NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Burying the Other Russia Story Adam Schiff will shut down the probe that found FBI abuses.

Posted By on November 9th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/burying-the-other-russia-story-1541810056

Arguably the most important power at stake in Tuesday’s election was Congressional oversight, and the most important change may be Adam Schiff at the House Intelligence Committee. The Democrat says his top priority is re-opening the Trump-Russia collusion probe, but more important may be his intention to stop investigating how the FBI and Justice Department abused their power in 2016. So let’s walk through what we’ve learned to date.

Credit for knowing anything at all goes to Intel Chairman Devin Nunes and more recently a joint investigation by Reps. Bob Goodlatte (Judiciary) and Trey Gowdy (Oversight). Over 18 months of reviewing tens of thousands of documents and interviewing every relevant witness, no Senate or House Committee has unearthed evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the presidential election. If Special Counsel Robert Mueller has found more, he hasn’t made it public.

But House investigators have uncovered details of a Democratic scheme to prod the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign. We now know that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee hired Fusion GPS, which hired an intelligence-gun-for-hire, Christopher Steele, to write a “dossier” on Donald Trump’s supposed links to Russia.

Mr. Steele fed that document to the FBI, even as he secretly alerted the media to the FBI probe that Team Clinton had helped to initiate. Fusion, the oppo-research firm, was also supplying its dossier info to senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, whose wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion.

House investigators have also documented the FBI’s lack of judgment in using the dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against former Trump aide Carter Page. The four FISA warrants against Mr. Page show that the FBI relied almost exclusively on the unproven Clinton-financed accusations, as well as a news story that was also ginned up by Mr. Steele.

The FBI told the FISA court that Mr. Steele was “credible,” despite Mr. Steele having admitted to Mr. Ohr that he passionately opposed a Trump Presidency. The FBI also failed to tell the FISA court about the Clinton campaign’s tie to the dossier.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

SELECTIVE TYRANNY: MARILYN PENN

Posted By on November 9th, 2018

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/topic/politics/

Americans are living through a period of constant disgruntlement – political, social and historical. No matter what your ethnicity, there’s a statue or a painting of someone in your city or at your school that has to come down, perhaps because of slave-owning, or ancient harm to indigenous people, or womanizing or having too much money. Some people object to the plaque of David Koch on the side of the new fountain he installed in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art – never mind that he paid for everything, helping to keep that site the most visited by tourists to our city. Some want Columbus toppled from his perch atop the circle named for him – five centuries is apparently insufficient to forgive his misdeeds to the Indians And nobody wants the name Trump on their building for a million reasons that you surely know by now.

So how interesting it is that the Whitney Museum, in its current exhibition of Andy Warhol, has placed his oversized portrait of Mao in a position of maximum prominence (see NYT 11/9/18). Since we are so sensitive to tyrants past and present, here’s an excerpt from “Mao’s Great Famine” by Frank Dikotter:

“….Mao emerges as one of the greatest mass murderers in history, responsible for the deaths of at least 45 million people between 1958-1962. It is not merely the extent of the catastrophe that dwarfs earlier estimates, but also the manner in which many people died: between two and three million victims were tortured to death or summarily killed, often for the slightest infraction. When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, local boss Xiong Dechang forced his father to bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days later. The case of Wang Ziyou was reported to the central leadership: one of his ears was chopped off, his legs were tied with iron wire, a ten kilogram stone was dropped on his back and then he was branded with a sizzling tool – punishment for digging up a potato.”

I don’t suppose the above appears as a wall text next to Warhol’s oeuvre. Where is the insistence that this mass murderer should not be given pride of place in an art museum where few people will have the slightest knowledge of his extreme cruelty. If Columbus is too dastardly to be held up for admiration, what can we say about Mao? Put differently, the problem is that Mao is not sufficiently recognized as the face of evil, but is trivialized as a benign subject of a pop-artist who also painted soup cans. The only thing worse than having him hang at the Whitney is that this man who was responsible for the death by starvation of tens of millions of people once had this Warhol portrait of him hanging in the MOMA restaurant. What twisted curator thought this was wink-worthy?

POLITICS Comments turned off

The Worst Person is in Charge of Broward County’s Count Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on November 9th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/271901/worst-person-charge-broward-countys-count-daniel-greenfield

It’s stunning that we’re monitoring the elections of some states because of events that happened generations ago. Meanwhile Broward County is allowed to pull shenanigans like these.

Time after time.

The election supervisor in Florida’s second-most populous county broke the law by destroying ballots cast in last year’s congressional primary involving Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, according to election-law experts across the political spectrum. The congresswoman’s opponent has sued to get access to the ballots.

The case — one of three ongoing independent lawsuits plaguing Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes’ troubled office — stems from a June lawsuit filed in circuit court by Democrat Tim Canova. He had wanted to inspect the optical-scan ballots cast in his Aug. 30 primary race against Wasserman Schultz because he had concerns about the integrity of the elections office.

Under longstanding federal law, ballots cast in a congressional race aren’t supposed to be destroyed until 22 months after the election. And under state law, a public record sought in a court case is not supposed to be destroyed without a judge’s order.

Snipes’ office, however, destroyed the paper ballots in question in September — in the middle of Canova’s lawsuit — but says it’s lawful because the office made high-quality electronic copies. Canova’s legal team found out after the fact last month.

Here’s how things work in Snipes world.

Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes is a prime example of double dipping in the public trough.

Snipes is earning $4,336 monthly in state pension benefits from her time in the Broward school system. She also gets over $12,000-a-month from her job as supervisor, according to state records.

That’s roughly $200,000 annually…increasing every year.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Speaking Truth to Power By Marilyn Penn

Posted By on November 9th, 2018

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/topic/politics/

You won’t know this if your information comes mainly from the NYT and the WSJ, but Alyssa Milano (founder of MeToo) has withdrawn from the Women’s March to protest its organizers’ support of Louis Farrakhan. Leader of Nation of Islam, Farrakhan chanted “Death to the U.S” and “Death to Jews” while in Iran last week, while on the domestic front, he denied being an anti-semite and called himself an “anti-termite” instead. Linda Sarsour, a self-described brown Palestinian and Tamika Mallory, an African-American have endorsed the statement that “no Zionist can be a feminist” and Mallory refers to Farrakhan as “goat” – greatest of all time.

Alyssa Milano is not Jewish but has said, “Any time that there is bigotry or anti-semitism in that respect, it needs to be called out and addressed. I’m disappointed in the leadership of the Women’s March that they haven’t done it adequately.” How should American Jews feel about their own failed leadership in not uttering a word of protest or refusing to participate themselves. We’re used to seeing Jews at the forefront of anti-discrimination for almost every group in the world, yet rabbis were urging their congregants to join the first March Against Trump at which Sarsour made her unequivocal decree that Zionists were unfit to participate. Where was the Jewish Queen of Feminism – Gloria Steinem, or our very political Barbra Streisand, not to mention all other Jewish politicians who are so on top of trigger words like “nationalist.” Where was Chuck Schumer who calibrates every word Trump utters but has been silent about that Death to Jews from the man who stood on the same platform as Bill Clinton in the recent past.

On behalf of all Jewish people who understand the danger that comes from the anti-semitism of the left, I thank Alyssa Milano for her unsolicited moral reproach to the organizers of the Women’s March (who also support BDS )and all its followers who should have thought twice about whose path they were following the first time but have no excuse of ignorance this time around.

MEDIA, POLITICS Comments turned off

The Left Won’t Celebrate These History-Making Republican Women, So We Will There were a lot of female ‘firsts’ Tuesday night, but they won’t get the credit they have earned because these winning candidates don’t embrace leftist ideology.By Nicole Russell

Posted By on November 9th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/11/09/left-wont-celebrate-history-making-republican-women-will/

At the conclusion of Tuesday night’s election, several incredible women made history in their states, winning their races and booting male predecessors from office. So far, they haven’t gotten much media coverage, and likely won’t in the future, simply because they’re Republicans.

If the goal of the feminist movement was to shatter glass ceilings, certainly these women have kicked out a few panels. They should get the credit they deserve regardless of ideology, but they won’t because feminism was never about equality, it was about advancing liberal ideas. No wonder most American women don’t consider themselves feminists.
Meet These Highly Successful Ladies

Several Republican women won big Tuesday night. They won their races, and made history. Here are a few of them.

Young Kim became the first Korean-American woman elected to Congress. She now represents the 65th Assembly District, which includes parts of northern Orange County. She’s an entrepreneur, a minority, and a Republican. Despite fitting identity boxes that the left claims to celebrate, not only is the media failing to celebrate her win, they hardly covered her race at all. Regardless, she is a rising star to watch and her life story is inspiring.

Marsha Blackburn will become Tennessee’s first female senator ever. Blackburn is a mother and businesswoman who formerly represented Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District. Not only did she win her race, making history in the process, but she did so following Taylor Swift’s blockbuster demand that Tennesseans vote for Blackburn’s male opponent, because women’s rights. Blackburn won her Senate race by at least ten points.

The state of Iowa, which politicos typically like to consider a predictor of success for either party, elected their first female governor. Republican Kim Reynolds became Iowa’s first female governor Tuesday, besting her male opponent in a win local Democrats called “confusing.” (Try not to laugh.)

South Dakota also elected their first female governor. Kristi Noem booted her male opponent from office as well.

As of this writing, the Arizona Senate race has still not been called, but results appear to lean in Martha McSally’s favor. If she wins, she will be the first female senator Arizona has elected. She is also the country’s first female fighter pilot, and a Republican who inspires girls who want to join the military.

These are not just politicians but women who are making history across the country, busting through barriers and shattering glass ceilings, which feminists say they celebrate. Yet these women aren’t being celebrated by feminists, proving yet again that their claim of promoting women is a lie. They don’t support women, they embrace progressive ideas.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Democrats: ‘If We Lost, the Voters Must Be Racist’ By The Editors

Posted By on November 9th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/democrats-if-we-lost-the-voters-must-be-racist/

Storyline A: “We didn’t lose!” Storyline B: “If we did lose, it’s because you’re a racist!”

The Democratic party’s transformation into an undergraduate intersectionality seminar at Oberlin is proceeding at a remarkable pace. The party’s current strategy is to scream “Racist!” at people voting for Mia Love and Tim Scott while insisting that Jared Kushner’s father-in-law and Benjamin Netanyahu’s best political friend is a scheming anti-Semite.

At issue is the defeat of Andrew Gillum in the Florida governor’s race and of Stacey Abrams in the Georgia governor’s race. Democrats are busily trying to undo those defeats as of this writing (Florida Democrats have a real knack for suddenly discovering caches of ballots from sympathetic voters at the opportune moment) while simultaneously arguing that the reason these two candidates failed is that they are black, and that Donald Trump’s America is just one tweet away from repealing the 13th Amendment.

Senator Bernie Sanders — who abandoned his native Brooklyn for Vermont, the whitest state in the union — insists that white voters are “uncomfortable” voting for a black candidate. Maybe some are. But Barack Obama won more than 100 more electoral votes running against Mitt Romney than Hillary Clinton won running against a man who’d never run for office before. The signals are at least mixed.

There may be a less nefarious explanation: Florida hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since 1994. Alex Sink, the state’s chief financial officer, is at the moment the only Democrat to have been elected to a statewide office in Florida in this century. Georgia hasn’t elected a Democrat as its governor in this century, either. (Georgia went the entire 20th century without electing a Republican governor, and Georgia’s Democratic governors haven’t exactly been covered in glory: The state could have done without the services of Lester Maddox.) Democrats of all hues have had a hard time of it in those states in recent years, for good reason — the policies they support would be catastrophic for Georgia and Florida, two of the most prosperous states in the country. Florida is booming, and Georgia has been named the best state in the nation for doing business for five years in a row. Floridians and Georgians have good reason to be broadly happy with the direction of their governments.

And what were the Democrats offering?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What Does History Tell Us About 2018? Column: Same as it ever was BY: Matthew Continetti

Posted By on November 9th, 2018

https://freebeacon.com/columns/history-tell-us-2018/

The lesson of 2018 is that the political class is addicted to drawing lessons. Every two years, after the ballots are counted and the winners declared, our reporters, pundits, officials, activists, and analysts turn immediately to the next election. What do these results portend? Will Trump be reelected? Will the suburbs stay Democratic? This emphasis on the future allows the political class to indulge in its favorite activity: mindless speculation. For once, it might be more useful to look backward rather than forward. History has much to tell us.

What it says is that the midterm was about average. The New York Times projects the Democrats will pick up some 35 seats, giving them at least a 12-seat majority in the 116th Congress. The fundamentals pointed to this result. Only 2 of the last 14 presidents (FDR and GWB) have gained House seats in their first midterm. Republican losses are in line with historical trends for a president with less than 50 percent support. The Democratic gain is a few seats higher than in 2006, while less than Republican gains in both 1994 (54 seats) and 2010 (63 seats).

President Trump’s approval rating in the exit poll was 45 percent. This is better than Reagan’s approval in 1982 (42 percent) and about the same as Clinton’s in 1994 (46 percent) and Obama’s in 2010 (45 percent). Trump’s approval is less than that recorded for Jimmy Carter in 1978 (49 percent) and George H.W. Bush in 1990 (58 percent). Carter and Bush lost seats in Congress too. Donald Trump may be an extraordinary man, but in political terms he is an ordinary president.

The difference between the House and Senate results is unusual. Not since 1970 has a president’s party lost seats in the House while gaining them in the Senate. Nor were Democratic gains in statehouses as large as expected. At this writing, they have won the keys to seven more governor’s mansions, but lost important contests in Ohio, Iowa, and New Hampshire. (Republican leads in Florida and Georgia have not been certified.) Democrats also won hundreds of state legislative seats, but nowhere near the amount needed to overcome the losses they experienced during the Obama presidency. The split decision makes a kind of sense: This year’s Senate map favored Republicans, even as a shift among suburban voters and independents helped Democrats.

The high number of House Republicans who did not seek reelection, combined with a liberal gusher of money, was a boon for the party of Pelosi. The Democrats out-raised and outspent Republicans in what the Center for Responsive Politics says is the most expensive midterm ever. This advantage was especially pronounced in the House, where Democrats raised $951 million to the Republicans’ $637 million. Money isn’t dispositive. But it helps.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

MY SAY: KRISTALLNACHT- NOVEMBER 9, 1938

Posted By on November 9th, 2018

On November 9, 1938 on Kristallnacht Nazis rampaged throughout Germany murdering Jews, pillaging their homes, businesses and belongings, and destroying synagogues. Thus began the final unraveling of Jewish life in Germany. When it was over one in every three Jews in the world was murdered. They had no guns. Please read this:

What Truly Caused the Pogrom of 1938 By Gary Gindler

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/11/what_truly_caused_the_pogrom_of_1938.html

POLITICS Comments turned off

Democrats Will Investigate, Not Legislate By Julie Kelly

Posted By on November 9th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/09/democrats-will

In a column published the day after the election, former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell warned his fellow Democrats to proceed cautiously after winning the House of Representatives. “Our most fervent supporters hope that we will use our newly found control to investigate almost everything that the Trump administration has done,” he wrote. “Though I understand what has fed this emotion, that would be a grievous mistake if investigations were all we did and we made no attempt to meet the challenges facing everyday Americans.”

But that advice likely will be ignored by a party that has no more use for relatively moderate, older, white men like Rendell. Despite election season slogans about protecting health care and migrant children, Democrats really only care about one thing: Retribution for Trump winning the White House.

Their base wants it, too. Exit polls showed a plurality of voters used their ballot to protest President Trump; two-thirds of voters who supported a Democratic House candidate said they want Congress to begin impeachment proceedings and remove Trump from office, an idea supported by key Democratic lawmakers poised to take over powerful committees. Revenge-seeking henchmen in the 116th Congress will be more interested in serving subpoenas than safeguarding pre-existing conditions. (The joke’s on you, my fellow suburban moms who voted for Democrats because you think they really care about your family’s health care coverage. LOL.)

It will be all investigations, all the time—a two-year grudge match between Congress and the Trump Administration. The games already have begun.

Subpoenas As Far As the Eye Can See
From subpoenaing Trump’s tax returns to probing former and current cabinet officials, Democrats and the media are salivating over all the damaging headlines they think they can generate just as the 2020 presidential race gets underway. The House Oversight Committee alone has at least 60 subpoenas ready to go when Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) takes over.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Democrats and the Press vs. Collegiality By Roger Kimball

Posted By on November 9th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/08/democrats

The world is divided into two classes of people: those who think that CNN’s Jim Acosta is “rude” and a “terrible person” and Jim Acosta.

Supporting the former opinion are episodes like Wednesday’s press conference at the White House at which Acosta once again played his version of charades, acting out the word “obnoxious.” He does it well, even if the routine has become tiresome through ceaseless repetition. It wasn’t all tedium, however, since Acosta this time earned himself a suspension of his White House press credentials by pushing away a female staffer who endeavored to take the microphone away from him after the president attempted to move on to another reporter. Your time was up, Jim. You should have sat down and behaved yourself.

I should explain that in the latter group, small but vocal, I include not just the excitable Jim Acosta himself but also that moist band of preening scribes who believe that by being rude and editorializing at press conferences they are somehow reporting the news. Let’s call that whole group “Jim Acosta” in scare quotes.

To be frank, I would have preferred that the Republicans had held the House on Tuesday. But the president was right: Tuesday was a great victory, not for Republicans, exactly, but for Donald Trump and his robust vision of a vibrant, free, and prosperous America. This election was a referendum on the “principled realism” that the president has articulated as the pivot of his approach to both foreign and domestic policy.

As the president observed, Tuesday’s vote, with a net gain in the Senate of three or four seats (as I write, the good people of Arizona are still doing their sums) was the largest Senate gain in a first midterm election since 1962. The losses in the House—currently 28—were, by historical standards, very modest, giving the Democrats only a slim majority of five. This is what that unhappy professional NeverTrumper Gabe Schoenfeld described as a “drubbing.” I am thinking of getting Gabe an English dictionary for his birthday.

Donald Trump famously likes making “deals.” In the world of diplomacy, the word “negotiation” is preferred, not least because it has five syllables rather than just one.

What it boils down to is this: Donald Trump likes agreeing with all parties to an issue on arrangements that will benefit everyone. Hence his cheeriness about the fact that the Democrats narrowly took the House on Tuesday. (His pleasure depended on both elements, the victory and its narrowness.) There are a lot of issues that the country faces which require bipartisan participation to solve. Serious infrastructure problems, for example, as well as health care, immigration, and taxes.