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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Bill Maher Mocks Rashida Tlaib’s Call to Boycott His Show By Jack Crowe

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/bill-maher-mocks-rashida-tlaib-call-boycott-show/

Bill Maher mocked Representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) Wednesday after she called for a boycott of his program, HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher, in response to his criticism of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

“Some people have one move only: boycott. Cancel. Make-go-away,” Maher wrote on Twitter Wednesday. “But here’s the thing, the house voted 318 to 17 to condemn the #BDS movement, including 93% of Dems. Does Tlaib want to boycott 93% of her own party?”

Maher was responding to Tlaib’s recent suggestion that his opposition to the BDS movement warranted a boycott of his program.

Has Trump Fulfilled His Promise to Cut Regulations? By John Stossel

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/has-trump-fulfilled-his-promise-to-cut-regulations/

President Donald Trump promised he’d get rid of bad rules.

“Remove the anchor dragging us down!” he said when campaigning for president. “We’re going to cancel every needless job-killing regulation!”

Trump was a developer, so he knew that the thicket of rules government imposes often makes it impossible to get things done.

But would he keep his deregulation promise? I was skeptical.

Republicans often talk deregulation but then add rules. People called President George W. Bush an “anti-regulator.” But once he was president, he hired 90,000 new regulators!

Trump has been different.

When he took office, he hired regulation skeptics. He told government agencies: Get rid of two regulations for every new one you add.

Trump Administration Issues Fewest New Regulations in History

Column: Robert Mueller crushed their dreams, so Democrats pivot to race By John Kass

https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/john-kass/ct-democrats-race-kass-20190821-vszdak3hkzfazhjaxltdik3cki-story.html

What was the embittered left — Democratic presidential candidates and their media allies — supposed to do when their hopes of Russia-Trump collusion crashed on the boulevard of broken dreams?

Pivot.

They had invested so much in their fantasy that President Donald Trump was a treasonous agent of Russian boss Vladimir Putin. But when special counsel Robert Mueller’s report came out, and there was no collusion, no crime charged, their fantasy collapsed.

And so, after a brief spasm of despair, the left pivoted to their default position: race.

Race. Race. Race. Race. Race.

With Americans working and with money in their pockets again, with the 2020 election approaching, Democrats are reaching for the race card the way a sick man reaches for the waters of Lourdes. Desperately. Their allies in media followed suit, with Trump called everything from a white supremacist, to a Nazi, and on and on.

Meanwhile, the New York Times embarks on an ambitious new series, the 1619 Project — marking the 400th anniversary of the first slave ships to our shores.

The newspaper said it hopes “to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.”

NYT editor Dean Baquet, a former colleague of mine at the Chicago Tribune, a thoughtful man now with his newsroom in turmoil, expressed the pivot in a different way.

Federal Judge Orders FBI to Search for More Christopher Steele Docs By Debra Heine

https://pjmedia.com/trending/federal-judge-orders-fbi-to-search-for-more-christopher-steele-docs/

After years of legal wrangling, a federal judge has given the FBI 60 days to cough up records of their communications with former British spy Christopher Steele after he was terminated as a confidential human source.

The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch first sought FBI documents on Steele in May of 2017 through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The court initially sided with the FBI but reopened the case in 2018 when evidence emerged that Steele was an FBI informant. Judicial Watch again asked the FBI to search for their Steele records, but the FBI continued to stonewall, declining to confirm or deny that they even existed.

Now, U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper has put an end to the cat-and-mouse game.

“Those records might either bolster or weaken Steele’s credibility as a source,” Judge Cooper said in his ruling. “That information, in turn, could provide a basis on which to evaluate the FBI’s performance of its law-enforcement duties, including its judgment in selecting and relying on confidential sources, especially in connection with such a politically sensitive subject.”

The Mooch, Bill Kristol and the NeverTrump quest for relevance Anthony Scaramucci is a slightly preposterous footnote to the spectacle that is the Trump presidency Roger Kimball

https://spectator.us/mooch-kristol-nevertrump-relevance/

If The Onion didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent it. The self-described ‘omnipotent’ purveyor of current-events satire may not be (as another motto claims) ‘America’s finest news source.’ But it does have a good claim to the nation’s nicest anatomist of political folly (using, I hasten to add, that capacious word ‘nice’ not in the sense of ‘kind, pleasant’ but ‘precise, exact, fine’).

Consider this headline: ‘Anthony Scaramucci talks to Bill Kristol about trying to force Trump off the GOP ticket in 2020.’ Can you guess the source? If you said ‘The Onion,’ you would have made a perfectly rational judgment. After all, Anthony ‘The Mooch’ Scaramucci is a metrosexual clothes-horse, hedge-fund guru, communications director for President Trump for 11 minutes — I mean ‘days,’ 11 days. (Calling up a reporter for The New Yorker and treating him to an insane, profanity-laced tirade does tend to be a career-shortening gambit.) What could this character have to do with Bill Kristol, destroyer of The Weekly Standard, serial endorser of failed political candidates, real and imagined, would-be thorn in the side of Donald Trump? Surely putting those two together was a joke, an absurdity.

But no. A joke it may be — an absurdity, too — but the source of that story is not The Onion but CNBC, not exactly an unimpeachable source, I know, but at least one with some pretensions to reporting as distinct from satire.

Still, I think we have to categorize the gist of this story under two headings: 1) truth can be stranger than fiction and 2) even the simplest fact can be the occasion of humor. Consider this elaboration: ‘Asked whether he has spoken to Scaramucci about trying to find another presidential candidate to replace Trump on the top of the GOP ticket next year, Kristol said: “Yup.”’

THIS IS THE E-MAIL THAT TLAIB SENDS TO SUPPORTERS

“I knew when I ran for Congress that I would face obstacles as a Muslim, Palestinian-American woman. I’ve dealt with sexism, racism, and Islamophobia my entire life — so I knew that would continue if I pursued a high-profile public office and won. What I didn’t anticipate was for that discrimination to come from the President of the United States.

As you may have heard, I was supposed to join my friend and fellow Representative Ilhan Omar along with other colleagues in Israel and Palestine for a congressional delegation visit. But after Donald Trump felt the need to disparage mine and Ilhan’s name on Twitter, and urge Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ban us from entering the country because of our willingness to speak out in support of Palestinian human rights, those travel plans came to an abrupt halt.

It’s very telling when a so-called democratic ally bans elected members of Congress from visiting because of our political views and values. It’s even more disturbing and completely unprecedented that our own president encouraged this undemocratic action. What is Netanyahu afraid that we will witness, that we will bring to light?

Not only am I heartbroken that I cannot meet the people of Israel and Palestine to witness their struggles firsthand, but I am heartbroken I can no longer visit my Palestinian grandmother, who just days ago was excited to decide which fig tree we’d pick from together.

The Israeli government ultimately decided they would let me visit, but under one condition: that I sign a letter restricting my freedom of speech in order to stop me from speaking out against the inhumane conditions Palestinians like my grandmother are forced to face by the Israeli military occupation. Conditions in which families’ homes are being bulldozed, children and young people are subject to terrifying interrogations at all hours, and villages often go without access to clean water. Under such military rule, they have no one to represent them.

No matter how badly I wish to see my grandmother, I know she would not want me to do so under such degrading circumstances that go against everything I believe in: fighting racism, oppression, and injustice.

It’s been a difficult few days, and I’ve shed many tears with my family as we went through this ordeal. But I want to be crystal clear: I am more committed than ever before to defending the rights and freedoms of the people of Palestine and people everywhere, and no political attacks from Trump, Netanyahu, or any other oppressive leader will change that or silence me.

If you are with me and my sister in service, Ilhan, as we continue to speak out against the inhumane treatment of people, from the southern border of the United States to the military rule of Palestine, pitch in a contribution of whatever you can to show the world that we are stronger than racism, Islamophobia, and all forms of hate that seek to divide and oppress us.

DONATE

Thank you for your support. With people like you fighting by our side, I am hopeful.

Rashida Tlaib

Hillary’s IT Guy Created An Encrypted Gmail Account And Sent All Of Clinton’s Emails There Matt Vespa

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2019/08/16/hillarys-it-guy-created-encrypted-gmail-account-and-sent-all-of-clintons-emails-n2551806

Remember Hillary Clinton’s emails, the 30,000 or so that went missing that were subpoenaed? Well, we might be able to find them. We just need to ask Google. At The Daily Caller, investigative reporter Luke Rosiak said that the former first lady’s IT guy, who ignored a congressional subpoena, might have created an encrypted Gmail account and forwarded all those communications to that address. So, it looks like the Russians don’t need to look for them after all, a joke that Trump said at a press conference during the 2016 election that sent the liberal media into a tailspin. No, he wasn’t asking the Russians to spy. It was in jest. It was sarcastic—and if you think otherwise, pat yourself on the back. You’re one of the reasons why Trump won because he, along with his team, knows the liberal media is corrupt, stupid, or both. And when you know that—you can make these clowns do anything. And he’s done that repeatedly since he won the election. 

Anyway, back to Clinton’s IT guy, Rosiak notes the timeline and details, including the discovery that this transfer, which did not seem to spark much interest with now-fired and disgraced FBI Agent Peter Strzok who was a key person in the bureau’s investigation into Hillary’s server (via Daily Caller):

Virtually every single one of Hillary Clinton’s emails were sent, potentially secretly, to a cryptically named Gmail address, according to a new Senate report.

The finding, which has not been previously reported, means that Clinton’s emails, including classified ones and ones which were later deleted, likely existed on Google’s U.S.-based servers. The FBI said in the report that it knew this — and of the suspicious explanation for it — but did not alert other intelligence agencies or the public, according to the report.

The FBI says that the suspicious Gmail address was set up by an IT aide, Paul Combetta, who worked for a company that managed Clinton’s server. Combetta is the same IT aide who used BleachBit to permanently erase copies of Clinton’s emails after they were subpoenaed by the House, misled the FBI about it, and was given immunity from prosecution, all while asking for basic computing advice on Reddit.

So Much For Being ‘Peaceful’: Antifa Attacks Reporters And Conservatives In Portland (Again) Beth Baumann VIDEOS

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2019/08/17/so-much-for-being-peaceful-antifa-attacks-reporters-and-conservatives-in-portl-n2551841

Release the prison surveillance footage By Bobby Harr

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/08/release_the_prison_surveillance_footage.html

I never thought I’d see the day we all unanimously demand further answers about a dead pedophile. But nobody is buying the conventional explanation for Jeffrey Epstein’s death New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Nearly all irregularities in the case have one thing in common, and that is their reliance on another human’s word. We’re getting all of our information by taking the word of the guards, warden, the medical examiner, the prison nurse, and so on.

All of these irregularities require a human to provide us the information we seek — all but one.

The cameras.

If the sleeping guards, falsified documents and abrupt removal from suicide watch weren’t enough, the “malfunctioning camera” in Epstein’s cell during his death sealed the deal. Cameras tell the story without humans. Cameras don’t lie.

It’s a strong likelihood that we will never see what happened on the inside of that jail cell, but it doesn’t end there. Every correctional institution in the country surveils virtually every inch of the place 24/7, especially maximum security facilities like Rikers.

Even if we must accept the “dog ate my homework” excuse for Epstein’s cell footage, we can still likely connect several dots if given access to other surveillance footage from the prison.

New goal for New York Times: ‘Reframe’ American history, and target Trump, too by Byron York

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/new-goal-for-new-york-times-reframe-american-history-and-target-trump-too

Perhaps when you think of the founding of the United States, you think of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers. Now, the New York Times wants to “reframe” your understanding of the nation’s founding.

In the Times’ view (which it hopes to make the view of millions of Americans), the country was actually founded in 1619, when the first Africans were brought to North America, to Virginia, to be sold as slaves.

This year marks the 400th anniversary of that event, and the Times has created something called the 1619 Project. This is what the paper hopes the project will accomplish: “It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.”

Another, more concise statement from the Times: “The goal of The 1619 Project is to reframe American history.”

The basic thrust of the 1619 Project is that everything in American history is explained by slavery and race. The message is woven throughout the first publication of the project, an entire edition of the Times magazine. It begins with an overview of race in America — “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.” — written by Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, who on Twitter uses the identity Ida Bae Wells, from the crusading late 19th-early 20th century African American journalist Ida B. Wells.