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May 2020

Brennan and Co. Targeted Flynn In Part Because He Knew About Billions They Were Running Off The Books Sara Lee,

http://stupidfrogs.org/article/brennan_and_co_targeted_flynn_in_part_because_he_knew_about_billions_they_were_running_off_the_books.html

Word broke nationally Tuesday that former Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan had suppressed evidence that Vladimir Putin was more interested in a Hillary Clinton win in 2016 than a Donald Trump win. My colleague Nick Arama covered the rumblings of that story in late April.

Brennan, in fact, seems to the be the big fish under U.S. Attorney John Durham’s microscope, but not just because of the latest news about suppressing Putin’s preferences. Sidney Powell, the formidable attorney responsible for helping Ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn successfully battle the drummed-up charges against him, has very specifically said Brennan has his fingerprints all over the smearing of her client because Flynn had a keen interest in auditing the intelligence community and ferreting out corruption.

But it’s the corruption itself that’s stunning. In early April, Powell told the Vicki McKenna Show that the disgraced intel leader and others in the intelligence community were targeting Flynn over billions of taxpayer dollars that he knew were not being properly accounted for.

“Powell, who took over Flynn’s defense last summer, told the Vicki McKenna Show on 1310 WIBA Madison on Tuesday that her client was ‘totally set up’ because he threatened to expose wrongdoing by top intelligence officials in the Obama administration,” the Washington Examiner reported Wednesday.

“He was going to audit the intel agencies because he knew about the billions [former Obama era CIA Director John] Brennan and company were running off books,” she said.

Judge Sullivan Ignores Shocking Record of False Guilty Pleas

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/judge-sullivan-ignores-shocking-record-of-false/91

We may be slow, we often say, but then again, too, we didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. So in respect of Judge Emmet Sullivan’s outrage over General Michael Flynn’s desire to withdraw his guilty plea, let us just say our eyes are dry. The judge has gone so far as to appoint an ex-judge to recommend whether to charge the general for lying when he pled guilty. As if such pleading guilty to a crime one didn’t commit is all that unusual.

The fact is that it’s by no means rare for persons to plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit. Some are scared. Others confused. Some lack the intestinal fortitude or financial wherewithal to stand up against the warnings or threats from the prosecutors. What’s so unusual in the Flynn case is that the Democrats and liberals are siding against the poor schlepper caught in the prosecutorial vice.

It turns out that one serious liberal institution, the Innocence Project, maintains a whole Website devoted to persons who plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit. It’s called GuiltyPleaProblem.com. The first click on it brings up a headline asking the question, “Why do innocent people plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit?” The Website offers illuminating background to the problem.

Judge Sullivan: A Prosecutor in Robes by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16025/judge-emmet-sullivan

In the Flynn case, the prosecution and defense both agree that the case should be dropped. Because there is no longer any controversy between the parties to be resolved, there is no longer any case properly before the judge. His only job is to enter an order vacating the guilty plea and dismissing the case with prejudice.

Under our constitutional system of separation of powers, the new prosecutor has no standing…. the separation of powers…. allocates the power to prosecute to the executive not judicial branch.

It makes no constitutional difference that Flynn pleaded guilty — even if his plea was voluntary, which is questionable in light of the threats against his son.

The Justice Department has the constitutional authority to dismiss a prosecution that it has brought at any time and for any reason, without being second-guessed by the judicial branch.

[Sullivan] is endangering our system of separation of powers and he should be stopped by a writ of mandamus or a motion to recuse. Judges, too, are not above the law or the Constitution.

Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision to appoint a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department’s entirely proper decision to end the criminal prosecution of General Michael Flynn is designed to circumvent the constitutional limitation on the jurisdiction of federal judges. The Constitution limits this jurisdiction to actual cases and controversies. There must be disagreement between the parties that requires resolution by a judge. If the parties agree, there is nothing for the judge to decide.

Losing Our Fears, in War and Plague By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/coronavirus-pandemic-us-economy-lessons-from-world-war-2/ 

Does World War II offer any lessons regarding our wrecked economy and staggering unemployment from the lockdown reaction to the coronavirus?

Seventy-five years ago this month, Germany surrendered, ending the European theater of World War II. At the war’s beginning, no one believed Germany would utterly collapse in May 1945.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, German invaders were on the verge of capturing Moscow. Britain was isolated. London had barely survived a terrible German bombing during the Blitz.

A sleeping America was neutral, but it was beginning to realize it was weak and mostly unarmed in a scary world.

But by 1943, a booming U.S. economy was fielding vast military forces from Alaska to the Sahara. Britain and America were bombing the German heartland. The Soviet Red Army had trapped and destroyed a million-man German army at Stalingrad.

How did the Allies — Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. — turn around the European war so quickly?

The huge Red Army would suffer close to 11 million deaths in halting German offensives. Britain would never give up despite terrible losses at home and at sea from German bombers, rockets, and submarines.

Yet the key to victory was the U.S. economy. It would eventually outproduce all the major economies on both sides of the war combined.

The Constitution Requires Judge Emmet Sullivan’s Lawless Amicus Order Against Michael Flynn Be Overturned By Margot Cleveland

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/14/the-constitution-requires-judge-emmet-sullivans-lawless-amicus-order-against-michael-flynn-be-overturned/

The U.S. Constitution makes clear that the judiciary has no business second-guessing prosecutorial decisions. That’s what Michael Flynn judge Emmet Sullivan decided to do.

On May 13, Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a blatantly biased and unconstitutional order in the long-lasting Michael Flynn criminal case. To preserve the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers, the Department of Justice has no choice now but to seek a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit Court ordering the criminal charge against Flynn dismissed and reassigning the case to another judge.

On Tuesday, Judge Sullivan shocked court watchers when he entered an order stating that, “at the appropriate time,” he intended to enter a scheduling order permitting “amicus curiae” or friend of the court briefs to be filed in Flynn case. Flynn, who more than a year ago pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI, was seeking to withdraw his guilty plea when the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn.

The government’s motion to dismiss highlighted new evidence uncovered by an outside U.S. attorney, Jeff Jensen, and detailed the government’s position that even if Flynn had made false statements to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, as a matter of law there was no crime because the false statements were not “material” to a legitimate investigation.

DNI Richard Grenell Deserves the Nation’s Gratitude By Gina Loudon

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/14/dni_richard_grenell_deserves_the_nations_gratitude_143200.html

Before he was appointed U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell was a foreign policy expert and a media commentator, recognized for his insight and independent analysis. Now that he’s the acting Director of National Intelligence, Grenell is after one thing on behalf of the American people: the truth. In his role as the DNI, Grenell has used his power responsibly, thoughtfully, and constitutionally to find the facts about what happened across the intelligence agencies serving the American people and how they were weaponized for political purposes before and after the 2016 election. 

Although Grenell’s appointment earlier this year was always intended to be temporary, he has not taken the job lightly. Just weeks into his new role, Grenell began reforming the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to enhance transparency and accountability while implementing measures to protect our intelligence agencies from future political interference.  

In May, Grenell announced even more structural reforms designed to improve ODNI’s efficiency and effectiveness. “[M]ore changes to come…because there have been 4 studies in the last 2 years from other career IC officials asking for reforms,” Grenell tweeted, adding that these reforms “should have been done before I arrived.” 

But Grenell’s most important contribution to justice — and truth — has been his decision to declassify the list of former Obama administration officials who “unmasked” the identity of the former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Thanks to Grenell’s efforts, Americans now know that the Obama administration abused its power during the 2016 campaign in order to illegally spy on Donald Trump’s associates.  

The scale to which Obama’s team spied on his successor should be focus of ‘unmasking’ By Lee Smith

https://nypost.com/2020/05/13/the-scale-to-which-obamas-team-spied-should-be-focus-of-unmasking/

The presumptive Democratic candidate for president, Joe Biden, heads a list of more than a dozen Obama officials who spied on Donald Trump’s ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Others senior officials include chief of staff Denis McDonough, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and UN Ambassador Samantha Power.

A list declassified Tuesday by Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grennel shows that Biden and others asked to have Flynn’s name “unmasked” in transcripts of US intelligence intercepts of foreign officials. The names of US persons or entities incidentally collected by such intercepts are minimized to protect the privacy rights of Americans. Unmasking identities is not in itself illegal, nor even necessarily improper. Occasionally US policymakers will ask to unmask a US person to better understand the nature of the intelligence before them. Obama officials, however, gorged themselves like children at a candy store.

In an almost two-month period starting election day, Nov. 8, 2016, senior US officials made 49 requests to unmask the retired three-star general.

Flynn’s Dec. 29, 2016, call to a Russian diplomat in which they were alleged to have discussed sanctions on Russia was leaked by a senior US official to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius. His subsequent column ignited the Russia collusion scandal, which in time became the special counsel investigation. Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI regarding the call, and finally last week the Department of Justice withdrew its deeply compromised case.

Ben Weingarten :U.S. Media Helps China Spread Propaganda About Wuhan Virus And Foreign Policy

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/14/u-s-media-helps-china-spread-propaganda-about-wuhan-virus-and-foreign-policy/

Perhaps still worse than our media providing an open platform for the Chinese Communist Party is its parroting of CCP propaganda.

Communist China talks a big game about the need for “cooperation.” But for several decades, it has continuously worked to undermine cooperation. Perhaps more disturbingly, much of U.S. corporate media colludes with the regime’s deceit.

For the latest evidence of China’s bellicosity, consider recent reporting from U.S. intelligence that Chinese hackers have been attempting to steal intellectual property from U.S. institutions seeking Chinese coronavirus treatments and vaccines. These attempts may have already damaged vaccine research. This is on top of China’s increasingly overt acts of aggression from Taiwan to the South China Sea, and Australia to the European Union.

For the latest evidence of the U.S. media’s complicity, consider a representative example from a May 5 article in the Washington Post. The adopter of the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” tagline opened its opinion page to the democracy-defying Chinese Communist Party (CCP), printing an editorial from Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai.

The New York Times did so as well several weeks prior, allowing Tiankai to publish an editorial calling for “solidarity, collaboration and mutual support,” in what seemed to be a coordinated effort with some 100 Chinese scholars, who echoed this call in an open letter. They were joined by many of the media’s close partners in the U.S. national security and foreign policy establishment, nearly 100 of whom who signed a similar letter.

China Again Attempts to Deflect Deserved Blame

My Days as an Outcast of the Ocean Michael Galak

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/travel-qed/2020/05/my-days-as-an-outcast-of-the-ocean/

Before my wife and I went cruising we had taken what seemed all the appropriate precautions, checked the government’s advisory website and accepted the cruise line’s assurance we’d be perfectly safe from the Wuhan wog. That proved to be true, but wandering the Pacific in search of a port to accept us was another matter.

The PA came to life: “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. On behalf of our flight crew, I welcome you all on board the Qantas repatriation flight, Honolulu – Sydney.”

The cabin, full to the luggage racks with weary, sweaty and anxious Australians from the cruise ship Norwegian Jewel (above), exploded with cheers and clapping. The captain continued: “Every member of our crew is a volunteer. We came to Honolulu to bring you home.” The cheer was louder.

“We volunteered to come for you because we felt that our passengers might be our parents. grandparents, brothers and sisters.

“We are all Australians here”.

The cabin fell eerily quiet after that, many faces streaked with tears. “This is our last flight before most of the Qantas international fleet is grounded. All we ask is that when this is over and you start flying again – remember who came to your help in time of need and, hopefully, you will choose Qantas”.

There was silence. Then someone in the back shouted: “Three cheers for the Captain!” The entire plane responded: “Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!” Another voice, this time a female one: “Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie!” All 300 passengers responded with a deafening “Oi, oi, oi!”

Crew members, standing in the isles for the obligatory safety-briefing intro, were smiling indulgently and singing out themselves. There were cheers for an 18-year-old flight attendant, whose birthday was that day, and for the flight crew. 

The Coronavirus Fetish, or anti-social “Social Distancing.” Christine McNulty’ via UKOA (Watford Observer)

https://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2020/05/anti-social-social-distancing.html

“There’s no reason for increased penalties for reducing the 2  meter (6 feet) rule in the open air because viruses disperse in the open air; the rule isn’t applied when people are shopping in a supermarket and in many other indoor spaces where it can’t be policed.

“I think the govnmt is trying to avoid the formation of crowds and the potential for civil unrest.”  (4.02 PM 5/10)

Prolific writer, Christine McNultty, is often published in the Watford Obsever, in the UK. 

But rationality rarely enters the minds of power-lusters, with only the chance to use brute force whetting their appetite. Reason and force are antipods 

Some good news is that a Dallas Texas salon owner was released from jail after defying a judge’s decision to imprison her for violating the and “social distance” orders. The governor of the state ordered her freed.

Some awful, outrageous news it that an Australian woman in Sydney who was demonstrating peacefully against the lockdown was brutally arrested and her young screaming son wrested from her grip by the police. She was roughly put into the police van, still resisting her arrest.