U.S. Intel Gatekeeper Dragging Feet

U.S. Intel Gatekeeper Dragging Feet on Trump-Russia Files, Insiders Say
Above, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in Tysons Corner, Va. (Intelligence.gov)
Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations. 

More than three months after President Trump granted his attorney general unprecedented power to declassify intelligence files, key U.S. intelligence agencies are still withholding documents related to the Trump-Russia affair, say people with direct knowledge of White House discussions on the subject.

The source of the logjam: the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which Trump is in the process of shaking up after the resignations last month of its director, Dan Coats, and principal deputy, Sue Gordon. “Establishment” officials in that agency are still dragging their feet, say the sources, who spoke on condition that they not be further identified.

Sources who have seen the documents generally described their contents to RealClearInvestigations. They said the material still under wraps includes: 

• Evidence that President Obama’s CIA, FBI, and Justice Department illegally eavesdropped on the Trump campaign --- cases separate from the FBI’s disputed FISA court-approved surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

• An August 2016 briefing CIA Director John Brennan hand-delivered in a sealed envelope to Obama, containing information from what Brennan claimed was "a critical informant close to Putin." The informant is believed to have actually been a Russian source recycled from the largely debunked dossier compiled by ex-British agent Christopher Steele for the Hillary Clinton campaign . 

• An email exchange from December 2016 between Brennan and FBI Director James Comey, in which Brennan is said to have argued for using the dossier in early drafts of the task force’s much-hyped January 2017 intelligence assessment. That spread the narrative that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the alleged Clinton campaign hacking to steal the election for Trump. 

• Copies of all FBI, CIA and State Department records related to Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese professor whose statements regarding Papadopoulos allegedly triggered the original Russia-collusion probe. 

• Transcripts of 53 closed-door interviews of FBI and Justice Department officials and other witnesses conducted by the House Intelligence Committee. The files were sent to the agency last November.

The transcripts “demonstrate who was lying and expose the bias that existed against Trump before and after his election,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) of the House Judiciary Committee. They also reportedly contain evidence of a Democratic National Committee attorney maintaining Russia-related contacts with the CIA during the 2016 campaign.

The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment. James Clapper, its head under Obama, has argued that it is concerned about protecting “sources and methods” from unauthorized disclosure.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with its sprawling headquarters in Tysons Corner, Va., became the gatekeeper of virtually all classified information in the federal government after its creation in 2005 in response to 9/11 intelligence failures. It has the authority to declassify and publicly release such records.

But Trump transferred that authority to Attorney General William Barr in late May to remove a bottleneck in the release of classified information sought by Republican lawmakers investigating the origins of the Russia “collusion” investigation launched by the FBI.

Before stepping down, Coats resisted the president's declassification order after getting pushback from the intelligence bureaucracy; sources say it is protective of its turf from Justice Department encroachment, and concerned about being implicated in the attorney general’s ongoing investigation of “political surveillance” that he says was aimed at the Trump campaign and presidential transition.

"There's been a huge impasse in getting key documents to Congress and declassified during the Russia investigation,” said a source close to the situation. “Several House members, especially Devin Nunes [of House Intelligence] and Mark Meadows [of House Oversight)] were upset that Coats refused to cooperate in releasing this explosive material to Congress.”

The source said, “It was clear Coats was not acting on the president’s behalf and had been co-opted by the intelligence bureaucracy."

Intelligence officials don’t appear to be in legal trouble – yet. Barr has requested but not demanded the documents, hoping for their cooperation, the sources say. 

But in response to such resistance, Trump is orchestrating a broad shake-up of senior leadership in the intelligence community after the departures of Coats and Gordon, the latter a close ally of Brennan.

Earlier this month, Trump withdrew his nomination of Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe of Texas, a newly seated member of the House Intelligence Committee, as Coats’s replacement after the nominee got a chilly reception from Senate Republicans who questioned his intelligence experience. Ratcliffe has been an outspoken critic of the FBI’s Russian collusion investigation.

Instead, Coats has been temporarily replaced by former Navy Vice Adm. Joseph Maguire, who moved over from his post as head of the National Counterterrorism Center, giving Trump another intelligence-related position to fill.

The president isn’t expected to make a decision on a permanent replacement for Coats until the Senate returns from recess on Sept. 9. The head of ODNI is a Cabinet-level position that has to be confirmed by the upper chamber.
“A new director might help break the logjam in declassifying documents for Barr’s investigation,” said Christopher C. Hull, a national security consultant and former senior congressional aide, adding it’s now “toweringly obvious that some portion of U.S. intelligence worked to undermine Trump."

Peter Hoekstra: former head of the House intelligence panel is now U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands.

The president has as many as eight candidates under consideration. But his short list includes Peter Hoekstra, the current U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; and Fred Fleitz, a 20-year veteran of the CIA who also worked for Hoekstra on the House intelligence panel as staff director and, most recently, for Trump in the White House as an adviser on national security.

Hoekstra declined comment – "I’m going to pass on this, thanks for asking" – but sources say the president recently interviewed him for the top ODNI job. Hoekstra, who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign, appears to be the front-runner. “He’s great,” Trump said of the former GOP congressman.

Hoekstra has questioned the Obama administration’s decision not to brief candidate Trump about alleged Russian election interference during the 2016 campaign, suggesting “politics” overrode any national security concerns. He has also said he would like to see an investigation of "actions taken by the Obama administration,” including the "increase in surveillance and the unmasking of Americans,” including Trump campaign figures, in foreign intercepts during the election.

Sources say Fleitz met with the president Aug. 5, and has been interviewed for the position by White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. In fact, he has been under consideration for the powerful post since February.

The insider sources said Trump and Fleitz have discussed in more than one meeting foreign policy regarding Iran and North Korea, as well as concerns about determined “resistance" from deeply entrenched bureaucrats and Obama holdovers in the intelligence community — along with the need to “streamline” and “reform" ODNI.

Fleitz would not confirm he is in the running for the position, but also did not deny it.

“I can’t comment on those reports,” Fleitz told RealClearInvestigations.
“I will say it was a great honor to serve President Trump as a member of his NSC [National Security Council] staff,” he added. "I have told the president that if he needs me to return to the administration, I would be happy to do so.”

Another name mentioned as a candidate for the top intelligence post is Gen. Joseph Dunford, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Fleitz, who currently serves as president of the Center for Security Policy, a conservative Washington think tank, has long questioned the credibility of a January 2017 intelligence assessment on Russian election interference. Fleitz called the report “rigged” and a “politicized analysis.”

The sources, who are familiar with Trump’s thinking on ODNI, say he wants a director who is not part of the “entrenched intelligence bureaucracy.” They say he’s suspicious of the intelligence establishment and believes it spied on him during and after the 2016 election, and is now withholding documents from investigators that could prove foreign intelligence was weaponized against him.

Indeed, the dossier that was used as a basis to spy on his campaign proved to be false intelligence, possibly "Russian disinformation,” as the New York Times recently acknowledged.

The president’s skepticism about the intelligence community goes beyond the 2016 election. He frequently reminds West Wing staff  of what he calls the “fake intelligence” regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that justified the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. The stockpiles of WMD alleged in national intelligence reports were never found.

Sources say Hoekstra and Fleitz are less inclined to protect the CIA from investigation over the "political surveillance” aimed at Trump and his campaign in 2016, as Barr recently described it. Both have the support of key Republican lawmakers, including Nunes and Sen. Chuck Grassley, who are fed up with ODNI "stonewalling.”

“They know they'd be more cooperative with classified document production concerning the investigations,” said a second source familiar with the nomination process.

Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee was so furious with Coats for refusing to share information he sought for his investigation of the origins of the Russia “collusion” probe that he put a confirmation hold on an intelligence community nominee. He accused the intelligence czar of attempting to “hide documents” — including ones related to Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who operated as a conduit between Steele and the FBI -- and he complained about it in a letter to Trump earlier this year.

Trump also wants a reform-minded director unopposed to his goal of downsizing the ODNI, which has exploded in size with thousands of employees and a budget topping $60 billion. The relatively young agency now ranks among the largest bureaucracies in the 17-agency intelligence community.

Trump originally told aides he wanted to altogether eliminate the agency, which he believes is an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, but he cannot because it was set up by legislation.

Fleitz, who has the support of National Security Adviser John Bolton, has proposed restructuring ODNI, including slashing its “bloated” budget and jettisoning “redundant units.”

In recent opinion articles he’s written, Fleitz has indicated he would not only ensure more transparency of records revealing suspected politicization of intelligence during the 2016 presidential race, but protect whistleblowers at the CIA and other agencies who were pressured to “cook" intelligence to support Obama administration foreign policies and objectives.

The CIA was run by Brennan from 2013 to 2017, and ODNI was run by Clapper from 2010 to 2017.

A House intelligence report found that Clapper leaked dossier information to CNN just before Trump was inaugurated. He is now a CNN contributor and constant Trump critic. It was an attitude, some Langley veterans say, that preceded the 2016 election. Former CIA field operations officer Gene Coyle said that Brennan broke with his predecessors, who stayed out of elections. Several weeks before the vote, he made it very clear he was pulling for Hillary Clinton in published reports and interviews. His deputy Mike Morell publicly endorsed Clinton in the New York Times, claiming even then that Trump was an “unwitting agent” of Moscow.

“The real question is why we are not hearing from more whistleblowers,” Fleitz wrote in National Review during Clapper’s and Brennan's tenures heading the intelligence community. "We must find better avenues for intelligence whistleblowers so they can raise their concerns without fear of retaliation."

The Return of the Loch Ness Monster

The Return of the Loch Ness Monster
Bill O'Reilly, follow on Billoreilly.com

In 1933, most likely in a small, smoke-filled pub, someone came up with the idea of creating a giant lake bound creature to attract attention to a remote region in central Scotland.

It was the middle of the depression and to say people were suffering economically in the Loch Ness area, is the understatement of the 20th century.  Things were monstrous - so why not create one?  Maybe folks might go up there to check out the mystery, then spend money in the pub. 

It worked. 

All the world over folks heard about the Loch Ness monster (nicknamed Nessie) and more than a few believed the myth.

Tourists and money poured in, followed by actual scientists who eventually put out a statement: “The scientific community regards the Loch Ness Monster as a phenomenon without basis.”

In other words - a hoax.

Today in America, the monster is Donald Trump.  And those who would like to destroy the President are trying to create a fearsome creature: a White Supremacist with colossal power who is wrecking havoc on the nation.

After failing to cripple Mr. Trump with charges of conspiring with Russia to subvert the election of 2016, the race card has been dealt again.  But it’s not that Trump is a beneficiary of “white privilege” anymore.  Nope.  Now the President is a full-fledged “White Supremacist.”

Listen to Senator Elizabeth Warren:  “It’s just one piece of evidence after another, when he has been so embraced by the white supremacists and has not distanced himself, then he’s there.”

Senator Kamala Harris:  "[President Trump] is someone who empowers white supremacists, and who condones their behavior ...”

Well, in my opinion, the Trump-haters are creating a myth similar to Nessie.  So let’s examine what’s happening in a fact-based way.

If you understand what white supremacy really is, you know the best example is The Third Reich.  Under Hitler, the German people were told that they were the master race, based primarily on their “aryan” caucasian blood lines.

If you read my book “Killing the SS,” you will learn how that white supremacist philosophy was put into policy.  The result was millions dead, tens of millions brutalized.

While researching my upcoming book “The United States of Trump,” we could not find one example of the President discussing skin color in a pejorative way or promoting caucasian dominance.  

Of course, Mr. Trump’s statements against illegal immigration, Muslim terrorism, and the economic failure of some third world countries are being used to create a racial theory, but theories are not facts and are often wrong.

Likewise, when Mr. Trump criticizes a staunch opponent like Congressman Elijah Cummings, some allege that skin color motivates the controversy, but there is absolutely no evidence that is the case.  Donald Trump castigates perceived enemies of every color and race.  His speech is remarkably uninhabited, sometimes brutal.

Without direct evidence, branding the President a white supremacy adherent becomes a cheap piece of political propaganda.  And I would say the same thing about any politician maligned that way if flimsy evidence were used in the smear.  In the upcoming Trump book, I spend some time on the Charlottesville controversy and the factual evidence will demonstrate that white supremacy did not play a role in the President’s statements.

Of course, for Trump-haters, no amount of evidence will back them off of racial condemnation.  They will use every possible slur to damage him.

But fair-minded Americans should closely scrutinize the racial demonization that is currently embraced by some democrats and members of the national media.

The propaganda distributors in Nazi Germany were experts in how to create myths surrounding racial accusations.  They were specialists in demonization.  As the despicable Nazi Joseph Goebbels once said: “if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.”

Many Americans do not approve of President Trump.  That is their civic and constitutional right.  But he is not a white supremacist and does not seek to “empower” those dangerous people.

Another myth that should be deposited at the bottom of Loch Ness.

California's "Big Brother" Sex Education

California's "Big Brother" Sex Education
Melissa Barnhart, CP Reporter

California's sex ed guidelines are 'shocking' and 'medically risky' for kids, teacher says

(California State Parent and Student Opt-Out Notice Link- Pacific Justice Institute)

California’s controversial new sex ed guidance contains medically risky advice that reads like it was written by a college fraternity, says a former public school teacher who’s been helping parents mobilize against the curriculum.

“It’s shocking,” Rebecca Friedrichs, the founder of For Kids & Country, said in an interview with The Christian Post when describing the condom relay races 10- and 11-year-old girls have been participating in at schools where, in front of boys, they’re taught how to put a condom on a model of an erect adult male penis.

Students as young as 11, she warned, are also being taught to engage in risky sexual acts, such as experimenting with oral and anal sex with their “partner.”

“It is medically risky on multiple levels. And when you read the curriculum … it’s written almost like a college fraternity wrote this curriculum in a very crass and a juvenile way,” she said about the guidance she described as “troubling” and not age appropriate.

“I always tell people that the scary thing is, I’ll give radio interviews and I can’t even say on the radio things that are being taught in our elementary and middle school classrooms in mixed company. There’s something very wrong there,” added Friedrichs, who taught in public schools for 28 years and was the lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case Friedrichs v. CTA that paved the way for a precedent-setting ruling that freed public sector employees from having to pay annual union dues. 

“No one believes it until they see it,” she said of the curriculum. “Now that we’ve been able to help parents to understand what’s actually in the curriculums and they’re viewing it for themselves, they see the urgent need to rescue the kids. Now there’s a groundswell of parents that’s growing fast and fighting back.”

Earlier this month, California’s Board of Education voted in favor of changes to its sex ed guidance for kindergarten through 12th grade students known as the Health Education Framework. It aligns with the California Healthy Youth Act, also known as Assembly Bill 329, the state’s comprehensive sex ed law that passed the state Assembly in 2015 and became law on Jan. 1, 2016.

AB 329 was passed by all Democrats and one Republican, Friedrichs told CP, “And the coalition of supporters was the California Teachers Association, the California School Boards Association, and the California State Parent Teachers Association.”

Parents across California have been organizing protests for months to voice their opposition to lessons on gender fluidity and what they see as the sexualization of their children.

One concern for many parents and groups, such as California Family Council, was the content of the newly approved books that the Board of Education wanted to make available for teachers.
  
For example, one of the proposed books, titled S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties, features explicit descriptions of anal sex, bondage and other erotic activities.
The book, along with a few others, was removed from the list in the guidance.

“It’s important to know the board is not trying to ban books. We’re not saying that the books are bad,” said State Board of Education member Feliza I. Ortiz-Licon, the AP reported.

The new guidance for public and charter schools statewide is the first in the nation to require that students be taught lessons on transgender topics starting in pre-K and kindergarten. While parents can opt their children out of sex ed lessons on sexual health, they cannot take their children out of class when lessons are being taught about gender fluidity and same-sex marriage.

“The reason why people cannot opt out of the gender identity [lessons] is because the unions and their allies have labeled that anti-bullying,” Friedrichs added. “It’s this anti-bullying campaign so that LGBT children don’t get bullied because they claim there’s this big problem with bullying of those children. There’s a big problem of bullying everyone. Everyone gets bullied, that’s a problem. We teach kindness and Judeo-Christian values to combat bullying.

“What the unions do,” she said, “is they push their agenda by saying, ‘We have to stop all this bullying, so every single child in America needs to be exposed to this anti-bullying in the form of gender spectrum and gender identity. It’s caused a lot of confusion for parents here, because parents will say, ‘Oh, I don’t need to worry, I can opt out.’ Well, you can’t opt out of all of it.”

In March, hundreds of parents and concerned California residents attended a public hearing held by the Instructional Quality Commission, an advisory body to the state board, to voice their opposition to the Revision of the Health Education Framework. Since then, protests have continued outside the state Capitol and district school boards across the state.

The framework, The Washington Post reported, covers six subject areas: nutrition and physical activity; growth, development and sexual health; injury prevention and safety; alcohol, tobacco and other drugs; mental, emotional and social health; and personal and community health.

In kindergarten through third grade, children will learn about gender identity; they’ll be taught about masturbation in fourth through sixth grades; in seventh and eighth grade they’ll learn about consent and sexual abuse, and in ninth through 12th grade, they’ll learn more about “contraception and healthy sexual relationships, including advice for LGBTQ students,” The Washington Post added.

A draft of the framework says in part that kindergarten through third-grade students can begin to “challenge gender stereotypes” and that “some children in kindergarten and even younger have identified as transgender or understand they have a gender identity that is different from their sex assigned at birth.” It also advises teachers to “Discuss gender with kindergarteners by exploring gender stereotypes and asking open-ended questions, such as what are preferred colors, toys, and activities for boys/girls, and then challenging stereotypes if presented.”

The LGBT activist group Equality California told The Sacramento Bee that the framework “provides all students with the education and tools to lead healthy lives.”

“We don’t believe any of this will prime students to do anything they wouldn’t normally do,” said Equality California’s communications manager, Josh Stickney. “It’s important to dispel myths and stigma around sex health for the LGBT community. That starts with awareness and sex education.”

Not all parents are alarmed when they read about the California Healthy Youth Act and comprehensive sexual education. They think, “Oh, what’s the big deal?” Friedrichs said. “Unless you know some of the jargon that they use, you might not even be alarmed if you read the law. You should be [alarmed,] there are some alarming things. But it might not alarm everybody.”

“What’s happened is the California Teachers Association and the National Education Association have taken over our schools, and they control a lot of school boards by getting their activists on our local school boards and using teachers to phone bank and do campaigning. Teachers have no idea they’re being used to push an agenda. The unions are pushing the agenda,” she asserted. 

“They use the PTA as a front to pass all these kinds of horrific things to convince people that ‘oh, this must be perfectly fine, the PTA’s behind it,’ so people won’t question it.

“There are multiple other organizations that are involved. Another huge organization that is involved in this is the ACLU,” she said. “And what they’re doing in California is the ACLU sends out curriculum approvals, saying they’ve approved these six curriculums for use with the California Healthy Youth Act.

“They all work in partnership, and they all work in partnership with the state and national teachers’ union. And this is a very personal agenda for many people within the state and national teachers’ union. They are activists who’ve planted themselves in our schools to push this sexual, social and a political agenda. They work with constantly with the Human Rights Campaign, they work with Planned Parenthood, they work with GLSEN, and the NEA works with the Kinsey Institute,” she added.

Friedrichs first learned about the condom relay races being used as part of sex ed in California schools when a concerned mother contacted her about it. “In that case, a school board in Northern California had already allowed the curriculum before it became law. And when this mom found out about it, she started pushing back." 

Some teachers also are alarmed by the sex ed training they have to go through, including learning how to use anatomically correct, fully erect adult male penis models for teaching lessons about sex to their young students.

The teachers unions, in collaboration with far-left activist groups, are to blame, according to Friedrichs. “And the reason I keep saying the teachers unions because they are the root of all of this. … They use teachers’ dues money to lobby for it, to write laws, and they work with Planned Parenthood, and the Gay-Lesbian, Straight Education Network, and the Human Rights Campaign and the Kinsey Institute. All of these groups are working with the teachers unions to push this into our schools. … I don’t want teachers to be blamed and they are being blamed.”

“I’ve had teachers tell me that they plan to take two months off work so they don’t have to teach this,” Friedrichs continued. “The problem with that is, they wrote into the law that if a teacher refuses to teach it, or is ‘unqualified to teach it,’ then the experts come in to teach it. So now Planned Parenthood or GLSEN is going to sexually indoctrinate and abuse your child in the classroom.

“So the teachers can escape, but the kids can’t unless their parents know to opt them out. And they can’t escape from the gender stuff. So the fact that they wrote that into the law shows that they know teachers would be against this stuff. Because why else would they have it so that if the teacher didn’t do it then Planned Parenthood or GLSEN would step in.”

Parents who are mobilizing against the sex ed guidance that they see as pitting their children against them and the values they’re being taught at home can sometimes blame the teachers, and wrongly so, she said.

“Techers are really confused, because parents start to attack the teachers, thinking the teachers agree with this stuff and they don’t,” Friedrichs stressed. “The unions have planted some activists in our schools who are pushing it, so it looks like all teachers agree when they don’t. And the teachers don’t know this coming from the union. So then the teachers end up just terrified. They don’t know what to do.”

As an educator, Friedrichs told CP that she long ago took up the fight to battle corruption in teachers unions. After her lawsuit against the California Teachers Association was heard by the Supreme Court, she said God laid it on her heart to write a book, and she did. It’s titled Standing Up to Goliath: Battling State and National Teachers' Unions for the Heart and Soul of Our Kids and Country and is a compilation of testimonies of teachers, parents and students, that exposes how unions and far-left activists groups “degraded the teaching profession and are damaging our children.”

Friedrichs reiterated that it is vital parents not blame teachers for the sex ed curriculum that’s being taught at their children’s schools, but instead “adopt a teacher” and give then a copy of her book “so they can learn what they’re funding with their union dues.” Teachers unions pocket $5 billion a year tax free, she said, and things like California’s sex ed guidance can be stopped, she believes, if teachers stop handing over their hard-earned dollars to the unions.

In California, another part of the sex ed curriculum states that teachers are supposed to teach students where clinics like Planned Parenthood are located and how to get there.

One bill proposed in the state assembly earlier this year would put the number to Planned Parenthood or another abortion clinic on student ID cards.
“And we’re supposed to tell them that at age 12, you have the right to obtain free birth control, including the morning after pill and abortion, without your parents knowledge or permission,” she warned. 

One game Friedrichs said students as young as 11 are taught to play is called “Tell it to Tanisha.” As part of the game students talk about their sexual interests and discuss experimenting with bisexuality, and any concerns they might have about contracting AIDS.

“Mind you these are 11-year-olds, so it’s this casual attitude of sleeping around with anyone — homosexual, bisexual, out of marriage. And they claim that they are teaching the kids about marriage and adoption. And when you look at the curriculum, there might be one little short mention or a few short pages on that stuff. And it’s all full of all the other, pushing sexual ideas onto the kids,” she added.

Anyone who pushes back against this, she said, gets labeled as a hater or gets attacked by the ACLU or placed on the SPLC’s Hate Map, she warned. “That’s how they control everybody. They’ve terrified the whole country. Everyone’s afraid to push back because they’re going to be labeled a hater and the ACLU is going to come after them.”

Two groups that have been fighting back against teaching gender fluidity in schools are Mass Resistance in Massachusetts and the law firm Pacific Justice Institute, both of which are listed on the SPLC’s Hate Map.

PJI was listed on the Hate Map for defending families whose kindergarten children were traumatized after their teacher read a book about changing genders called I Am Jazz. The teacher didn’t get parental permission before reading the book because she was not required to do so under AB 329.
The parents responded by speaking up at a school board meeting. And the teacher, Friedrichs said, was rewarded with a Teacher of the Year award by the teachers’ union.

When a group of parents in Southern California started pushing back two-and-a-half years ago, she said, parents and grandparents went to the school board, but members didn’t take action because they were threatened by the ACLU and the SPLC.
  
“I have had multiple school board members tell me anonymously that they have been personally threatened by the ACLU. So they’re scared. So when parents come in and complain, and they can’t understand why the school board won’t listen to them. And then the parents who push back are called haters and all this stuff, and they just want to protect their kids,” she added.

Anyone who pushes back against this, she said, gets labeled as a hater or gets attacked by the ACLU or placed on the SPLC’s Hate Map, she warned. “That’s how they control everybody. They’ve terrified the whole country. Everyone’s afraid to push back because they’re going to be labeled a hater and the ACLU is going to come after them.”

Two groups that have been fighting back against teaching gender fluidity in schools are Mass Resistance in Massachusetts and the law firm Pacific Justice Institute, both of which are listed on the SPLC’s Hate Map.

PJI was listed on the Hate Map for defending families whose kindergarten children were traumatized after their teacher read a book about changing genders called I Am Jazz. The teacher didn’t get parental permission before reading the book because she was not required to do so under AB 329.
The parents responded by speaking up at a school board meeting. And the teacher, Friedrichs said, was rewarded with a Teacher of the Year award by the teachers’ union.

When a group of parents in Southern California started pushing back two-and-a-half years ago, she said, parents and grandparents went to the school board, but members didn’t take action because they were threatened by the ACLU and the SPLC. 

“I have had multiple school board members tell me anonymously that they have been personally threatened by the ACLU. So they’re scared. So when parents come in and complain, and they can’t understand why the school board won’t listen to them. And then the parents who push back are called haters and all this stuff, and they just want to protect their kids,” she added.

The Russia hoax is over...

The Russia hoax is over...
Tucker Carlson | Fox News 

The Russia hoax is over and it's time to hold people accountable for years of lies.

The Russia hoax ended on Wednesday -- we can say that. It ended not with a bang, but with the muddled half-memories of a fading old man slipping in and out of focus.

America sat transfixed by Robert Mueller's halting testimony before Congress. No honest person could have come away at the end believing that the president of the United States colluded with the Russian government to steal an election. That was the allegation, you'll remember.

And then, after the most extensive investigation in modern American history, we found the truth. And so, we can say conclusively, once again, what we told you the day this all started, the whole thing is a crock. It never happened. They were lying to you. That's clear now. The debate is over.

But that doesn't mean the Russia story has quite ended. There are loose ends. For two and a half years, some of the most powerful people in America -- supposedly serious, well-educated people, very smart people -- these people made wild and untrue and totally reckless allegations about issues critical to the life of this country, all on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. It's hard to believe they did that. But they did do it.

What should happen to these people now? Congressman Adam Schiff, for example. Schiff claimed he possessed actual evidence of Russian collusion. And he didn't just say that one time, he said it repeatedly.

In the end, you know what happened -- or didn't. Schiff did not produce the evidence. He didn't have it because it doesn't exist. Schiff was bluffing, which is to say he was lying. He still is, actually. As of Wednesday, Schiff was continuing to claim that the Trump campaign "embraced foreign help, made use of it and covered it up." In other words, collusion. Schiff still believes the collusion hoax.

Or does he? On Thursday, Adam Schiff went on CNN to carry water for his boss, Nancy Pelosi. "Impeachment might not be a great idea," he told CNN's viewers.

But wait, that doesn't seem to make sense. If Donald Trump is working for a hostile foreign power, as Adam Schiff has told us countless times that he is, how can we not impeach him? No one on CNN asked Adam Schiff to explain that contradiction, unfortunately. Not that it matters. Think about it for a second, and you'll see exactly what's going on.

Adam Schiff never believed a word he was saying about Russian collusion. I suppose the good news is Schiff is not delusional. The bad news, though, is that Adam Schiff is a soulless liar. He is a man willing to say literally anything for political advantage, and that's really the worst of all. Being a lunatic would be much more appealing than that.

Naturally, Washington is the place that it is, Adam Schiff has been richly rewarded for his shameless deceit. He is still the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. That's one of the most powerful jobs in all of government. Schiff is all but certain to be there for years.

But what about his enablers? And there are a lot of them --the journalists, the pundits, the fellow lawmakers who helped Adam Schiff tell his lies. These are the people you'll remember who blithely accused the sitting president of the United States of treason.

One of them was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has said, among other things, the following: "Trump's eagerness to sell out America proves the Russians must have something personally politically or financially on President Trump."

It proves that Trump is committing treason. Think about that. Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency. She is the country's most powerful lawmaker, supposedly a wise and sober person. And yet, there she was telling you it's been proved that the president of the United States is working for a hostile foreign power.

Has any Speaker in American history ever said something that irresponsible? Maybe nothing comes to mind. But if you think that's shocking, consider this: Pelosi is still saying that. "Tucker Carlson Tonight's" investigative producer, Alex Pfeiffer, ran into Pelosi Thursday afternoon on Capitol Hill and asked her. Listen to what she told our show.

Alex Pfeiffer, Fox News investigative producer: Speaker Pelosi, Alex Pfeiffer of "Tucker Carlson Tonight." In January, you wondered what Putin had on Trump. After yesterday, are you any closer to figuring that out? 

Pelosi: We have it up on the courts right now. 

Pfeiffer: Are you any closer to figuring out what Putin has on Trump? 

Pelosi: That's why we need to have him to answer our subpoena. 

Pfeiffer: You still think Putin might have some sort of blackmail on the president? 

Pelosi: I wonder what Putin has politically, financially or personally.

Pfeiffer: So our president could be subject to blackmail, you think? 

The exchange isn't long, but it really tells you everything you need to know. Pelosi told our show President Trump is a traitor who is committing treason. And yet, she doesn't want to impeach him. How does that make sense?

Well, it only makes sense when you understand that Pelosi doesn't mean a single word that she says. Everything is political, meaning it's only about power.

That's not just annoying. It's also ominous. And here's why.

Fifteen years ago this spring, we invaded Iraq to stop a WMD program that didn't exist. Thousands of American troops died in the process, trillions of dollars were wasted. It was the single greatest mistake in this country in generations. And yet -- and here's the key -- nobody in Washington was ever punished for it.

The people who planned it went on to even better jobs. One of them is now our national security adviser, John Bolton. Five years after the Iraq War, our economy collapsed. Remember that? The subprime meltdown? The specific causes were complex, but the themes were instantly recognizable -- greed and stupidity. And yet, once again, no one was ever punished.

Now, fast forward another 11 years to today, right now. America stands on the brink of yet more foolish foreign entanglements, and on the brink of and potentially another financial meltdown. Why is that? Because nobody in Washington has learned anything. And why would they learn anything? When they screw up there are never any consequences. They skate by on the usual mixture of aggression and BS. "Nothing to see here, keep moving."

Imagine for a second, what would happen if you let your kids act like that? Well, they'd been in prison by now. So, maybe it's time to stop the cycle in Washington.

How about this? If you get caught lying about the big things, whether it's about weapons of mass destruction, or subprime mortgages or Russian collusion, you have to admit it and serve penance, -- not necessarily prison time, though we're open. But the punishment of some kind.

You can't stay in Washington, making six times the average American salary. You can't do that. No, sorry.

You've got to leave. You've got to relocate to Camden, New Jersey, maybe or Gary, Indiana, and do something useful. Like clean motel rooms for minimum wage put the little "sanitized for your protection" strips on toilets. Not forever, just for a decade or two, until you've learned your lesson. Call us when you've done that, but not before.

Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on July 25, 2019.
Tucker Carlson currently serves as the host of FOX News Channel’s (FNC) Tucker Carlson Tonight (weekdays 8PM/ET). He joined the network in 2009 as a contributor.

Goose egg

The history books won't be kind to Schiff and Nadler and their

almost three-year efforts at government obstruction and ignoring

the people's work...

The Economy, Father of Us All

The Economy, Father of Us All
Victor Davis Hanson, National Review

Good times immunize a president and make his over-the-top domestic enemies look irrelevant.

Each week we are warned of a recession. And each week the economic news “unexpectedly” and “surprisingly” improves or stays steady — in ways well aside from the staples of continued near-record-low peacetime unemployment (3.8 percent), near-record-low minority unemployment, booming annualized GDP (3.1 percent), and a record-high stock market.

In June, retail sales increased for the fourth straight month. The rate of Hispanic homeownership continues to increase. A quarter-million new jobs were created in June, with strong growth in construction and manufacturing. Record oil and gas production seems only to keep increasing. Strong wage growth of 3.4 percent continues.

The point is not so much “It’s the economy, stupid,” but rather that the economy is the font of all contemporary politics, and it adjudicates the parameters of presidential prerogatives.

In the standoff between the “Squad” and Donald Trump, near-record peacetime unemployment in general and in particular historic-low minority unemployment argue against the idea that Trump is racist.

Polls suggest that Donald Trump may well win a greater share of the minority vote than moderates John McCain and Mitt Romney — largely because of a rise in middle-class wages in a tight labor market, and new leverage of entry-level workers over labor-hungry employers. Do working-class blacks and Hispanics suffer then from false consciousness, and do they need tutorials from progressive grandees so they won’t be so incorrect as to appreciate having more jobs at better pay?  Racists do not craft economic policies that empower African Americans far more so than those promoted by the first African-American president.

Ditto the entire failure of the destroy-Trump agenda, whether exemplified by the Mueller exoneration and the absurd appeals to the Logan Act, the emoluments clause, and 25th Amendment. What saved Bill Clinton from a conviction after impeachment in 1998 was the lockstep voting of Democratic senators in the minority, which prevented a two-third conviction vote in the Senate and the consequent removal from office of the overseer of a booming economy. The reason Benjamin Netanyahu is the longest-serving Israeli prime minister and has survived every sort of personal and ideological attack is that he reengineered the Israeli economy and offered unprecedented prosperity to his constituents. Such shared bounty short-circuited his critics.

The subtext of the failure of all the Trump impeachment hysterias was not merely that they were based on emotional narratives rather than evidence and facts — empiricism has never been the forte of congressional frenzies — but that the public believed either that the removal of a successful president would stall the economic expansion or that it might show ingratitude for a domestic job well done. Democrats seem to have forgotten that voters are most interested in the economy — along with illegal immigration — and least concerned with their obsessions with climate change and the Green New Deal.

Booming times provide Trump the latitude to tweet incessantly and to editorialize on contemporary dramas, from Colin Kaepernick’s take-a-knee movement to the so-called Squad of incoming hard-left congressional representatives. Had we suffered zero growth and high unemployment, Trump’s enemies would have had some traction in their demands that he quiet down and focus on the economy. Successful economies are like successful wars: Everyone wants ownership, much as defeats and recessions are orphans.


If the U.S. was in a 1–2 percent GDP growth cycle, as in the prior decade, then calling out China for technological appropriation, patent and copyright infringement, dumping, mercantilism, and currency manipulation, well aside from human-rights abuses, might be little more than the usual, shrill hectoring, coupled with corporate indifference to the vast Chinese trade surplus. Only strong economic growth, energy security, and low employment allow the U.S. to square off against Chinese reckless behavior — a fact well known to Beijing, which enjoyed exemption from presidential criticism given that the decade-long anemic U.S. economy never reached 3 percent annualized growth.

If the U.S. was not the world’s largest producer of gas and oil, and soon to be its largest exporter, then we might never have dared to vacate the Iran deal, or might have panicked in fear of world oil prices skyrocketing after each cycle of Iran’s scripted braggadocio.

The same calculus holds true of squabbles with NATO friends in arrears, and with enemies such as an unhinged North Korea. The U.S. can jawbone for symmetry because it currently enjoys the most well-rounded economy in the world and therefore assumes that it is finally in a strong position to redress long-standing paradoxes. These include our closest allies’ reluctance to pay for their collective defense against enemies far nearer to their borders than to ours, and the absurdity that a premodern society found the capital and expertise to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear payloads.

The point is again not to reduce all politics to the status of the economy. Rather, the chance to have a good job, good wages, economic growth, low inflation, low interest, a strong stock market, plentiful and reasonably priced gas, and the opportunity to save money are the stuff of life and are what voters most care about. In comparison, what AOC or Ilhan Omar says is mostly irrelevant, as is the most recent bombast abroad from an Iranian theocrat, a Russian functionary, or a Maoist in China. George W. Bush was recovering somewhat after the successful surge in Iraq until the September 2008 financial meltdown destroyed his presidency and ensured a Democratic successor. The beloved Obama was wiped out in two midterm elections and nearly defeated in 2012 largely because the natural recovery from the 2008 collapse turned out to be not much of a recovery at all.

About the only events that overshadow a good economy and threaten to destroy a reelection bid or a second term in boom times are unpopular wars such as Vietnam or the second Iraq War, or a major scandal (well beyond Iran-Contra or Benghazi) that leads to real convictions, as in Watergate.

In Trump’s case, there is little likelihood he is going to start an optional war such as Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya, or face a second round of the collusion/obstruction Mueller onslaught. Indeed, the more likely narrative for 2020 is that Trump will stay reactive, not become preemptive if tensions with Iran or North Korea lead to violence.

Likewise, any federal indictments are far more apt to focus on the probable illegal behavior of James Comey, James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, and John Brennan — as well as functionaries that Hillary Clinton/the DNC/the Perkins-Coie law firm, and Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS hired to subvert the 2016 Trump campaign effort.

Just as good times immunize a president, so too bad recessions infect him. One reason AOC’s Green New Deal is rightly acknowledged as unhinged is that Trump’s conventional economy is robust. If it were not, then her anti-Trump oppositional nonsense might fool millions into thinking she made sense — as in the first year of the Obama administration, when silly Solyndra “green” agendas were pushed through in the aftermath of the 2008 disaster and billed as a new way out of the doldrums.

Finally, few question whether it’s right or wrong to credit a president for booms and blame him for busts. Instead, by acclamation, he just is held culpable for everything on his watch. The Iron Rule of American politics is that the president, from his first day to his last in office, takes the credit or blame — even for larger economic trends, blunders, and unforeseen disasters rooted in events outside the reach of his own tenure. Poor Herbert Hoover was sworn into office on March 4, 1929, and yet was blamed for Black Friday, October 24, 1929 — the proverbial beginning of a ten-year depression ended only by rearmament for a looming world war — as if Hoover had time in just seven months to do much of anything.

In sum, if Trump continues the good times, his tweets are irrelevant. If he does not, these electronic riffs suddenly will be said to be windows into his supposedly dark soul.

Contrarily, the more the economy hums along, the more ridiculous the obsessive “Get Trump” fixations become. But if recession looms before 2020, then suddenly the weirder the progressive obsessions with destroying Trump, the more likely they will resonate.

For now, Democratic charges that Trump is supposedly like no other president in his callousness are ignored because Trump’s booming economy is factually like no other recent president’s in its vigor.


NRO contributor VICTOR DAVIS HANSON is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Case for Trump. @vdhanson

Blue State Model Continues To Drag Down California

Blue State Model Continues To Drag Down California
Kerry Jackson, Pacific Research Institute 

About the same time two of California’s largest cities were named among the seven worst-run municipalities in the country, we learn that the state’s — and the country’s — largest county had the worst population outflow in the U.S. in 2018.

The livin’ in California ain’t easy, in the summertime or at any other.

According to WalletHub, which compiles Internet lists like Ihop stacks pancakes, Oakland and San Francisco are the 144th and 148th — out of 150 — worst-run cities in the nation. To be fair, one California city managed to do well in the rankings: Huntington Beach is 14th. But the next California city doesn’t appear until Santa Ana makes an appearance at no. 62. San Diego (69th) and Fremont (74th) are the only other cities in the state in the top half.

Thirty-seven metrics were used to compile the list, including the violent crime rate, unemployment, median household income, and percent of population living in poverty. California cities performed well in infant-mortality rates — all of the top five are from this state, with San Francisco no. 1 with the lowest infant-mortality rate in the country. But the high rankings were offset by bottom-of-list rankings in road quality and air pollution.

San Francisco also scored high in providing quality services. It’s 19th. But that’s offset by the city’s “total budget per capita,” which pushed its overall rating to 148th. Oakland was 81st in services, but dragged down by its budget, as well.

Both cities, we should add, have become overrun with homelessness, and sharp surges in automobile break-ins. These are quality-of-life matters that city and county leaders should be held accountable for.

Not too much higher in the rankings is Los Angeles, at 135th. Both the city and the county in this sprawling megalopolis are struggling with living conditions. It’s enough to drive people away. Last year, 98,608 more people left Los Angeles County than moved in. Media reports say it is “the largest net outmigration among the nation’s big counties.”

Those paid to promote the city and ignore its warts will say the loss of fewer than 100,000 in a county of 10.1 million is nothing to be concerned about. While a good sense of proportion is always helpful for understanding, two things stand out from the Census data.

One, outflow was equal to 0.98% of all residents, 20th worst among the 176 largest counties in the country.

Two, “historically speaking,” writes Jonathan Lasner for the Southern California News Group, “last year’s outmigration was up compared with an average 57,136 outflow from 2010 to 2017.”

No doubt the objective among many, if not nearly all, of those who left Los Angeles County last year was to escape. It’s a mindset also common in San Francisco. As the Wall Street Journal has reported, “more people moved out of the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metropolitan area — an urban core of 4.7 million people in a broader region known as the Bay Area — than moved into it from other parts of California or the U.S., according to U.S. census data.”

How long will the political leaders of California continue to follow the Blue State model that drives out the middle and working classes, and can’t competently manage matters at the municipal level?

Clearly, it’s not working for a large part of the population — which is exactly what the Democratic presidential candidates were saying about the U.S. economy during the recent debates. What they’re describing, though, is not the result of recent federal agenda of tax cuts and deregulation, which have benefited Americans at all income levels, but progressive policies, which have crushed California’s middle class but left the wealthy largely untouched.

Yet more of California is what the Democrats are proposing. It’s obviously not working here, though, and it’s not going to work for the rest of the country, either.

Kerry Jackson is a fellow with the Center for California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute.

Reparations as Poison

Reparations as Poison

Col. Mike Walker, USMC, retired

Reparation for wrongs committed in the past where every living participant is long dead is not unjust and unwarranted but frightening.

For us Americans, the rationale is slavery and the associated wrong of discrimination. Slavery and discrimination are evils yet universal ones. No one is exempt from the taint.

I doubt there is a country in the United Nations that did not enslave their fellow humans in its past. Even Pacific Islanders embraced slavery.

We so obsess about our history that we think Americans are exceptionally bad but that just is lying to ourselves – yes we were shamefully bad and so was everyone else -- shame on us all. 

It seems all humans -- regardless of race, allegiance, creed, ethnicity or what have you -- seem to have an impulse to enslave and judgmentally discriminate when they have the power. 

My life took me across the world and I never met a people I did not like, respect and admire. It is equally and painfully true that I never lived in a land that did not have a history of slavery or still practiced prejudice and discrimination – not one – not ever – not anywhere.

I have seen the violent carnage of societies that visit the sins of the parents upon the children in the name of racial or religious or ethnic justice. Punishing innocents that were not even alive when events took place creates an endless cycle of violence and hatred. It is a terrible evil to behold.

Keeping animosities alive from generation to generation ends in bloody wickedness.

But that is what some politicians endorse: Never forgive, never stop dividing people and never stop punishing. That is the inevitable product of retribution. It is a great sin.

How can the majority of Americans be held to pay reparations for wrongs that they had no part of -- that occurred before their ancestors came to America?

How can they, who are innocent, be judged guilty? Are we to adopt a cruel system of collective punishment?

And what of those whose forebears were here during slavery?

Are we to conduct a mass genealogical study to punish innocents 150 years after the fact? Should we make them wear scarlet letters or stars to mark their “sins” and punish innocents yet to be born? 

Are we to create a permanent caste to beat down and demean for selfish pleasure? Where does this end?

And after so many generations of offspring, what will we do with millions of Americans who are descendants of both slaves and slave owners?

Order self-flagellation? Subject them to an Americanized version of the Nazi ancestral Mischling blood test to identify the guilty? Where does this end? 

I became the third generation of my family to have put on a uniform, pick up a rifle, and go to Europe to stop the madness.

I was stationed for a time near Srebrenica where thousands of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) systematically had been massacred by Serbs.

Why? To avenge a Turkish massacre from centuries earlier – the people there nurtured and embraced ancient hatreds from generation to generation. They never let go of the past.

It was a societal sickness that cherished divisions and worshipped the worst memories to ensure the destruction of their future.

That is what happens when you legitimize the moral prevision that you can punish offspring for their ancestor's sins -- and do so for all eternity.

Of course, under this detestable philosophy, the 1995 Srebrenica massacre now gives Bosniaks justification to kill Serbs not yet born in some future act of reparation and retribution. That is the sickness.

As for the institution of slavery, here is the uncomfortable historical truth: In 1776, slavery was legal all across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

The United States ended slavery in 1862.

Some countries were more progressive. Japan ended the evil in 1690. Mexico ended slavery in 1829, England (to include Canada) in 1834, Denmark in 1848 and the Netherlands in 1861.  

It is equally true that other countries lagged behind the United States.

Portugal did not end slavery until 1878; Spanish Cuba did not act to end slavery until 1886 and Brazil held out until 1888 – the country that enslaved more Africans than any other.
  
The Ottoman Empire officially ended slavery in 1890 but small-scale illegal slavery continued.

China and Korea only ended slavery in 1910 and it stopped in Tanganyika in 1919. 

Some places never abolished slavery – it just went underground – and slavery is still practiced to this day in parts of the world.

Human beings of every race creed and color were enslavers. Slavery existed in Africa for centuries before the Europeans arrived and the same is true of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. 

And what government ended slavery in the United States?

It was the United States of America -- not the Confederate States of America.

As for my history, no one in our family tree ever owned a slave.

During the Civil War, my father’s ancestor was a surgeon in the Ohio Volunteer Cavalry and my mother’s was an Irish immigrant who served in the Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

My father's ancestor was wounded and later died from those wounds leaving his family destitute save a not very generous $8 per month survivor’s benefit from the government.

He was a successful doctor in a farming community in northeastern Ohio. He could have stayed home and made a very good living for his family.

 He did not sit on the sidelines. He gave up everything to end slavery. 

Our family paid a dear and terrible price. Enough is enough. We owe no one reparations. If our family were to adopt the logic of reparations, then we too are owed a debt yet unpaid. I say no!

Where does this end? Stop the madness!