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« on: February 08, 2018, 05:35:36 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 2-8-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Feb. 8, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/54022-mid-day-digest
IN TODAY’S EDITION
Pelosi exploits the House of Representatives to advocate for non-Americans.
The explosive Senate FISA memo is even more damning than the House version.
Yes, Obama knew a lot about the investigation into Hillary’s emails.
Americans should demand control over their personal data.
Trump reverses the ordered closure of Gitmo, and that’s a good thing.
Global warming alarmism takes a hit on childbearing.
Plus our Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.
THE FOUNDATION
“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)
FEATURED ANALYSIS
Pelosi Sets Record While Advocating Illegal Aliens1
By Thomas Gallatin
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Wednesday set the record for delivering the longest speech from the floor of the House of Representatives in U.S. history. Setting the mark at eight hours and seven minutes, the 77-year-old used the occasion of Congress’s work to pass a budget deal2 to advocate for an immigration deal3 on DACA. Unlike the Senate, the House has no filibuster rule — only what is known as the “magic minute” special privilege, which essentially grants top House leaders extra time to speak.
Just stop and think about this: Ironically and outrageously, Pelosi exploited this special privilege to set a record in representing the interests of non-citizen illegal aliens rather than the rights of American citizens she was elected to represent. The Founding Fathers must be rolling over in their graves.
Secondly, Pelosi’s gambit was nothing more than a publicity stunt due to the fact that top House and Senate leaders are already in talks on a new immigration deal. That prompted House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to ask, “I don’t understand. If you have four leaders agree to a bill, why do you get to negotiate if you’re not going to vote for the bill?” But, he teased, “I think [Pelosi’s speech is] going to make her Wikipedia page. It’s her biggest accomplishment this year.”
Pelosi argued that her sole objective was to ensure that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) agrees to a vote on DACA. Ryan has maintained that he will only support a bill that would “support what the president supports.” Ryan stated, “President Trump made a very serious and sincere offer of goodwill with the reforms that he sent to the Hill. That is what we should be working off of. Those are the bipartisan negotiations that the majority leader is conducting on our behalf. So we’re not going to bring immigration legislation through that the president doesn’t support.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders clarified the issue, saying, “I think we’ve made clear that the budget deal should be a budget deal, and that members of Congress, like Nancy Pelosi, should not hold our military hostage over a separate issue. We’ve laid out what we would like to see in immigration legislation, and I think it’s something that Nancy Pelosi should support.”
On another note, during her speech Pelosi referenced her Roman Catholic faith and read selected Bible verses as justification for her advocation for illegal immigrant “Dreamers.” If her Catholic faith so “instructs” her policy position on immigration, why has it not also instructed and informed her position regarding the immorality of abortion or same-sex marriage? Evidently, Pelosi’s politics trump her faith.
Finally, after ending her marathon speech, Pelosi quipped that the time flew by, saying, “When you’re out there talking, it seems shorter. When you’re listening, it seems longer.” To which an astute reporter hollered back, “Yeah. We know.”
Bombshell Senate Memo on FBI Corruption4
By Nate Jackson
Now that the dust has settled from Tuesday night’s release of a less redacted version of a key Senate memo5 about dossier author Christopher Steele, there are some key things to highlight. This memo compliments the one written by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes that Mark Alexander covered comprehensively6 Monday. But if anything, the Senate memo, written by Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC), is even more damning.
Grassley and Graham summarize, “It appears the FBI relied on admittedly uncorroborated information, funded by and obtained for7 Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign, in order to conduct surveillance of an associate of the opposing presidential candidate. It did so based on Mr. Steele’s personal credibility and presumably having faith in his process of obtaining the information. But there is substantial evidence suggesting that Mr. Steele materially misled the FBI about a key aspect of his dossier efforts, one which bears on his credibility.”
The memo elaborates on those charges. The senators make public for the first time actual text from the FBI’s FISA application for surveillance of Carter Page, a member of Donald Trump’s campaign team. While Nunes revealed that the FBI used the dossier for that FISA application, the Senate memo indicates the bureau relied “heavily” on Steele’s dossier — as in it comprised the bulk of the application. The memo explains, “The application appears to contain no additional information corroborating the dossier allegations against Mr. Page.” That’s critical: The FBI used the dossier not as a lead for further digging but as self-sufficient evidence, and the court apparently agreed. That’s incredibly weak justification for what ended up being a Fourth Amendment violation.
Also made public is classified FBI testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the dossier and FISA application. What do we learn? The FBI did not inform the FISA court that Steele was, by his own account, “desperate” to stop Trump from being elected. According to the Senate’s letter, “The application failed to disclose that the identities of [Fusion GPS founder Glenn] Simpson’s ultimate clients were the Clinton campaign and the DNC [Democratic National Committee].” Thus, Steele’s political motivation — never mind his funding — was deliberately concealed, and thus the court issued a surveillance order based on false information.
The FBI also based its trust in Steele on … its trust in Steele. Investigators considered him credible because he’d given good information previously, leaving them blind to his political bias. Yes, the FBI eventually ended its relationship with Steele after learning some of this, but it was too late. As Graham said, “You can be an FBI informant. You can be a political operative. But you can’t be both, particularly at the same time.”
Moreover, Steele wasn’t honest, much less credible. Steele lied to the FBI, in part by denying that he was the source for a Yahoo News article about the dossier, when in fact he was the source. That news article was not only used by the FBI as backup for Steele’s dossier, it was cited by the Clinton campaign in attacks on Trump, meaning she was getting political mileage out of the same “intelligence” used by Barack Obama’s law enforcement arm to surveil Trump’s campaign.
And Steele leaked like a sieve, speaking also to The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, The New Yorker and maybe other Leftmedia outlets. Once he was leaking, he could be manipulated by bad actors feeding him bad information. Garbage in, garbage out.
But wait; there’s more. The Wall Street Journal writes8, “The Grassley-Graham referral also drops the stunning news that Mr. Steele received at least some of the information for his dossier from the Obama State Department. The letter redacts the names involved. But the press is now reporting, and our sources confirm, that one of the generators of this information was none other than [Hillary hatchet man] Sidney Blumenthal9.” In other words, Hillary’s cronies at State were backfilling information she was paying for and using to discredit her opponent.
Bottom line: It’s time to declassify and release all four FISA applications (the original and three renewals) for surveilling Carter Page. The Senate memo sheds even more light than Nunes’ did on FBI corruption, but more information and transparency is needed.
Obama Knew About Details of Clinton Email Probe10
By Harold Hutchison
While senior FBI agent Peter Strzok11 and FBI attorney Lisa Page were engaged in an illicit affair, their texts contain a bombshell with some big implications. Not only do they now raise the question about what Barack Obama knew and when he knew it6 regarding the FBI’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails, but they also lead us to wonder whether he really found out about other stuff “through news reports,” as he routinely claimed12. Out on a limb, he was lying every time. |
