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December 2018

Cohen’s pleas concocted by prosecutors to snare Trump By Mark Penn

https://itk.thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/420523-cohens-pleas-concocted-by-prosecutors-to-snare-trump

I’m experiencing 1998 déjà vu as prosecutors once again work overtime to turn extramarital affairs and the efforts to keep them secret into impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors. Unable to get the witnesses to compose the stories they want, today’s prosecutors are discovering they can simply compose the crimes by manipulating the pleas of men desperate to protect their families.

The Michael Cohen sentencing memo took aim directly at both Cohen and President Donald Trump. It was used, unethically, to cast the president as directing a criminal conspiracy to make “secret and illegal” payments. Sentencing memos are not supposed to use secret grand jury info to point fingers at those who are not being sentenced, but that’s exactly what these did.

One can say today that these New York prosecutors, acolytes of fired U.S. District Attorney Preet Bharra, have learned that the “plea’s the thing wherein to catch the king.” First, they went after the man, not the crime, and turned up millions in unpaid taxes and some bank-loan misrepresentations by Cohen. At that point, they convinced him to cave for the sake of his family; the trick was to get him to plead guilty to supposedly two campaign finance “felonies,” and then vaguely implicate the president as directing them (which Trump denies).

Despite promises to the contrary from prosecutors, they threw their star witness off the bus anyway, making him the biggest chump in this drama after he hired attorney Lanny Davis and burned all his bridges with his former client. Once they had the guilty pleas in hand, the prosecutors no longer needed Cohen; they trashed him as a greedy liar and called for substantial jail time.

The reason these two guilty pleas were so valuable is that these prosecutors could not, in my opinion, have gotten them in court. The first payment was not even made by Cohen but by American Media Inc., a bona fide media company with First Amendment protections; it could have decided to use the story that it bought, hold the story, or just prevent some competitor from using the story.

Hate Crimes and the Threat to American Jewry By Robert Cherry see note please

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/anti-semitism-hate-crimes-real-threat-from-leftist-politics/It’s not as simple as blaming Trump.
This column makes spurious accusations against Donald Trump: “Further, Trump has consistently voiced animus towards Muslims, so if his rhetoric were responsible for hate crimes, Muslim victimization should have increased.” He also claims the President is anti-Latino. Check your facts which are otherwise correct Robert Cherry! The president has absolutely not consistently voiced animus to Moslems- or Latinos only to Islamic terrorists and violent illegal immigrants…..rsk

In the wake of the Pittsburgh shootings, the Anti-Defamation League reported a 57 percent spike in anti-Semitic acts between 2016 and 2017. Shortly thereafter, the FBI reported a 17 percent increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes. Many commentators linked this uptick to President Trump’s rhetoric. When commenting on the ADL report, Julie Ioffe claimed that Trump “has radicalized so many more people than ISIS ever did.”

A closer look at the statistics, however, indicates that linking anti-Semitic acts to Trump’s rhetoric is problematic and much too one-sided. The ADL report found an almost doubling of campus incidents of bullying and harassment, for example, which are most likely associated with left-wing anti-Zionist forces. And while its intimidation measure doubled, this was mainly because it includes a spree of bomb threats made by a disturbed Israeli youth. In addition, the ADL relies on reports it receives from a variety of institutions, and at least a portion of the increase in anti-Semitic acts reflected “more people . . . reporting incidents than ever before.”

Similarly, the FBI relies on reporting from law-enforcement agencies, and an additional 1,000 agencies reported for the first time in 2017. In addition, the increase was driven entirely by a substantial rise in vandalism of property, as there was a drop in assaults and incidents of intimidation. And as others have pointed out, all three categories were lower in 2017 than they had been a decade earlier.

Further, Trump has consistently voiced animus towards Muslims, so if his rhetoric were responsible for hate crimes, Muslim victimization should have increased. There was, however, an 18 percent decline in anti-Muslim hate crimes, reflecting reductions in all three categories. By contrast, during the Obama years, anti-Muslim hate crimes more than tripled.

Latinos were another group that was subject to Trump’s animus, and the hate crimes they experienced rose by 17 percent. However, anti-Latino assaults — the most serious category — were virtually unchanged, as the overall increase reflected primarily increases in incidents of intimidation and property vandalism.

Beto O’Rourke to Meet with Al Sharpton as He Mulls 2020 Bid By Jack Crowe…see note

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/beto-orourke-to-meet-with-al-sharpton-as-he-mulls-2020-bid/
A professional huckster’s support is ” integral to up-and-coming Democrats…” ????rsk

Representative Beto O’Rourke (D., Texas) spoke with liberal activist Al Sharpton on Friday to set up a meeting in the coming weeks as he considers mounting a 2020 presidential run, Buzzfeed News reported early Monday.

O’Rourke, who rose to national prominence via an ultimately unsuccessful but competitive midterm challenge to incumbent Republican senator Ted Cruz this year, maintained that he was not interested in the presidency while campaigning, but admitted during a recent town hall that he was open to the possibility of launching a 2020 campaign.

Sharpton — a veteran liberal activist whose support has proven integral to up-and-coming Democrats in recent years — “agreed to meet within the next couple of weeks” with O’Rourke during their Friday call, according to his spokeswoman.

O’Rourke met with President Obama in mid November and, two weeks later, received a glowing endorsement from Dan Pfeiffer, a former Obama aide and co-host of the liberal political podcast Pod Save America.

O’Rourke’s presidential prospects were bolstered last week when former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, who previously appeared likely to receive endorsements from Obama and his inner-circle, announced he would not run in 2020.

Ohio Man Arrested for Planning ISIS-Inspired Mass Shootings Against Synagogues in Toledo By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/trending/ohio-man-arrested-for-planning-isis-inspired-mass-shootings-against-synagogues-in-toledo/

On Monday, the FBI announced that it had arrested 21-year-old Damon Joseph for planning multiple mass shootings at synagogues in the Toledo, Ohio area. Joseph had reportedly been inspired by the Islamic State (ISIS) and announced his intention to target Jews on the Sabbath. He had also expressed hatred for gays, Christians, Catholics, and Jews.

Joseph was arrested on Friday after purchasing two AR-15 rifles and openly announcing his plans to kill many people, including a rabbi, the Times of Israel reported. According to an affidavit filed in the U.S. District Court in Toledo, Joseph said he was inspired by the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, Pa. in October, which killed 11.

Earlier this month, Joseph had told an undercover FBI agent that the Tree of Life victims “got what was coming to them,” that Jews were evil, and that he was targeting synagogues in the Toledo area to carry out a mass-shooting in the name of ISIS.

“I admire what the guy did with the shooting actually,” Joseph wrote to an FBI agent. “I can see myself carrying out this type of operation inshallah. They wouldn’t even expect [an attack] in my area.”

The affidavit claims that Joseph was deciding between two synagogues as late as December 4. He said the choice “would depend on ‘which one will have the most people, what time and what day. Go big or go home.'”

On December 6, he had chosen a synagogue, telling the FBI agent “he had conducted research to determine when the Jewish sabbath was so that more people would be present.”

If convicted of terrorism, Joseph could face up to 20 years in prison.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) praised law enforcement for preventing this planned ISIS attack.

“We are tremendously grateful to law enforcement at both the federal and local levels for apprehending the suspect, and for working so diligently to prevent terror from hitting our community,” ADL Cleveland Regional Director Jeremy Pappas declared. “The Jewish community is still grieving following the October attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. We can never let that happen again.” CONTINUE AT SITE

ISIS Magazine for Millennials Threatens Vehicle Attacks Near U.S. Capitol By Bridget Johnson

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/isis-magazine-for-millennials-threatens-vehicle-attacks-near-u-s-capitol/

Declaring that ISIS is a “globalist” organization, a new magazine geared toward young recruits is calling on jihadists to wage vehicle attacks outside of the U.S. Capitol.

Shabab al-Khilafah, or The Youth of the Caliphate, debuted its first issue on Oct. 10 as a colorful collection of articles, posters and teasers to online videos encouraging home-turf attacks on behalf of the Islamic State. Supporters were encouraged to submit content for future issues.

That debut issue, which was distributed via online file-sharing sites, called for lone-jihadist attacks in Australia. On Nov. 9, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali rammed his car filled with propane canisters into a sidewalk in Melbourne’s central business district, got out and stabbed three people, killing one before being shot by police.

The Youth of the Caliphate isn’t an official publication, but is produced by multiple ISIS-supporting media groups under the leadership of groups including Ashhad Media, which has been recruiting online jihadists in English, Arabic and French, and Al-Abd Al-Faqir, which produces frequent online threat images and videos. These independent media organizations form a growing online support network that creates and disseminates propaganda for recruitment and incitement on behalf of the terror group, with the goal of widening the geographical scope of attacks and ISIS influence.

This onslaught of continuously fresh propaganda has figured into other cases of lone jihad. Everitt Aaron Jameson of Modesto, Calif., pleaded guilty this summer to plotting a Christmas 2017 attack at Pier 39, a popular tourist spot in San Francisco; he loved with a heart on Facebook a poster from ISIS supporters showing Santa overlooking Times Square with a box of dynamite at his side. CONTINUE AT SITE

Will the Leakers in the Flynn Case Escape Justice? By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/09/will-the-leakers-in-the-flynn

Two years ago this month, the set-up of Lt. General Michael Flynn began. And now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has recommended the lightest sentence possible for Flynn’s crime of lying to the FBI in 2017, Americans are reminded that the real criminals—top officials at our nation’s most trusted agencies—have yet to be charged for illegally leaking classified information about Flynn to the news media in an effort to sabotage Donald Trump’s presidency.

Flynn was toward the top of Barack Obama’s enemies list. Forced out of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 by Obama loyalist James Clapper, Flynn joined the Trump campaign and became an outspoken critic of Obama and Hillary Clinton. Famously, he led the “lock her up” chants at the Republican National Convention. Ten days later, James Comey’s FBI opened up a counterintelligence probe into possible election collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Flynn was one of four campaign associates targeted by the agency for his “suspected Russian ties.” (It’s unclear whether Comey also obtained a FISA order on Flynn, as he had on Carter Page.)

Obama warned Trump not to hire Flynn during their post-election meeting in the Oval Office on November 10. When Trump defied that advice, Team Obama made him pay.

In December 2016, Flynn held several conversations with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. Trump’s incoming national security advisor legally and appropriately spoke with Kislyak about a number of topics, including a scheduled call between the nation’s two leaders after the inauguration.

Logan Act Hype
What Flynn may not have known at the time is that his conversations—and perhaps all of his communications—with the Russian diplomat were being monitored by James Comey’s FBI. Someone in the Obama Administration illegally leaked details about Flynn’s call to Washington Post reporter David Ignatius.

Defeat and the Dossier Explain Everything By Victor Davis Hanson *****

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/09/defeat-and-the-dossier

Donald Trump’s former consiglieri Michael Cohen, along with being charged with tax avoidance and improper business deals, allegedly is guilty also of trying to leverage money and attention by exaggerating his influence with candidate and later President Trump.

In other words, Cohen to spec followed the standard creepy daily fare for Washington and New York wannabe fixers. But did we need Robert Mueller’s 18 months and $40 million to uncover and redirect to federal attorneys what was largely self-evident? Could not the U.S. government long ago, without the prompt of a special counsel, have uncovered that Michael Cohen did not fully pay his taxes—in the manner of an Al Sharpton, Timothy Geithner, and Tom Daschle?

The diabolical Cohen also tried to enforce, extend, or create non-disclosure agreements (Swampese for hush money) with two women from Trump’s past. The two reappeared out of nowhere in 2016, apparently to translate their alleged Trump hookups of a few hours in years past to notoriety and additional profit in the new age of “President Trump.”

Swamp Crimes
In other words, Michael Cohen was a sort of rough-hewn version of former Bill Clinton crony Vernon Jordan. The latter, remember, was the erstwhile Clinton fixer who in 1998 had sought to keep the still unknown Clinton paramour Monica Lewinsky quiet—and to whisk her away from the Washington media, by arranging for Monica a quid pro quo $40,000 a year job with Revlon in New York, via Clinton friend and Revlon CEO Ron Perelman—all with impunity.

Cohen certainly lacked the tact and savvy of another Clinton clean-up specialist, Betsey Wright, who in 1992 coined the term “bimbo eruptions” for her efforts to track down and neutralize any sudden public confessionals from the legions of past Clinton hookups.

Who knows, had we a Robert Mueller in 1933 he might have been able to charge General Douglas MacArthur and his alleged bag man, aide Major Dwight Eisenhower, with at least something for secretly delivering a bribe of $15,000 to MacArthur’s then 19-year old mistress, Isabel Rosario Cooper (who allegedly had been the general’s mistress since she was 16). The plan was to get her out of the United States and away from the reporting of sleazy muckraker Drew Pearson, who was eager to break the story.

Cohen’s efforts to pay off the Trump gals were understandably rebranded by federal attorneys into the acquitted John Edwards-style “campaign finance violations.” And who knows, now Cohen may well have to pay far more than the existing record federal elections commission fine of $375,000 involving 1,300 undisclosed contributions levied on the 2008 Barack Obama campaign—an event generally ignored by the media given the extenuating hurrahs of 2009.

Did Judge and Prosecutor Shield Criminal Illegal Alien From ICE? Taking judicial over-reach to a new low. Michael Cutler

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272185/did-judge-and-prosecutor-shield-criminal-illegal-michael-cutler

My article today is predicated on the December 2, 2018 Boston Globe report, “ICE agent was in courthouse. Did judge and others help man flee?”

Incredibly, a district court judge is now being investigated by a federal grand jury into her actions earlier this year, when she is believed to have acted, in concert with a prosecutor, to enable an illegal alien from the Dominican Republic to escape justice. As it turned out, the alien was using a false name, had falsely claimed to be a United States citizen at the time of his arrest and had been previously twice deported from the United States.

A detainer had been lodged by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and, at the time, an ICE agent was present in the courthouse waiting to take the alien into custody.

We will get into the details of this outrageous case but first I want to remind you how we have gotten to this point, to set the stage for this latest example of immigration anarchy.

The globalists have worked long and hard to convince politicians from both political parties and judges alike that it is somehow heroic to obstruct the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws that were enacted to protect national security, public safety, public health and the jobs of American workers.

Furthermore, the 9/11 Commission made it crystal clear that first and foremost, multiple failures of the immigration system not only permitted the 19 hijacker-terrorists who launched the savage attacks on September 11, 2001, but other terrorists the Commission studied as well, to enter the United States and embed themselves.

In spite of this, a growing list of so-called “Sanctuary Cities” and even “Sanctuary States” have openly declared their opposition to the enforcement of our immigration laws.

What the Facebook Wars are Really About Soros and the media’s censorship plot. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272157/what-facebook-wars-are-really-about-daniel-greenfield

Facebook got its start as FaceMash: a site comparing the attractiveness of female Harvard students. It was then reborn as a social network for Harvard students, Ivy League schools and then everyone.

More recent surveys showed that the average Facebook user in the United States is 40 years old. That makes Facebook users less likely to start stupid viral trends, those tend to come from younger social media apps, some owned by Facebook, and more likely to be deeply engaged in politics.

Mark Zuckerberg had created a company to appeal to college students who wanted to rate the cutest girls on campus, but is instead stuck with a monster worth hundreds of billions (that number will continue fluctuating with media hit pieces) used by people with actual jobs to share family photos and talk politics. And it’s the politics part, not the baby photos, that’s turning the heat up on Zuckerberg.

Despite the hundreds of billions of dollars, the marriage, the language lessons, the awkward tour of America, Zuckerberg is still on some level the drunken college kid who got in trouble setting up a site to rate his classmates. He doesn’t understand the stakes of the game. As Facebook aged, it became an unwanted gatekeeper for global politics, instead of for teens doing viral challenges.

And though Zuckerberg has given the media some of what it wants, allowing its “fact checkers” to censor certain trending conservative stories, he hasn’t allowed Twitter’s wholesale censorship.

Zuckerberg was told he had to clean up Facebook after Trump’s victory. He failed to do it. Now the Left and its media apparatus is coming for the heads of Facebook leadership. The endgame is to inflict punishing harm on Facebook’s valuation, forcing the company to replace its leadership with media types who will lock down Facebook and make it a safe space for the media and for its political agenda.

White Privilege and Illegal Immigration By Eileen F. Toplansky

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/12/white_privilege_and_illegal_immigration.html

White privilege is a crime, according to Leftists. Consequently, young people are drilled into believing that they are criminal because of their melanin levels. On the “Teaching Tolerance” site, students are told by author Cory Collins that they “can imagine [white privilege] as something of a whiteness water cycle, wherein racism is the rain. That rain populates the earth, giving some areas more access to life and resources than others. The evaporation is white privilege — an invisible phenomenon that is both a result of the rain and the reason it keeps going.”

But if white privilege is so awful, wouldn’t it be hypocritical to come to a country that is predominantly white and then partake of the wealth and power that white privilege provides? After all, benefiting from an evil system does not seem ethical. And leftists always claim the moral high ground — don’t they?

Collins explains that “Francis E. Kendall, author of Diversity in the Classroom and Understanding White Privilege: Creating Pathways to Authentic Relationships Across Race, comes close to giving us an encompassing definition: ‘having greater access to power and resources than people of color [in the same situation] do.'” Does white privilege count when people of color across the globe have “more access to life and resources than others?”

So is it racial discrimination or a desire for power? Clearly the left wouldn’t want to let slip that raw power is really central to their desires. Instead they use race to cover up the naked truth that this is all about power and influence. Race baiting is a very convenient tool to accomplish their goals. Furthermore, Collins adds that:

Just as people of color did nothing to deserve this unequal treatment, white people did not ‘earn’ disproportionate access to compassion and fairness. They receive it as the byproduct of systemic racism and bias.

Since race plays such a huge role in left-wing ideology, may one inquire why people have different skin colors in the first place? According to Science ABC “…color is determined by a pigment called melanin, and while everyone has melanin (both fair and dark-skinned people) it comes in different forms and ratios. The two forms of melanin are called eumelanin and pheomelanin. Eumelanin comes in primarily brown and black hues, while pheomelanin appears as red and yellow hues.”