiritually comparable to previous orgies of insanity (1793, 1917) but less focused or violent: the soixante-huitards “sought to change the world before they had begun to understand it.”

Defeated in the short term, as signified by Charles de Gaulle’s electoral comeback in June and Richard Nixon’s victory in November, the Left’s long march proved ultimately triumphant. For the future neoliberal ruling class, Paris 1968 was the cultural, social and political turning point where post-structuralism finally merged with young Karl Marx.

The wave of demonstrations in France was triggered off by the ostensibly banal demand of male students at the University of Paris at Nantierre to be free to visit girls’ dormitories at will. This was seen as a liberating demand at the time. (Little did they suspect that, half a century later, progressive students would demand campus authorities to strictly regulate relations between men and women.) The ensuing mayhem released a genie which was already chewing on the bit. Roger Scruton later wrote that his switch to conservatism started when he saw the Parisian barricades first-hand. He was in the Latin Quarter when students tore up the cobblestones to hurl at the riot police, overturned cars and uprooted lamp-posts to erect the barricades. “I suddenly realised that I was on the other side,” he wrote years later.

“What I saw was an unruly mob of self-indulgent middle-class hooligans. When I asked my friends what they wanted, what were they trying to achieve, all I got back was this ludicrous Marxist gobbledegook. I was disgusted by it, and thought there must be a way back to the defence of western civilisation against these things. That’s when I became a conservative. I knew I wanted to conserve things rather than pull them down.”