Political Dumpster Fire

If you’ve ever been curious what a dumpster fire looks like, all you had to do was tune in to MSNBC or CNN yesterday and watch the two networks interview former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg. What progressed throughout the day is hard to describe. It was almost as if Nunberg was having a complete and total meltdown, the media was aware of it, and they put it on display just to show everyone how crazy this former Trump aide actually is.

Nunberg has, let’s just say, a little bit of history with the Trump team. He’s been hired by the campaign, fired, then rehired, fired again, and he’s had public squabbles with Trump staffers like Corey Lewandowski and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Some might say, when it comes to Donald Trump, he has a dog in this fight.

Nunberg was questioned by Muller’s investigators recently as part of the Russia investigation, and he did what anyone with an axe to grind or a dog in the fight would do… he ran straight to the mainstream media. What followed was one of the most sensationalized crap shows I’ve seen in a long time. At no time did he give any evidence, but - in interview after interview - he implied that Muller quote “may have” something on President Trump, BUT - and this really makes his point strong here - quote “I don’t know that for sure.”

Hmm, ok Sam, if you don’t know then why say anything at all? Maybe because all this is some crazy drunken sideshow? He pressed on with Jake Tapper. If you were hoping for something more substantial to back up his allegations, you - instead - got this doozy of a statement: “They know something on [Donald Trump] … I don’t know what it is, and perhaps I’m wrong, but he did something.”

What?! They know something… I don't know what… maybe I’m wrong… but uh yeah, he totally did something.

This was a total meltdown. In between making wild baseless accusations, Nunberg took personal shots at members of the Trump team, AND voiced his intention to ignore a subpoena from Robert Muller. Now, how does that make sense? If your goal is to hurt Trump and his team, wouldn’t you be all onboard cooperating with the Russia investigation? Of course he would, and the media knows this. They knew exactly what they were doing in putting this guy on the air all day yesterday.

Nunberg had no business being interviewed. His accusations were baseless, he had clear motive to want to hurt Trump - who in his words said “treated me like crap” - , and his wild bravado about defying Muller was obviously meant to grandstand. The media knew this, but they ate it up like a kid eating lucky charms on Saturday morning. They weren't looking to report any news. All they wanted to do was livestream a public meltdown from a guy that used to work for the President.

If Nunberg dodges Muller’s subpoena, throw his butt in jail. And to the media - and I feel like I have to say this every day - I’ve just about had enough of you.

Thad Cochran Will Resign April 1st... No Joke

Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi has announced he is retiring at the end of this month due to health issues. He is 80-years-old and the tenth longest-serving Senator in U.S. history. He has been a Senator since 1978, when he was the first Republican to win a statewide election in Mississippi in over a century.

Cochran’s retirement means both Mississippi Senate seats will now be up for grabs this November. If Cochran had been a strong conservative, his longevity might be a good thing. Unfortunately, he has been a classic, big government, spendthrift Republican instead. And to make it worse, he is Chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

For conservative voters interested in replacing establishment Republicans with actual conservatives, a Mississippi state senator named Chris McDaniel provided a spark of hope when he almost beat Cochran in 2014. McDaniel is currently running a primary challenge against the junior Mississippi Republican senator, Roger Wicker (who is another old-school establishment guy). The timing of Cochran’s announcement stinks for McDaniel, and true conservatives, because McDaniel might have a better shot at winning the special election to replace Cochran than he would in unseating Roger Wicker.

By waiting until yesterday to announce his resignation, Cochran basically forced McDaniel to race against Wicker. Still, it’s possible McDaniel could switch races and run for Cochran’s seat.

Now, Republican Mississippi governor, Phil Bryant, has ten days to appoint an interim senator to replace Cochran in April. Conservatives shouldn’t get their hopes up – those close to Governor Bryant are already saying he won’t pick Chris McDaniel to be Cochran’s temporary replacement.

President Trump and Mitch McConnell are encouraging Governor Bryant to appoint himself as the interim senator. They’re paranoid about a race with McDaniel turning out like the Alabama Senate special election last November, in which a reliably Republican senate seat was lost to Democrat Doug Jones.

Then again, Cochran did set his resignation date as April 1st – so maybe he’s just trolling Chris McDaniel for April Fools.

SuperShe Island

How would you like to go on an exclusive wellness retreat off the coast of beautiful Finland?

There is a private island where you can escape your daily worries, the daily grind of life, oh and of course, the male gaze and toxic masculinity.

It’s called “SuperShe Island.”

Owner Kristina Roth has just created the ultimate “female only” island.

Kristina bought the island to offer a safe space for women to network and learn from each other without the critical male eye watching their every move.

She’ll only take 10 applicants at a time. She says she will pick attendees based on their personality—and of course, their reproductive organs.

She says, "The number one thing that's important for me is that you have an amazing personality — like upbeat, cool personality — because you're on an island. That's what's going to make it fun and exciting for everyone."

I don’t think Kristina understands what happens when you put a bunch of girls on an isolated island. I’m going to take a guess that it’s not going to be all sunshine and lollypops.

Incredibly, Kristina’s SuperShe Island is getting bashed for not being truly feminist.

Some are bashing the retreat as “a rich white woman’s island just for rich white women.” What about minorities and trans people?

Kristina responded by claiming, “If you identify as a woman then that’s great. We’re not exclusive.”

So, men technically can apply.

But why would anyone ever want to?

Men and women have coexisted since the beginning of time. Quite frankly, we need to continue if we want the human species to survive. It’s unhealthy, unfair, and dare I say sexist, to promote the idea that men and women should literally isolate themselves from each other.

MORE 3 THINGS

And the Oscar for Best Hypocrite Goes to...

Ah, another awards show, another chance to display the fake morality of the elite and privileged.

Celebrities chose to wear orange label pins at the Oscars last night to support gun control on behalf of the organization “Everytown for Gun Safety.” The organization is an advocacy group that raises awareness about gun violence prevention.

They stated that the pins are “a reminder that there is more we all can and should do now to prevent future acts of gun violence.”

Here’s a thought, Hollywood. Instead of wearing pins…how about you lead by example and stop promoting gun violence in your movies?

Did the Academy not realize that the majority of last night’s winners ALL featured gun violence?

Here’s just a starting list for you.

Allison Janney won for best actress in a supporting role for the film “I, Tonya.”

That film features a husband and wife who frequently shoot at each other. One time, the husband succeeds.

Sam Rockwell won for best actor in a supporting role for the film “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. His character blows his head off with a gun.

Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” won for best original screenplay. That movie literally ends with a murder-suicide by rifle.

And director Guillermo Del Toro’s romantic fantasy, “The Shape of Water” took home the most awards including best picture.

There’s tons of gun violence in that movie. There’s even inter-species gun violence!

The hypocrisy of the Oscars is disgusting.

The Academy Awards need to take the huge plank out of their own eyes.

You can’t be against something if you promote it as “art.”

Gun Control Has a New Backer --- The Ayatollah of Iran

Gun control advocates have a new ally in their quest to upend the second amendment. You might expect this person’s zip code to come from Hollywood, New York or some liberal think tank in D.C., but you’d be just a little off. This person’s pulpit, and support for American gun grabbers, comes from... Tehran, Iran.

The Ayatollah of Iran went on a Twitter rant on Saturday - which is a platform banned by his people but not it’s proselytizing leaders, but I digress - but he echoed every major talking point you’re hearing now from today’s gun grabbers. He wrapped up his twitter sermon with, what he probably considered, the ultimate uppercut to America’s Second Amendment. Quote:

“No one dares apply the clear solution to the promotion of guns and homicide in America. What’s the solution? It’s to make guns illegal.”

If you’re anti-second amendment, you now have a friend in someone that calls himself “Supreme Leader.” And if anyone knows what this argument is REALLY about, it’s him. Guns helped the mullahs of Iran pull off their coup back in the 70’s, but one of the first things they did, AFTER obtaining power, was to take all those guns away from the people that put them in power. Guns are now banned in Iran, and the clerical regime rules with absolute control and unchecked power.

You see, that’s what this is really all about. Power and control. It enabled the Ayatollah in Iran to effectively turn his country into a slave state. They have the power to tell you how to dress when to eat, how to style your hair, and what you can or can’t say. Don’t like it? Well, that sucks to be you… you’ll have to deal with being thrown in a detention camp without due process, without the need of being formally charged, and with no formal date of release.

This is what the founders of our country feared, and this is why they built certain protections into the Constitution to protect us. The Second Amendment being one of the most important. Iran is a perfect example of what’s possible when the government no longer fears their own people.

So, to the Ayatollah standing at his Twitter pulpit in Tehran, thank you for weighing in on America’s gun debate. Thank you for taking a side. But most importantly, thank you for reminding us why we have the Second Amendment to begin with. To protect ourselves from people like YOU.

The Mueller Investigation Just Went Down Another Rabbit Hole

At this rate, Robert Muller’s special counsel investigation is going to take ten years.

Over the last several weeks, Muller’s team has been questioning George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman with close ties to leaders of the United Arab Emirates. Investigators are trying to determine whether the U.A.E. tried to buy political influence during Trump’s presidential campaign and administration.

They’re also trying to determine how George Nader has influenced White House policy. During the first few months of 2017, Nader had several meetings at the White House with Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner about American policy in the Persian Gulf.

Nader is something of a Middle East mystery man. During the Clinton presidency, he was a back-channel negotiator with Syria. With Clinton’s permission, he tried to secretly work out a peace deal between Syria and Israel. During the 1990s, he also ran a magazine called Middle East Insight, which sometimes ran editorials by Middle Eastern leaders, like President Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Rabin of Israel, and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.

Nader fell off the radar for a while, but by 2016 he had somehow become an adviser to the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates. Just after Trump’s inauguration, Nader met Elliot Broidy, a major Republican fund-raiser who also owns a private security firm. With Nader’s help, Broidy’s security firm landed several hundred million dollars’ worth of contracts with the U.A.E.

Last fall, Broidy had a private meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office. Afterward, Broidy sent a memo of the meeting to Nader at an encrypted email address. In the memo, Broidy said he advised President Trump to have a private meeting outside the White House with the U.A.E.’s crown prince. Broidy also encouraged Trump to fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson because of Tillerson’s support of Qatar.

A copy of this meeting memo was sent to The New York Times by, “someone critical of the Emirati influence in Washington.” A spokesman for Elliot Broidy didn’t deny the memo’s contents, but says Qatari agents hacked Broidy’s computer and stole the memo.

What any of this has to do with Muller’s Russia investigation is anyone’s guess at this point. Regardless, it’s yet another rabbit hole in an investigation that has dragged on for almost a year. Sooner than later, Americans want some real answers. For the sake of the country, and our sanity, we need this resolved.

MORE 3 THINGS

Dems Are About to Go for the Guns

Democrats are gearing up for a full-on gun grabbing jihad. The Washington Examiner reported yesterday that Democrats are about to propose a weapons ban AND gun confiscation powers, and the inspiration didn’t come from anyone on the left. Their new muse is President Trump, and - after his comments on Wednesday - they believe they finally have the power to begin the war on guns.

We don’t know for sure yet what exactly is in the upcoming proposed bill, but Democrats are beginning to talk, just enough, for us to get a clue about what we’re looking at. The details include expanded background checks, the banning of certain kinds of weapons, and a plan to “temporarily” confiscate someone’s guns if they are deemed to be a threat to themselves or others.

Let’s just take this line by line, shall we? Expanded background checks, also called universal background checks, sound good on the surface. It’s true that we already have a background check system, but Democrats are worried about private sells. Like if you want to sell one of your guns to a neighbor. Currently, you can do that without a background check. If this gets amended, you won’t be able to. My guess is that you'd have to go to a licensed seller, called an FFL, and the background check and transfer would take place there. My only problem is this: if I want to gift my Henry Rifle to my son, would HE have to get a background check? These are the little details that never get disclosed, and I can guarantee you that Democrats won’t even try.

Second, the bill is rumored to contain a ban on quote “certain weapons.” Democrats are all up in arms over assault-style weapons, but the vast majority of them have no friggin clue what they're talking about. Debbie Wasserman Schultz went on CNN yesterday as the poster child for the clueless liberal on guns. She was adamant that we need to keep quote “high capacity, rapid-fire magazines” out of the hands of civilians. Umm… WHAT THE WHAT?! I never heard of a magazine that could fire it’s own ammunition - without the gun - at a high rate of fire. I better look into that before she gets it banned.

She then went on to say that “military-style weapons” should only be available to the military. I am so sick of this argument. She’s obviously referring to the AR-15, but the AR-15 was a civilian rifle FIRST and a military rifle SECOND. The Armalite company sold the plans to the military, who then adopted it with burst and rapid fire. The civilian models don’t have that. It’s actually MORE correct to say that the military is using a CIVILIAN style weapon, but these people have no clue what they are talking about.

Democrats want an all out ban on semi-automatic weapons, which would basically eliminate 80% of the market. That would leave you with bolt action hunting rifles, and John Wayne style six shooters.

And finally… gun confiscation. Democrats are proposing a program where family and law enforcement could petition a court to have someone’s guns taken away if they’re deemed mentally unstable. Answer this, what if that’s extended to anyone on medication? Will simply being on antidepressants now be enough label you full on mentally unstable? What about ADD medication?

We’re headed down a dark path. We need solutions, but this Bill is definitely not it. Let’s HOPE the President puts it where it belongs… in the trash.

Tariff-ying

President Trump is committed to the idea of “America First.” Technically, it’s more like Tweet First, America Second. But either way, he’s about to prove his commitment to American industry again, this time with a controversial new tariff. Because nothing says innovative 21st century trade policy like a protectionist tariff from the President McKinley era.

Trump announced yesterday that his administration will impose a 25% tariff on steel and 10% on aluminum imports. The move has been debated inside the White House for months and advisers were split, but Trump is going for it. He sees it as a way to help those struggling industries in the U.S. But it almost never actually helps.

For decades, the U.S. steel industry has lobbied the government to help them compete with foreign steel. But the data is clear that protectionist policy only makes things more expensive for consumers, with few benefits to the protected industry.

Past presidential attempts to give the steel industry a boost have not gone well. In 2002, President Bush placed tariffs ranging from 8% to 30% on steel products. Just one year later, there was so much international backlash and bad economic consequences that he got rid of the tariffs.

Top advisers warned about retaliation from other countries, and the Defense Department warned about how this will affect close allies. But Trump was eager to make the announcement anyway, in a room full of steel and aluminum executives at the White House. He said, “When it comes to a time where our country can’t make aluminum and steel, you almost don’t have much of a country.”

The Stock Market did not take kindly to the announcement – the Dow dropped 500 points. Companies that make products with steel and aluminum are not happy, already warning about loss of jobs in those industries and increased prices for consumers. Hmm, wonder where they got that idea? Oh yeah – history.

Senator Ben Sasse had a surprisingly strong reaction in a statement, saying: “Let’s be clear: The President is proposing a massive tax increase on American families. You’d expect a policy this bad from a leftist administration, not a supposedly Republican one.”

Why now? Maybe Trump thought it would end his week of bad press on a more positive note – look, I’m doing something for American workers! If so, that strategy is backfiring.

China Is in the Censorship Business

George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”

Winnie the Pooh.

The letter “N.”

These are just a handful of things that have been recently banned in China.

Why?

They promote criticism of Chinese President Chee Chinping, of course.

He has just announced that he is extending his presidency into a lifetime appointment, the first to do so since Mao. And he’s worried that reading Animal Farm will make his citizens question communism.

Winnie the Pooh is apparently a problem because there is a specific image of the bear clutching a honeypot next to the quote, "Find the thing you love and stick with it.”

No doubt Pooh is spouting cynical commentary about Chinping’s indefinite position.

There wasn’t a clear reason why the letter “N” was banned. So, the Chinese government “unbanned” it almost immediately.

This isn’t new to the Chinese people. Chinping has been periodically censoring specific things for years. He controls the media, the government, and almost every aspect of Chinese citizen’s lives.

And it’s only going to get worse from here. He’s looking to be a lifelong dictator. That hasn’t worked out too well for China and the world in the past.

MORE 3 THINGS

Due Process Takes Too Long?

If you’re a fan of both President Trump and the second amendment, you might be feeling like the victim of a cheating spouse this morning. Used, manipulated, betrayed… I’m sure the NRA feels the same way you do. Yesterday, the president sat down with Congressional Democrats and Republicans to discuss ideas on how to prevent more mass shootings. Let’s see, how do I describe what proceeded? IT WAS A NIGHTMARE.

Trump took such an extreme hard left turn against the Second, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that it would have made President Obama look like Calvin Coolidge. This is an actual quote from the meeting: “Take the guns first, go through due process second.”

The president then proceeded to dump on the NRA AND shoot down the idea of national concealed carry reciprocity. If you’re a gun owner, or if you’re just a fan of the constitution, this was the absolute worst thing you would expect a US president to say. You probably expected it coming out of the mouth of Obama, but he would have NEVER even dreamed of saying this in a public forum. You know why? Because every single person in the conservative media, AND every Republican Congressman would have called for his impeachment.

Some people are already making excuses for what the president said. They’re saying things like “yeah but he was talking about the mentally ill!” Remember when we all went went to bat for the President when liberal headlines started saying things like this: “Trump Just Made It Easier For Mentally Ill People To Buy Guns.”

What they were referring to was an Obama era regulation mandating that people receiving disability payments from Social Security, and receiving assistance to manage their benefits, would have to be reported to the federal gun background check system. It locked out tens of thousands of elderly people from buying guns, not based off of their mental capacity but on the basis of being classified by the government in a certain way. Now, I don’t think that was the original intention, but you can see how handling the issue of, who is mental ill and who isn’t, is a very slippery slope.

Mike Pence was absolutely right. We HAVE to figure this issue out, but eliminating due process and neutering the constitution is not the way to do it. Forget, just for a second, that this is about guns. Replace guns with literally any other issue and read back the words “Take action first, go through due process second.” That right there is how tyranny is born.

The good news is that Trump has said strange things in the past, like wanting a clean DACA bill, but it never materialized. So either Trump is pulling off some extreme master negotiating strategy combining The Art of War with his own book The Art of The Deal, OR he was just giving the Democrats in the room what they wanted to hear. Either way, we probably won’t see anything come from this. Due process can’t be waved, and the second amendment isn’t going anywhere. Everyone should be calling the President out on this today. Support him when he’s right, but call him out when he’s wrong. Yesterday, he was very very wrong.

Trump vs. Sessions Part II

President Trump is criticizing Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, again.

Yesterday, Trump wrote a memo – sorry, make that a Tweet – calling it “DISGRACEFUL!” that Sessions is using the Justice Department’s Inspector General to investigate the “potentially massive FISA abuse” in the Russia investigation.

Trump apparently did not like that Justice Department lawyers were not used for the probe instead. The Inspector General is looking into whether FISA standards were abused when the FBI first started investigating Trump campaign associates and their possible ties to Russia. The Nunes memo alleges that the FBI misled the FISA court to obtain a warrant to monitor Carter Page.

Referring to the Inspector General, Trump wrote, “Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy?”

Later, House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy released his own statement defending the Inspector General. Gowdy says he has, “complete confidence in him and hope he is given the time, the resources and the independence to complete his work.”

Trump has taken issue with Jeff Sessions on and off almost the whole time he’s been in office. Rumors that Sessions will be fired seem to surface at least once a month. Usually, Sessions just keeps his mouth shut and absorbs the blow. But not this time. He issued a statement saying:

“We have initiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this Department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary. As long as I am the Attorney General, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this Department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.”

You can hear a little irritation in there, like maybe Sessions is finally getting tired of the abuse.

Ever since Sessions recused himself from heading the Russia-collusion investigation, he has been Trump’s punching bag. It’s strange, because Sessions has been a staunch Trump supporter from the very beginning. It’s also weird because Sessions has even offered to resign before, but Trump hasn’t taken him up on it. Yet.

At this point in the marathon Russia investigation, what President Trump thinks he stands to gain by tweeting criticism of Sessions and the Inspector General is anyone’s guess. Regardless, it’s not helpful.

The White House Is All out of Hope

She was never a “Washington” girl.

She didn’t even care for politics.

And yet, she was one of the most powerful people in DC.

Hope Hicks, Trump’s communications director, was one of the longest-serving advisers and arguably Trump’s most trusted aide.

She often had the challenging job of talking him down from an angry tweet, redirecting his attention elsewhere.

She corralled the press department to get on message, even when they were at odds with each other—which was all the time.

And many of the staff viewed her as a protector against Trump’s outbursts…like a child shielding her little brother from her father’s wrath.

But yesterday, Hicks appeared to have enough.

She told the President that she was resigning.

Her resignation came a day after she testified for eight hours before the House Intelligence Committee. She told the panel that in her job, she had “occasionally” been required to tell “white lies” but had never lied about anything connected to the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Her revelation to the panel is not shocking. And I don’t think it was the impetus for her leaving the White House.

She’s a 29 former model who wanted to work in fashion.

I doubt she ever had aspirations of becoming the communications director.

By all accounts it sounded like she took the job in stride, but it just didn’t seem like it was her dream to be there.

The limelight and scrutiny of the House Intelligence Committee and her relationship with Rob Porter made public, appears to have pushed her to end something she really never wanted to start.

When she leaves the White House in a couple weeks, she is going to escape relatively unscathed. She did a good job and didn’t stay to see her reputation get dragged through the dirt like so many before her.

Trump has stated that Hicks is very smart many times.

I believe he is telling the truth.

MORE 3 THINGS

Bringing a Gun to a Knife Fight

Dave watched from his window as his neighbors argued.

Expletives ripped through his thin apartment walls.

The fight escalated quickly.

Punches were thrown. Fists were flying.

Dave caught a glimmer of silver out of the corner of his eye.

One of the men had a knife and was about to use it.

Dave rushed to his bedroom and opened the bottom drawer, made his choice, and calmly walked outside.

Dave approached the men and just stood there.

His presence immediately caused the two men to forget all about their fight.

The knife-wielding man attempted to flee the scene but was caught by police moments later.

The other neighbor was rushed to the hospital for his stab wounds and is expected to make a full recovery.

All because Dave brought a gun to a knife fight.

As a certified firearms instructor, Dave had a collection of guns to choose from—but he grabbed his AR-15 because it’s just a bigger gun.

He believes that the “intimidation factor definitely played a part in stopping the fight.”

No shots were fired. That was never Dave’s intention.

He said, “The AR-15 is my weapon of choice for home protection. It's light, it's maneuverable. If you train and know how to use it properly, it's not dangerous. And this is just a perfect example of good guy with an AR-15 stopped a bad guy with a knife. And there were no lives taken, so, all in all, it was a good day."

Dave saved a life that day because he is a responsible gun owner.

There are people like Dave all over the country.

Let’s remember that the good guys with guns are the majority.

Michael Wolff Does Europe

Remember Michael Wolff? The “journalist” who hung out in the lobby of the White House until he gathered enough dirt to write “Fire and Fury”?

He’s been on an international tour to promote his book and, well, things haven’t gone quite as smoothly for him as they did here in the U.S.

During an interview with an Australian TV news show, Wolff was asked about his recent comment to Bill Maher, saying he was “absolutely sure” that President Trump is currently having an affair. Wolff was doing the interview from London and he suddenly claimed he couldn’t hear the Australian interviewer’s question because something was wrong with his audio connection. Oddly, he heard everything clearly up to that point of the interview. Later, the Australian news show posted footage from their London studio showing there were no audio problems.

When Wolff was on Bill Maher’s show, he encouraged the audience to “read between the lines” of a passage in Fire and Fury, where he includes suggestive language about Trump and U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley. When a British TV interviewer tried to clarify Wolff’s innuendo about Trump, Haley, and other possible affairs, Wolff said, “I assume. I assume because this is Donald Trump and I think that’s an absolutely fair assumption.”

I’m pretty sure that’s the first thing they teach in journalism school – do not assume anything. Even when it involves Donald Trump. Wolff stands by his own journalism though, saying there’s “no difference” between the journalism in Fire and Fury and books by Bob Woodward.

What is Michael Wolff hoping to accomplish here, besides racking up book sales?

After a rough few days of being asked uncomfortable questions by European journalists, Wolff has had enough of the heat. He canceled a BBC interview yesterday, saying, “the tour has taken its toll.”

You know what else is taking its toll? Assumptions, by the Left and the Right, about each other. We’ve pulled up the anchor of reason and we’re sailing straight into the choppy waters of accusation and innuendo. We’re more capable than this. We must stop assuming the worst about each other. We must work to fix reason back firmly in her seat. Yes, question with boldness, but pursue truth, instead of just a win for your team. We need a lot less Fire and Fury, and a lot more Honor and Humility.

Jared Kushner's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Jared Kushner and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Tuesday was not kind to the President’s son in law. Kushner must have felt as if he was living out in real time the day made famous in the popular Judith Viorst children’s book. Where as Alexander “went to sleep with gum in his mouth and woke up with gum in his hair,” Kushner went to sleep with a Top Secret clearance and woke up with it downgraded to Secret. That’s a pretty big deal considering he’s been tasked with “bringing peace to the Middle East” and reworking trade deals. Essentially this means that most of his high level work will now have to be put on hold.

But Kushner’s day was only just beginning to turn sour. Media reports began coming in stating that officials from four different countries had discussed ways that Jared Kushner might be manipulated. Sources told the Washington Post that these “ways of manipulation” included taking advantage of Kushner’s complex business arrangements and his family debt.

Ok, so that sounds bad. But let’s pump the brakes for a second. First of all, Kushner may STILL eventually get a Top Secret Clearance. He’s just been downgraded to Secret in the meantime. The process to obtain a Top Secret clearance can be quick or extremely long depending on how much information the investigators have to go through. The top two things that tie up a Top Secret clearance are: Meetings with foreign nationals and financial debt. Kushner has a lot of both. For anyone waving the “You see! He’s guilty!” flag, just remember that this process is normal. Waiting over a year for a Top Secret SCI clearance is not uncommon at all.

Secondly, I’m having a hard time understanding why the Washington Post ran their story that 4 countries had discussed ways that they might be able to manipulate the President’s son in law. Wait, do you mean to tell me that rival nations actually looked for ways to gain leverage over a member of the President's staff? NO WAY. I wish you could see my shocked face. This has probably happened in every presidential administration since 1776. This is not a story. Now IF, and only IF, those four countries actually tried to, or were successful, in manipulating Kushner would this be a story. But it just says they talked about it. Are you kidding me with this?

The only purpose of this story was to pile something on to the bad news of Kushner’s clearance being downgraded. It’s an irresponsible trick to manipulate people into drawing false conclusions, and it’s also a prime example for why so many people have had enough with the media. Can we stop inventing scandals? Is that too much to ask?

We may find out, eventually, that Kushner has some serious issues. I don’t know. But I know we can all empathize with his day yesterday. We’ve all had a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

MORE 3 THINGS

Ther Is Something Rotten in the County of Broward

There’s something rotten in Broward County.

The actions of the sheriff and his deputies that arrived at the Stoneman shooting is becoming even more convoluted.

Last night, Laura Ingraham reported that she had a source who revealed why the officers didn’t initially enter the high school.

To lose precious seconds because of a lack of body cameras is outrageous. We didn’t have body cameras five years ago. What would the officers have done then?

Scot Peterson, the deputy who stayed behind a concrete stairwell during the rampage, also defended his actions yesterday. He issued a statement through his lawyer claiming he “heard gunshots but believed those gunshots were originating from outside of the buildings on the school campus. The Sheriff’s office trains its officers that in the event of outdoor gunfire one is to seek cover and assess the situation in order to communicate what one observes with other law…Allegations that Mr. Peterson was a coward and that his performance, under the circumstances, failed to meet the standards of police officers are patently untrue.”

Maybe Peterson is telling the truth. It’s quite possible he complied with all his training.

But if this is the case, it seems like strict adherence to the rules and regulations cost people their lives.

When does making sure a body camera is operational more important than saving a life?

When does making sure you are in compliance with an outdoor gunfire situation more important than tracking down a mass murderer?

Look, we weren’t there that day. We don’t know what really happened. These could all be feeble attempts to cover the Broward County Sheriff Department’s actions. They could be telling the truth. We’ll never really know.

Right now, we are desperately searching for someone to blame for the Stoneman tragedy—when we already have that person in jail. Let’s remember to not be too judgmental as we continue our search for the truth of what happened that day.

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear DACA Case

Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied the Trump administration’s appeal to quickly end the DACA program.

The White House made the unusual request of the Supreme Court after two lower-court judges issued injunctions last month, blocking President Trump from ending DACA.

In case you need a quick refresher on DACA, former President Obama created the program in 2012 – outside the legislative process – through an Executive Order. It’s a program that allows illegal immigrants, who came to the U.S. before they turned sixteen, to apply for a permit that keeps them from getting deported and allows them to work. Around 800,000 so-called “Dreamers” applied for this DACA permit.

Obama claimed this program was not a path to citizenship, just a temporary measure to help out these young immigrants until Congress got its act together to pass permanent immigration legislation. He did a lot of Executive Ordering like that.

I know this is a shock, but Congress never passed anything. So, Dreamers were allowed to renew their two-year permits for an additional two years.

President Trump inherited a gigantic DACA mess from Obama. Trump is continually blamed for being anti-immigrant, but the Left forgets a key part of the narrative here, that several states were threatening to sue the government over DACA. Facing that pressure, Trump announced last September that the program would end in six months. That deadline is next week.

In the meantime, if your DACA permit was set to expire before the March 5 deadline, you were given one month to apply for renewal. Those who did so, got two more years of permit protection. But a Federal District Judge in Northern California blocked the plan to end DACA, ruling that the Trump administration must keep accepting renewal applications past March 5th.

The Trump Administration then asked the Supreme Court to step in to allow DACA to end on the original deadline. The Court did not issue any opinion on the matter, it just refused to deal with it right now. That means absolutely nothing about DACA has changed. The legal battle will roll on in the lower courts, and the DACA program will continue as it has since Obama decreed it in 2012.

Of course, Congress could step in at any time and actually pass some kind of immigration reform legislation. And hell could also freeze over.

The Dueling FISA Memos

We finally got the next piece of the FISA gate puzzle. Democrats finally released their rebuttal memo on Saturday. It turned out, pretty much, exactly as expected. It’s becoming painfully obvious why these over hyped and air quoted “bomb shells” are being released over the weekends. By and large, they’re not telling us jack squat. Pundits and analysts on both the left and right receive the reports on Friday or Saturday, each side declares it the ultimate coup de grace, and by Monday or Tuesday the general lack of anything substantial causes the story to fizzle out.

To recap, the Republican memo alleged that the FBI and DOJ abused surveillance powers by lying - by omission - to the FISA court. The memo claimed that the FISA warrant justification was based purely off of information in the infamous Steele Dossier, but the fact that the Dossier was paid for by Democrats was kept hidden.

Now, here’s the problem with the Republican memo. We know there MUST have been corroborating info, besides the Steele Dossier, that the FBI and DoJ used to justify a FISA warrant. Don’t get me wrong, using the Steele Dossier and concealing who funded it from the FISA court is bad, but there’s no way the court would grant a warrant based purely off the Dossier and a Yahoo news article. That sounds funny, but that’s actually what the Republican memo suggests.

I said immediately after reading the first memo that, in order to get the full picture, we needed to see the Democrats response. We finally got it over the weekend. The Democrat memo says, basically, exactly what we figured it would. They DID acknowledge that the Steele Dossier was used, but they downplay its importance and point to additional sources of information. If you’re curious what that additional information is, good luck trying to decipher it. It’s easy to find in the 10 page report. Just flip through the pages and look for the big black redacted bars.

So basically, the Republican memo talks up the importance of the Steele Dossier in the FISA request, but downplays additional sourcing. The Democrat memo DOWNPLAYS the importance of the Dossier, but TALKS UP the additional sourcing. And around the partisan circle we go.

So, what questions should we now be asking? After both memo’s, the only thing we know for sure was that YES, the Steele Dossier was used in SOME capacity. The question now is, what effort did the FBI make to verify Steele’s sources? That right there would tell us whether the Bureau and DoJ acted in good faith OR if they abused their power. I got a feeling it’s probably a little of both. We really won’t get the full picture until the actual FISA application is released… if it ever does.

Until then, take two aspirin. This is going to be long and painful.

MORE 3 THINGS

Who's Funding 'March for Our Lives' Rallies?

Abraham Lincoln said, “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”

So, here are the real facts about the #NeverAgain movement and the upcoming “March for Our Lives” rally, planned for March 24th in Washington DC. For over a week now, CNN and the rest of the media have portrayed this movement as “grassroots” and totally teen-driven. Maybe it was in the very beginning. But it’s not anymore.

Just a few days after the horrible tragedy at Stoneman Douglas High School, junior Cameron Kasky set up a GoFundMe account to raise money for the “March for Our Lives.” Kasky is the teenager who confronted Senator Marco Rubio onstage at CNN’s Monster Truck Rally event last Wednesday night. So far, over 32,000 people have donated $2.5 million to Kasky’s GoFundMe account.

What is the money actually for? On the GoFundMe page, Kasky says, “the funds will be spent on the incredibly difficult and expensive process that is organizing a march like this. We have people making more specific plans, but for now, know that this is for the march and everything left over will be going to the victims’ funds.”

The “March for Our Lives” has received an additional $3.5 million in pledges from George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Gucci, and businessman Eli Broad.

Cameron Kasky’s father said that Cameron and his friends are “being directed by people with knowledge of how to responsibly spend this money and it’s going to be very transparent.”

Hope it goes a lot better than George Clooney’s September 11th fund.

Kasky’s dad also said that “with Clooney’s help” the teens have brought in some attorneys, some administrative help, and a public relations firm whose clients include Meryl Streep, Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Woody Allen, among many other celebrities. Why do you need all that if this is such a grassroots thing, driven by teenagers? Because these are now 16-year-olds with over $6 million at their disposal.

Already, the “March for Our Lives” rally has a slick website selling merchandise. Make no mistake, this is a campaign.

The new spokesman for the rally (yes, it already has a “spokesman”) says, “Any leftover funds will go towards supporting a continuing, long-term effort by and for young people to end the epidemic of mass shootings that has turned our classrooms into crime scenes.” In other words, “March for Our Lives” is essentially a new gun-control lobbying firm.

Now the teens have brought in Deena Katz to help organize the rally. Katz is the co-executive producer of Dancing With the Stars. Oh, and she was also co-executive director of the Los Angeles Women’s March.

The rally is also being organized in collaboration with a nonprofit group called “Everytown for Gun Safety.” The advisory board of this group includes one former governor and six former mayors – all Democrats. It also includes Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, and Kenneth Lerer [Leer] who helped start The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, and a website called StoptheNRA.com.

Kasky said the march in DC will include a protest outside the White House where they will destroy AR-15 rifles. Kasky told CBS, “At the end of the day, this isn’t a red and blue thing. This isn’t Democrats or Republicans. This is about everybody and how we are begging for our lives.”

Perhaps Kasky truly feels that way, but he’s getting a crash course in how American politics and media work. This may have started as a teen cause, but it has been hijacked by powerful forces on the Left with a very specific agenda.

Dems Bail on Feinstein

The modern era progressive insurrection is coming. It’s a political civil war fought within the Democratic parties own house. On one side there is the new blood Democratic Socialists - which is basically just a PC and less scary way of saying Socialist or Marxist - and on the other side are the establishment Democrats. The new blood is angry, and they’re about to make their move.

California might be the first battleground. In a surprise and completely unexpected move, the California state Democratic Party decided not to endorse Senator Dianne Feinstein as she gears up campaigning for the 2018 midterms. Calling Feinstein a senior senator is a little misleading. She’s been entrenched as the California Senator for about… oh, 150 to 200 years or so.

Feinstein represents everything that the new blood is angry about. In their eyes she’s a centrist, a Washington stooge, and a corporate sell out. They’re tired of the status quo, the capitulation, and lack of direction. I mean, what exactly IS the Democratic platform right now? Resistance? Opposition to Trump? That’s not a direction, that’s a spinning compass.

It’s really the same position the GOP found itself in after seven years of Obama. The establishment had no clue how to reach out to their base. The only thing they agreed on was 1. Obamacare had to be stopped and 2. Anyone but Hillary. Resistance to one thing and one person isn’t a platform, and voters were tired of being ignored. Trump came along and actually listened to them. The result was probably the most stunning upset in American political history.

The radical progressives are the only voices on the left that are actually outlining any kind of action or agenda. To quote Feinstein’s newly endorsed opponent within her own party, “It’s not just about resistance. It’s also about real laws.”

They want open borders and single payer healthcare. They want a massive welfare state, and they’re tired of waiting for it. To them, just like the book The Coming Insurrection, the slow creep and eventual Socialist takeover isn’t working. It’s taking too long. They’re prepared to rise up and TAKE it. Progressives… Democratic Socialists… whatever they’re calling themselves these days. They’re coming, and they’re the only ones on the left with an actual plan. They’re the only ones with an actual voice and message.

Democrats are about to make a hard turn to the extreme left. What’s going down in California is just the beginning.

#BoycottTheNRA

Over the weekend, a deluge of companies cut ties with the NRA.

The First National Bank of Omaha said it will stop issuing an NRA-branded Visa card.

Hertz tweeted that "We have notified the NRA that we are ending the NRA's rental car discount program.”

Delta Air Lines also tweeted that it will discontinue its NRA discount and “will be requesting that the NRA remove our information from their website.”

Other companies have since followed suit.

If a company wants to alienate customers in order to take a stand on an issue, that’s their choice.

But it just seems so pandering and disingenuous.

I think the sole purpose of companies like Delta Airlines and Enterprise ending their relationship with the NRA is so they can craft a 140-character tweet about it.

This isn’t a Twitter war.

Let’s remember that 17 people are dead.

Boycotting the NRA and bragging about it on social media won’t change that.

After all, The Stoneman shooting wasn’t the NRA’s fault.

It was a singular person’s act of cruelty and delusion.

There were signs along the way that our law enforcement missed, and there is some blame there, but ultimately the shooting is the fault of one disturbed teenager.

Gun control will never change the fact that deranged people with find a way to cause chaos and tragedy.

It’s time to stop with the fake social media crusade.

If you want to end your support for the NRA, do it.

If you want to support the NRA, then do it.

You don’t need a hashtag to validate your actions and opinions.

MORE 3 THINGS

The Most Hated Man in America Today

He is the most hated man in the world today.

Former Deputy Scot Peterson resigned yesterday after video surveillance showed that he was armed and stationed at Stoneman Douglas High School while the shooting took place.

Instead of immediately addressing the target and putting an end to the rampage, Peterson cowered behind a concrete column in a stairwell.

The sheriff of Broward County suspended Peterson without pay pending an internal investigation, but the officer beat him to it. Peterson, knowing his fate, resigned and retired yesterday.

This morning, police officers line Peterson’s home. They are guarding against anyone who wants to harm Peterson—and that’s a lot of people. The officers themselves probably don’t even want to protect this coward.

But before we take up our pitchforks and torches and charge his door, let’s remember something.

We weren’t there.

As much as we would like to think that we would be brave and execute a single kill shot to the Stoneman shooter before he could take 17 lives, would that actually play out in real life?

Would we be brave?

Would we have the courage?

We all hope we would, but you don’t really know until you are in that situation.

I’m not trying to defend Peterson’s gutless inaction. I absolutely think he should have used his training to save lives that day.

I’m just saying we aren’t him. We don’t know what was going through his mind.

Peterson could have been a hero, but he made other choices.

Now, he has to live with that guilt for the rest of his life.

So before we call for blood, let’s remember that he already has his punishment.

National Socialism Hits CPAC

“France is no longer free!” Marion Le Pen took the stage at CPAC yesterday and spent the first several minutes of her speech destroying the EU. She lamented about lost sovereignty at the hands of Brussels and advocated the new global slogan: America First… Britain First - and yes - FRANCE FIRST!

I searched around yesterday - after she left the stage - to see what people were saying. By and large, no one was saying a thing. The conservative media and voices were all but silent. That’s probably because everything she said sounded exactly like what Trump campaigned on in 2016. Anti-EU and other large trade organizations? Check! Anti-immigration? Check! Sceptical of Muslim migrants? Double check!

Now here’s why this is so scary. All the issues I just said, mega trade alliances, immigration, AND Muslim migrants are ACTUAL legitimate issues. In fact, a big reason for why Trump won was because he gave voice to these concerns that, by and large, had been ignored for decades. If you watched Marion Le Pen yesterday, you saw something the new American right hasn’t had in… well ever. A young, female, photogenic firebrand. There she was at CPAC, flashing that million dollar smile, and giving the crowd EVERYTHING they wanted to hear. At one point a chant of “VIVA LA FRANCE” rang out over the conference hall.

Let’s get one thing straight right now. The far-right in Europe has absolutely NOTHING in common with American conservatism. These people and groups are ethno-nationalist populists. The only thing they’re concerned with is using real issues - like trade, the economy and immigration - and focusing people’s rage. That right there is how monsters are born. That’s how they gain power, and when they get that power, they aren’t interested in reducing the size and scope of government. They expand it through control, a massive welfare state, and aggression. That right there is National Socialism.

There is a global effort among the far-right to link themselves to the success of Donald Trump. Now, I get that they would want to try and emulate that success and ride our coattails, but we shouldn’t be helping them do it. The European far-right, which has more in common with the alt-right than anything else, was actually giving a speech to American conservatives yesterday. They’re being legitimized and co-opted into the American right. This is dangerous, and we need to put a stop to it right now.

March for Our Lives

Abraham Lincoln said, “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”

So, here are the real facts about the #NeverAgain movement and the upcoming “March for Our Lives” rally, planned for March 24th in Washington DC. All week, CNN and the rest of the media have portrayed this movement as “grassroots” and totally teen-driven. Maybe it was in the very beginning. But it’s not anymore.

Last Sunday, less than a week after the horrible tragedy at Stoneman Douglas High School, junior Cameron Kasky set up a GoFundMe account to raise money for the “March for Our Lives.” Kasky is the teenager who confronted Senator Marco Rubio onstage at CNN’s Monster Truck Rally event Wednesday night. So far, more than 25,000 people have donated over $2 million.

What is the money actually for? On the GoFundMe page, Kasky says, “the funds will be spent on the incredibly difficult and expensive process that is organizing a march like this. We have people making more specific plans, but for now, know that this is for the march and everything left over will be going to the victims’ funds.”

The “March for Our Lives” has received an additional $2 million in pledges from George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Cameron Kasky’s father said that Cameron and his friends are “being directed by people with knowledge of how to responsibly spend this money and it’s going to be very transparent.”

Hope it goes a lot better than George Clooney’s September 11th fund.

Kasky’s dad also said that “with Clooney’s help” the teens have brought in some attorneys, some administrative help, and a public relations firm whose clients include Meryl Streep, Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Woody Allen, among many other celebrities. Why do you need all that if this is such a grassroots thing, driven by teenagers? Because these are now 16-year-olds with $4 million at their disposal.

Already, the “March for Our Lives” rally has a slick website selling merchandise. Make no mistake, this is a campaign.

The new spokesman for the rally (yes, it already has a “spokesman”) says, “Any leftover funds will go towards supporting a continuing, long-term effort by and for young people to end the epidemic of mass shootings that has turned our classrooms into crime scenes.” In other words, “March for Our Lives” is essentially a new gun-control lobbying firm.

Now the teens have brought in Deena Katz to help organize the rally. Katz is the co-executive producer of Dancing With the Stars. Oh, and she was also co-executive director of the Los Angeles Women’s March.

The rally is also being organized in collaboration with a nonprofit group called “Everytown for Gun Safety.” The advisory board of this group includes one former governor and six former mayors – all Democrats. It also includes Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, and Kenneth Lerer [Leer] who helped start The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, and a website called StoptheNRA.com.

Kasky told CBS, “At the end of the day, this isn’t a red and blue thing. This isn’t Democrats or Republicans. This is about everybody and how we are begging for our lives.”

Perhaps Kasky truly feels that way, but he’s getting a crash course in how American politics and media work. This may have started as a teen cause, but it has been hijacked by powerful forces on the Left with a very specific agenda.

MORE 3 THINGS

Le Pen to Speak at CPAC

The European far-right is coming to CPAC. Just one hour after Mike Pence leaves the stage, Marion Le Pen, the 28 year old photogenic ‘It girl’ from France’s National Front, will address the conference. This encapsulates every reason why we are so frigging screwed. I’ll come back to that.

First, who is Marion Le Pen and the National Front? Marion is considered the “third Le Pen.” Her grandfather, Le Pen number one, founded the party primarily as an anti-communist movement. On the surface that may not sound too bad, but his platform was extreme nationalism, racism, and anti-semitism. If you’re just tuning in, I’m not describing the Nazis - well I guess I am - but this all about Grandpa Le Pen. He recently called Jews dying in Nazi gas chambers as a minor “detail of history,” and that France and Russia need to team up to defend the “white world.”

You can imagine how these views didn’t go over too well with most Frenchmen. Enter… Le Pen number two: Marine. Marine took it upon herself to polish up the party’s image and make them more mainstream. She tuned down the racist rhetoric, kept extreme nationalism, but turned the National Front away from free-market capitalism and towards Socialism. Hmm… extreme nationalism and socialism. National… Socialist? Marine even proposed abortions on tap with full public reimbursement.

If you’re just tuning in, again, I’m not describing the Nazis. This is FRANCE’S NATIONAL FRONT. Their poster girl, Marion (Le Pen number three), will actually be on stage this week speaking to conservatives. And she’s not like her watered down aunt Marine, she’s more akin to the O G… grandpa Le Pen.

I mentioned this before, but this is why we’re screwed. The right currently has three sides to it. Those that are drifting to the left, the conservative minority, and those drifting towards the far or alt-right. Now, look at the serious issues that people have been screaming for their government to address. Immigration? Silence from the left, silence from the mainstream right, silence from many conservatives. What about job loss in middle America? Silence all around.

It is absolutely ridiculous that the only people giving voice to real issues are people on the far left and far right. The deafening silence is driving movements like France’s National Front to become more mainstream. They’re beginning to co-opt into what used to be conservative only groups. Last year it was Milo, this year it’s Marion Le Pen, who’s next? Richard Spencer?

The trajectory we’re on is dangerous and out of control. The far and alt-right is actively trying to weasel its way into mainstream conservative circles. If we don’t put our foot down now, we’re in danger of losing it all.

There's a Reason 16-Year-Olds Can't Vote

Sixteen-year-olds should never be allowed to vote.

Yesterday, several on the Left decided to use the protests by teenagers in Florida and Washington, DC as an opportunity to promote the idea that 16-year-olds should be allowed to vote.

One law professor from the University of Kentucky tried to make a serious case in an article for CNN: “The real adults in the room are the youth from Parkland, Florida, who are speaking out about the need for meaningful gun control laws. They are proving that civic engagement among young people can make a difference. The ironic part? They can’t even vote yet.”

The protests from the devastated high school students of Parkland, Florida are an understandable, visceral reaction to the worst kind of tragedy. They need time and space to vent their grief and anger. The adult role right now should be to comfort and support them as they work through this trauma. Not exploit their tears for political gain.

What we’re seeing this week is a gut-level reaction from traumatized kids, not well-reasoned, “civic engagement.” America has a lot of smart teenagers, but it has even more who don’t know what “civic engagement” means, who their Senator is, or even how to do their own laundry.

Another law professor from Harvard said teens “have far better BS detectors” than adults, so we should give 16-year-olds the right to vote. These professors make it seem almost as if 16-year-old voting rights are being suppressed.

The voting age wasn’t lowered to 18 until the 26th Amendment passed in 1971. The logic then was that if you’re old enough to be drafted, you’re old enough to vote. So, is the criteria now that if you’re old enough to carry a placard you’re old enough to vote? Sorry, but at least in 1971 there was a logical reason for the age change. This one is just knee-jerk reaction.

Why is the Left suddenly so interested in allowing 16-year-olds to vote? Because they’re the perfect untapped voting bloc. Progressives love an emotionally-driven, peer-pressured voter who can be told what to believe rather than thinking through issues for themselves.

Teens and college kids typically lean to the Left until they get out in the real world, start making their own money, see how much of it is drained away in taxes, and finally realize Progressivism is the exact opposite of the freedom it promises.

Concealed Carry on Campus

Patrick was a sophomore at Columbine High School when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris massacred their classmates.

He was one of the lucky ones. He walked away with his life that day.

He vowed to live a life of service after God granted him that blessing.

Patrick went on to join the Army and served a tour in Iraq. When he came home, he was elected to the Colorado State House of Representatives—where he has served his constituents since 2014.

Every year since he was elected, Patrick has introduced legislation to remove restrictions on concealed carry in schools.

In the wake of the Stoneman Douglas shooting and the renewed call for gun control, Patrick is pushing his legislation just as hard.

Under current Colorado law, anyone who has a concealed carry permit "may bring firearms onto school property, but must keep them locked inside their vehicles."

Patrick doesn’t think that law goes far enough.

His act would allow every law-abiding citizen who holds a concealed carry permit the right to defend themselves and others at all times.

Patrick argues that “Time and time again we point to the one common theme with mass shootings, they occur in gun-free zones. As a former Columbine student who was a sophomore during the shootings on April 20, 1999, I will do everything in my power to prevent Colorado families from enduring the hardships my classmates and I faced that day.”

Now, people will argue that more guns equal more violence, but they forget that the vast majority of guns are in the hands of responsible and good people.

The reality is that we are bringing nothing to a gunfight with evil every day.

Let’s give ourselves, and our children, a chance with an equal contender.

MORE 3 THINGS

A Fatherless Nation

“He looked lost. Absolutely lost.”

That’s the way James Snead described the 19-year-old Florida school shooter, when he saw him up close as he was led inside police headquarters in handcuffs. James Snead and his wife had tried to help the teenager by letting him live with them recently. The shooter’s mother, who adopted him when he was a baby, died last November. His adoptive father died in 2004.

The latest school shooting in Florida is the ultimate nightmare. Our hearts ache for the families of the murdered and injured students. There are no words for this kind of tragedy.

It’s also unreal that we’re calling this “the latest” school shooting.

America is caught in a vicious cycle of tragedy, blame, and division. When something this horrible happens, we scramble to pinpoint blame. It’s our way of trying to make sense of the senseless. It’s the gun. It’s the person. It’s the FBI. Social services. The school district.

We want to prevent this. But no one has all the answers. There’s no single solution. The hard Left sees no issue beyond guns. The hard Right sees no issue beyond gun rights. That leaves a deep canyon of problems in the middle that we refuse to deal with.

Besides being a young male, the Florida shooter has something else in common with almost every single mass shooter in recent years – he grew up without a father. Why aren’t we talking about that? The data is clear about links between fatherless children and violence, suicide, dropping out of school, and drug and alcohol abuse.

Of the deadliest mass shootings in the last fifteen years, nine of them were committed by males under 30-years-old. Seven of those nine came from fatherless homes.

This isn’t to drum up sympathy for the murderers. And obviously, not everyone who grows up without a father has their life ruined, becomes a criminal, or worse. But America has an epidemic of fatherless homes. In 1960, just 5% of American children were born out of wedlock – today it’s over 40%.

Our society is feeling the stress of more than half a century of this epidemic. So many of our children are lost. They have no moral compass, no truth to anchor their souls.

So many of our kids grow up without an identity. They don’t know who they are. In the U.S., genealogy websites are the second-most visited category of sites after pornography. People are desperate to figure out who they are. Many are searching for significance.

Having a father isn’t a guarantee of anything. It’s not a cure-all. We still make our own choices and are responsible for those choices. There are plenty of abusive or absentee fathers. Trying to be a good dad almost seems like a niche thing these days.

Right now, our society is running with the narrative that men are bad. We don’t place cultural value on a masculine influence. We think we’ve evolved beyond the need for fathers; we don’t need them anymore because they’ve done too much damage. Frankly, men haven’t done ourselves any favors with our behavior.

But the unpopular truth is, we need a nuclear family, including a father. The nuclear family is the bedrock of every society. Our bedrock has deep cracks in it.

If you are a father, dig in and do better. If you have the means, reach out and be a father figure to someone without a father.

We can make a bunch of reactionary laws, and that may make us feel better for a while, like we fixed something. But you can’t legislate the deepest needs of the human soul – to be known, accepted, and loved.

Meuller's Indictments

We now know a few of the details on what could possibly be the largest and most successful intelligence operation aimed against our country in decades. The Mueller investigation is FINALLY delivering. This is what we’ve been waiting for, and quite frankly, desperately needed ever since the intelligence community assessment was released to the public over a year ago.

The 37 page indictment names 13 individual Russians and three Russian businesses. The operation involved multiple shell companies in order to mask their actions and hide their funding. Several hundred employees worked round the clock shifts on social media and the internet. In addition to that, several agents were sent to the United States to gather intelligence. In some cases, political rallies were actually organized and promoted thousands of miles away from offices in St Petersburg, Russia.

This could actually be a galvanizing moment in our country. We’ve been attacked by a hostile country, and we now know the names and faces of the people that did it. Unfortunately, we’re far too polarized for that to happen. The left will say, “You see?!! Putin loved Trump and gave him the election!” The right will say, “This proves Trump is innocent! FAKE NEWS FAKE NEWS FAKE NEWS!”

First of all, if anyone actually believes 13 Russians swung the election they’re delusional. Trump won because he appealed to millions of people who have been ignored for years, AND because he ran against the worst candidate in modern history. To say the Russians loved Trump is completely misreading the evidence. Sure they supported his campaign, but they also supported Bernie Sanders AND Jill Stein. Basically, anyone that ran against Hillary was A-OK with the Kremlin.

The Russians wanted us to doubt our government. They wanted chaos. They wanted us to eat each other. It’s sad how polarized our society AND the media has become that we allowed this to happen. Are we THAT easily duped? Friday’s indictment was a critical first step in finding out what happened, but we as a country need to get to work on fixing what it was that made this so easy for the Russians to pull off. Both the right and the left need to come together and heal our society. If we don’t, we’re just setting ourselves up for a bigger attack VERY soon.

Weaponized Social Media

The traffic was unbearable.

Andrew felt like it would take forever to get to the high school.

The police cars and cops dotted every foot of asphalt.

He rolled down the window and held out a picture of his daughter Meadow on his phone to the passing officers—hoping someone would recognize her.

That moment in time was captured and posted to social media.

Most saw a father barely hanging on to the last bit of hope he had that his daughter survived the shooting.

Some just saw his “Trump 2020” shirt.

The reactions were instant.

“I don’t feel sorry for him and F*** trump.”

“Maybe he should have thought twice before voting for #TerroristTrump”

Andrew eventually found Meadow. And it was every parent’s worst nightmare. She was one of the victims of the shooting.

And the comments continued.

“He’s Pro-Trump which means he supports the guy who is responsible for the death of his child.”

How did we get here? Don’t we see how callous we have become?

We live in a world where it is easier to choose cynicism over compassion. Where a snarky remark is more satisfying than a kind word.

Our phones and our computers allow us to safely be our worst selves without consequence.

Both sides are guilty of using the screen as a shield from which we can hurl grenades at our perceived enemies.

Why are some people blind to the despair in Andrew Pollack’s eyes in that picture? Why do they only see his shirt?

It is the sin of pride.

We have become too proud to see past our insignificant differences with each other. If we can’t get past different political opinions, how are we going to get past the big stuff?

We have become so proud that we think we can alter the very fabric of humanity.

Who do we think we are that we can legislate violence out of civilization? It’s a consequence of the gift of free will. It will never go away. We are not God.

It is time to humble ourselves, America. It is obvious that we need humility now more than ever.

MORE 3 THINGS

Susan Rice: CYA Agent

Imagine for a second, it’s the last day at your job. A new boss was hired and you decided it was time to move on to greener pastures. You and your old boss had a pretty good working relationship. The two of you collaborated on several projects together, and even saw your way through a few different scandals. Possibly the biggest potential scandal was, after learning of your boss’ imminent forced departure, the two of you gathered those most loyal and planned to undermine the next boss.

On your way out the door on the final day, a creeping feeling begins to itch at the back of your conscience. Did you do everything you could to complete the plan and cover your tracks? Just before your access to the corporate email server goes off, you compose an email to yourself that you know will be found by the incoming regime. It’s a last ditch effort at undermining the new boss, but more importantly it implies you did nothing wrong. You hit send, get up, and walk out the door for the last time.

In a nutshell, this is what appears to be what Susan Rice (Obama’s former National Security Advisor) did just before she walked out of the White House on Inauguration Day.

Yesterday, Senators Grassley and Graham sent a letter to Susan Rice asking her to explain an “unusual” email they found that was sent by her on her last day of work. The email was sent to herself, via the NSC official server, on January 20th, but it was explaining a meeting that took place on January 5th. The email describes an interaction between Obama, law enforcement and the intelligence community, and how the outgoing administration was considering withholding information regarding the Russia investigation from the incoming Trump team. Forced in, not once, but twice were comments Obama allegedly made that stressed the need to do things “by the book” and that he was ABSOLUTELY DEFINITELY not trying to insert himself into law enforcement activities.

First of all, why did Obama feel the need to tell the FBI to go “by the book” twice in such a short time? Aren’t the FBI’s investigations always done by the book? Isn’t that implied? Why did Rice write that Obama made it clear that he wasn’t trying to influence the investigation? Could it be that Obama, Rice, and the entire outgoing administration were engaging in an off the books operation to smear Donald Trump?

On March 1st the New York Times ran a story with this headline: Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking. This was a damning article back in March. It implied that the Trump team was in danger of scuttling valuable information that would prove Russia interfered in the election. The article goes on to explain that the Obama administration proceeded to launch an operation of leaks to Congress, leaks to other agencies… leaks all over the place. But that was almost a full year ago. If you reread that article, the vast majority of the information that the Times claims Obama was leaking sounds like it all came from one place… the Steele Dossier.

Was the former President and his staff, engaging in a leak operation of opposition research paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC? Did the FBI know about this? Was this email from Susan Rice a last ditch effort at covering their tracks? If just one of these questions is YES, you can forget Watergate. This will be the biggest scandal in our nation’s history.

The Open-Ended DACA Debate

Don’t look now, but the Senate has begun an open-ended debate. I thought that’s what the Senate did all the time, but apparently, this is some special thing.

Can you imagine if the company you work for, or the business you run, operated like Congress? It would be a disaster. Our Founders designed a great form of government, but over time, it has morphed into this colossal slog where competence goes to die.

The latest example? Congress’ inability to get anything done on immigration. Specifically, what to do about DACA.

The mainstream media story you’ve been getting for months is a simple narrative that goes like this: President Trump hates immigrants, so he ended the DACA program so that he can start personally deporting every last Dreamer. What this simple narrative forgets to include is that DACA exists only because President Obama spoke the program into existence, completely outside of Congress and the Constitution.

So, DACA is the urgent problem before Congress because it’s a mess that was created by Obama, then Trump decided to end it, and the deadline when DACA permits will start expiring is now just over three weeks away. Congress has saved this issue until the very last minute. Shocker.

Their method for dealing with the issue at hand is a weird Hail Mary. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate began what they call an “open-ended debate” to figure out what to do.

“Whoever gets to 60, wins,” chirped Mitch McConnell, as if this debate thing is some fun board game they found in a Senate closet and dusted off to solve immigration.

The first DREAM Act was introduced in 2001. It never passed. It’s been seventeen years without meaningful immigration legislation. Immigration is the giant stadium beach ball that gets smacked around the stands of Congress year after year. And now all the sudden, with the clock running out, they’re going to have an “open debate”?

The point of this open debate format is to try to build a bill from scratch on the Senate floor. That sounds kind of like the way the universe was supposedly formed – utter chaos until just the right particles suddenly collided and out pops good ol’ Mother Earth. Yeah, that will work.

Regular Americans are held to a much higher standard of competence in their jobs. If only their representatives in Washington were held to the same standard.

Envelope With White Powder Mailed to Trump Jr.

Men clad in hazmat suits marched through Donald Jr and Vanessa Trump’s Manhattan apartment yesterday.

They initiated decontamination procedures while Vanessa was taken to the hospital.

Earlier in the day, she received a curious letter in the mail. She opened it and a white powder spilled out.

Vanessa instantly felt nauseous and started coughing uncontrollably.

Thankfully, the powder was found to be not hazardous and Vanessa and the other two people who were in the house with her are doing fine.

This isn’t the first time an insidious letter containing white powder was sent to the Trump’s.

In 2016, police investigated a similar letter sent to Eric Trump and two letters containing the powder was sent to Trump Tower.

As you can imagine, some people condoned the fear tactics against the Trump family.

Like the Socialist Party. They tweeted from their official Twitter account, “Disgusting people attract disgusting behavior.”

Not a surprising response from them. Socialists have always condoned violence and underhanded deeds.

Whether you hate them or love them, the Trump family doesn’t deserve these threats.

Don’t lose sight of humanity. Don’t hate people just because they have a different perspective than you. Embrace them and try to learn from them. Everyone is worthy of respect. That's something Socialists have never understood.

MORE 3 THINGS

Kim 2.0

Kim Kardashian has got a big problem. The media has their sights set on replacing her with a new Kim 2.0. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, was all the media could talk about this weekend.

Kim 2.0 made an appearance at the Olympics, but she didn’t bring tanks or missiles. She brought an army of red costumed smiling cheerleaders. Hmm… women dressed in red and forced to do the bidding of a tyrannical regime. You’d think since it’s all the rage right now, that the media would have went all Handmaid’s Tale on Kim 2.0, but here’s the headline that most outlets ran with: “North Korean Cheerleaders are stealing the show.”

That was from USA Today specifically regarding the cheerleaders, but CNN used the exact same headline for Kim: “Kim Jong Un’s sister is stealing the show at the Winter Olympics.”

The Washington Post called her “enthralling” and the “Ivanka Trump of North Korea.” Reuters flashed a smiling picture of Kim 2.0 and deemed her the “winner of diplomatic gold at the Olympics.”

I feel like I have to say this every week, but I have completely given up on the media. It’s comical… they actually have no idea why no one trusts them anymore. While they were glamorizing and legitimizing a mass murdering slave state, they were simultaneously vilifying MIKE PENCE. Look, I get that their opposition to Trump has made it to where they’d prop up anyone opposed to him, but this is getting out of control.

Far be it for the media to report the truth, but this is the reality. Those red-clad cheerleaders are probably the most tragic sight at the Olympics. Make no mistake, those are human slaves. Do you think they have a choice to be there? What do you think happens to their families if they make a mistake or, God forbid, run away? They’d be put to death, and every media outlet turning the Kim family into the Kardashians knows it.

And this new Kim 2.0? She’s number two behind her brother. She sits at the top of the North Korean Politburo. When Kim Jong Un gets sick, she fills in until his return. She’s responsible for the enslavement, torture, and murder of thousands upon thousands. And probably the most ridiculous thing about the media’s grotesque fawning is that her primary job - as head of North Korean State propaganda - is to put on these shows specifically to deceive the press! Is the media that gullible, that stupid, or that eager to support literally ANYONE that defies Trump?

Imagine being Otto Warmbier’s mom and dad, flipping through the channels this weekend and having to deal with this media coverage. This is grotesque and sick. So, to the media, thank you for giving us one more reason not to trust you. Thank you for showing us who you are and what you stand for. I’m done with you.

What $1.5 trillion is going to buy us

Are the bridges and roads in your town climate-change proof?

Today, President Trump is expected to unveil the $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan that he talked about often on the campaign trail and highlighted in his State of the Union address.

The extensive repair list has apparently been prioritized and the bill tallied. Cracked bridges? Check. Crumbling roads? Check. Rusted railways? Check. Climate-change threat assessment? Oops – I knew we were forgetting something.

The federal government does not have $1.5 trillion to pay for infrastructure improvements, but according to The New York Times, that is the very least of the concern here. In their alarming story over the weekend, non-specific “engineers and researchers” say Trump’s plan is probably not taking into account that many parts of the country are “increasingly vulnerable to rising waters and other threats from a warming planet.”

Clearly, we’re just days away from having to grow gills like Kevin Costner in Waterworld, because all land is about to disappear and those science-haters in the White House aren’t factoring this into their infrastructure plan. Couldn’t they at least budget for floaties and snorkels for America’s women and children? The humanity!

According to the Times story, questioning the risk that America faces from global warming and rolling back climate change regulations is one of the Trump administration’s “defining regulatory principles.”

The climate-change crowd is beside themselves with grief that their alarm is not front and center in the government’s infrastructure planning. They say if we don’t consider now how global warming and climate changing will destroy our bridges, and roads, and drown our airports, then it will cost the country way more money in the future. That’s certainly a new strategy in promoting climate change – as the fiscally responsible thing to do.

So, the Left is concerned about how much something is going to cost the government in the future? That’s a new one too.

The climate-changers shouldn’t lose too much sleep over this one. The way parties and politicians have been switching sides lately, they’ll probably just end up dumping all of that $1.5 trillion into climate change research.

Further proof the internet has made us dumber

Dachau concentration camp in Germany is a place overrun with misery and despair.

It was established by the Nazi government in 1933 as one of the first concentration camps.

At Dachau, many medical experiments were tested on the prisoners.

Here the Nazis’ froze people to determine how to treat hypothermia. They used them to test their attempts at making seawater safe to drink. They intentionally inflicted people with contagious diseases like malaria and typhoid fever to test how they could treat them.

At least 28,000 prisoners died horrific deaths at Dachau.

Vice President Mike Pence and his family visited the concentration camp last year.

When the photos of this event were posted, the Pence family all appear overcome with sadness. How could they not be?

If you’ve ever been to a Nazi death camp, that is the only way you know how to feel.

But recently, their photo has turned into an internet meme of sorts—with people mocking the Pence’s for looking grim. They are trying to make a game out of the photo. ‘On a level of 1 to the Pence family, how sad are you?’

What can someone possibly gain from tastelessly commenting on the Pence family? A few chuckles from a stranger in their basement? A few retweets by like-minded idiots?

I’m really not sure if the internet has made us smarter or dumber.

There’s a bigger lesson here. Just because you can post it, doesn’t mean you should.

MORE 3 THINGS

The Senate Circus Show

Last night might have been one of the weirdest and silliest nights our government has seen in quite a while. You easily could have watched CSPAN last night and actually been entertained. If last night’s theatrics had a musical score it would have been somewhere in between circus music and the Benny Hill theme.

The Senate agreed two days ago on a long-term bipartisan budget deal that is the equivalent of a massive raging dumpster fire. This set the tone for last night’s silliness when Rand Paul stood up in front of Senate Republicans and called them out on their hypocrisy. Paul didn’t pull any punches. He - straight up - called them all hypocrites and warned that quote “a day of reckoning is coming.”

Rand Paul’s right and every Republican in that very room agreed with him back in 2011 when they all fought Democrats to install debt caps. This new budget obliterates those debt caps AND sets the precedent for this to get even worse in the years to come. Did Republicans suddenly have a change of heart or did they never really believe in fiscal responsibility to begin with. Spoiler alert… it’s the latter. The truth is that they just wanted to win in 2011 by imposing debt caps, and they just want to win now by erasing them.

So BRAVO to Rand Paul for actually saying out loud what some on the Senate floor were probably thinking and feeling. Paul kept his criticism going long enough to delay the vote which actually caused the government to shut down a little after midnight. In the end, it was a valiant but losing effort. The Senate voted 71-28 to pass the deal. It then shot over to the House for a quick vote to try and avoid the shutdown extending into Friday.

Over at the House, Nancy Pelosi urged her colleagues not to show their hand until they knew how many Republicans would vote YES. As the pressure mounted she finally declared that she wouldn’t vote, because of DACA of course, but that she wouldn’t hold anyone else back from voting. One by one Democrat YES votes started flooding in. Is Pelosi auditioning for an acting gig? Neither her theatrics last night nor her 8 plus hour long DACA speech, had any value beyond pure theater.

I’m telling you, last night was kind of entertaining. If you were bored and nerdy enough to watch CSPAN at 2 am (don’t judge) you were either laughing, crying or downright pissed off. What else beyond a good movie or a BAD ineffective government can deliver on all that in one night?

The Dow Drop Part Deux

After nine years of stock market growth, the smooth sailing is finally getting choppy.

Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped another 1,032 points. It’s the second day this week that the Dow has lost over a thousand points. Monday’s point loss was the largest single-day drop on record. Yesterday’s was the second-largest.

The next two biggest single-day point drops on record happened in 2008.

The Dow has now dropped into “correction” territory, which means it is down 10% from its highest point of over 26,000 on January 26. The Dow hasn’t been in a Correction since February 2016. It would have to drop another 10% to be considered a Bear market.

When the market is in a “Correction,” it often indicates that investors are turning pessimistic about the markets. However, a Correction doesn’t mean the market is unraveling. Since 1998, there have only been 10 Corrections (including yesterday’s). Only two of those corrections continued the decline into Bear markets.

Everyone is scrambling for an explanation for this week’s shaky market. No one knows whether this volatility will last days or weeks. Investors seem to be nervous about inflation, and that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates faster than originally thought. The fear about inflation is driven by the increase in wages, which are rising at the fastest rate since 2009.

While the market is definitely acting weird this week, it seems more out of place than usual, simply because the Dow has risen to unprecedented levels in the last year. We’re not used to volatility, so any shakiness at all seems more disconcerting than it might in a more average year. Many analysts think this volatility is long overdue and nothing more than a healthy correction.

If nothing else, this week has been an interesting test case in the psychology of investors. The market has been doing so well for so long, people are in panic mode that it can’t possibly continue.

Racially Motivated Olympic Coin Toss?

A coin toss is causing controversy today.

You heard me. A coin toss.

Here’s what happened.

Two athletes were nominated by the United States Olympic team to be the flag bearer at the opening ceremony.

Shani Davis, an African American male five-time Olympian and Erin Hamlin, a white female four-time Olympian were tied for the position.

Both received the same number of votes from the representatives.

So, how do you handle a tie like this in the most objective and pragmatic way possible?

You flip a coin.

Erin Hamlin won and Shani Davis played the race card on Twitter writing:

“TeamUSA dishonorably tossed a coin to decide its 2018 flag bearer. No problem. I can wait until 2022. #BlackHistoryMonth2018”

Excuse me?

How can Davis possibly think that a coin toss was racially motivated?

What is the answer here? Should the Team USA have given Davis the position just because he is black? No. Did they give it to Erin just because she is a white female? No.

Should we start banning coin tosses in sports?

It’s the luck of the draw. It is the most non-biased and objective way you can pick something.

Davis was obviously still upset about not being flag bearer because he skipped the Opening Ceremony this morning.

What a sore loser. I’m glad he didn’t represent America at the Olympics today. He’s got a bad attitude—something even four shiny Olympic medals can’t hide.

MORE 3 THINGS

Nazi About to Win GOP Nomination

The Republican Party must do more to distance itself from the alt-right. If it doesn’t, people like Congressional candidate Arthur Jones of Illinois are going to create some big headaches. Actually, Jones already is.

On Tuesday, the Chicago Sun Times headline read, “Holocaust denier poised to claim GOP nomination in Illinois race for Congress.”

Or this from Huffington Post: “An Actual Nazi is About to be the Only GOP Candidate in a Congressional Race.”

What do these headlines alone seem to be saying? Those Republican bigots – now they’re actually running Nazis for Congress!

It’s not that the headlines aren’t true. Seventy-year-old Arthur Jones is in fact a Nazi. He’s the former head of the American Nazi Party and now heads a group called the America First Committee. He has a section of his website claiming the Holocaust is a lie. However, the headlines are misleading because the Illinois Republican Party is not associating with Jones in any way. They issued a statement saying, “The Illinois Republican Party and our country have no place for Nazis like Arthur Jones. We strongly oppose his racist views and his candidacy for any public office."

The headache for Republicans is that no one has stepped up to run against Jones in the Republican primary for Illinois’ Third Congressional District. Jones has tried and failed five times before to win the nomination. Now he’s about to become the Republican nominee by default.

Jones doesn’t have any Republican challengers because no Republican has won the House seat from this Democrat-dominated district since 1975. But media coverage heading into the mid-term elections won’t reflect the nuances of this particular situation. Arthur Jones is about to gift the media nine months of Republican-bashing stories about how the evil GOP nominates Nazis.

Arthur Jones is an unashamed racist and Nazi who says he regrets voting for Trump because Trump has “surrounded himself with hordes of Jews.” Anyone with an ounce of common sense can easily see that this guy’s a nobody and a nut-job. But in our current climate, the left-wing media will have a field day tying Jones’ Nazi credentials to Republicans. Republicans better wake up and get ahead of this P.R. nightmare.

And for goodness sake, find a Republican to challenge this guy. It’ll be easy – all you have to do is run on an anti-Nazi platform.

The New Budget Deal

The National debt is over 20 trillion and rising. Now, see if this sounds fiscally responsible. Our annual GDP is 19 trillion, and the fiscal year budget is 4 trillion. That means we’re spending a quarter of the cash we bring in every year. For those of you that are small business owners, would your company survive that wasteful spending? Of course it wouldn’t.

The math simple. It’s the same for you and it’s the same for the United States government, but apparently Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer learned math on Common Core. Yesterday they agreed not to cut this out of control spending, BUT TO INCREASE IT BY 300 BILLION. If approved by the House, the budget would be locked in until 2020.

There’s not even an appearance anymore of anyone in the Senate even trying to APPEAR fiscally conservative. I’m curious, did the Senate Republican leadership all eat a Tide Pod? Is there some new virus that induces high fever and turns conservatives into liberals? This is money that we don’t have, will then have to borrow, and have no plan on paying back. But that sure didn’t stop Mitch McConnell from handing Democrats concession after concession like he was Oprah giving away free cars. You want that program funded? YOU GET A BILLION! Oh, you want that done too? YOU GET A BILLION!

The last time I checked, Republicans controlled every branch of government, so why are they acting like they’re playing this game with less players on the field? If this is the new norm, how bad is it going to get if Democrats take both the House AND Senate after the midterms?

The deal now goes to the House, and if something doesn’t happen to stop this thing we’re in for a dangerous downward spiral of spending that probably won’t ever stop. All eyes are on you Freedom Caucus. You might be our last and only hope. You might be the only remaining conservatives left on Capitol Hill.

Congratulations America. Last year you historically voted for Republicans in the House, Senate AND the Executive. With the inclusion of Amnesty, and now this dumpster fire of a budget, all we’re getting in return is a Republican majority with Democrat policies.

The Importance of the New Gerber Baby

140,000 photos of smiling babies.

All of them beautiful and full of wonder.

All of them unknowingly competing in a cut-throat contest to be the cutest.

Cortney didn’t think her son Lucas had a chance, but she submitted his picture anyway.

It took her five seconds to post his photo along with the contest hashtag.

And then she forgot about it.

A couple weeks later, a letter arrived in the mail informing Cortney and her husband Jason that Lucas had been chosen as Gerber’s Spokesbaby for 2018.

Not only had Lucas won the coveted position and $50,000, he also made history.

Lucas is the first child with Down Syndrome to become a Gerber baby.

The CEO of Gerber explained that “Lucas’ winning smile and joyful expression won our hearts this year, and we are all thrilled to name him our 2018 Spokesbaby.”

Bravo, Gerber. You have given me hope that humanity and compassion is still alive.

Gerber’s decision to recognize Lucas for who he is—a human being deserving of love, care, and a future—flies in stark contrast to how Iceland and the Netherlands treat people born with Down Syndrome.

Today, 100% of babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted in Iceland.

The Dutch National Institute for Public Health calculated the cost of caring for what they callously call “a Downer” and publicly shamed a man with Down Syndrome on video because his life costs them almost 10 times the amount of someone without Down Syndrome.

Iceland and the Netherlands, you will be on the wrong side of history. My heart is filled with joy today for Lucas and his parents. Congratulations. I look forward to seeing a lot more of Lucas’ smiling face and bow tie collection this year.

MORE 3 THINGS

Saudi national arrested in Oklahoma

Yesterday, the FBI arrested a Saudi immigrant who was living in Weatherford, Oklahoma, about seventy miles west of Oklahoma City. The Saudi is charged with visa fraud, but what was he really up to His backstory is troubling.

The man has lived in the U.S. since 2011 and the FBI has been watching him for the past five months. So far, the FBI hasn’t said much about why he was under surveillance, only that they were trying to determine whether he was involved in terrorist activity in the U.S.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the man’s story regarding his activity in the U.S., is that he obtained his pilot’s license in 2016. Whether he got the license for nefarious purposes or not, it led to his arrest. As a non-U.S. citizen, he had to submit his fingerprints as part of the licensing process. Remarkably, the FBI was able to match his fingerprints with prints on a document that was captured in Afghanistan.

The captured document was an application for admission to Al Farooq, which was Al Qaeda’s most notorious training camp. Four of the September 11th hijackers were trained at Al Farooq. Admission to the camp required an invitation to join and a reference from someone Al Qaeda knew and trusted. So far, authorities haven’t disclosed whether this man actually trained at the camp, but he apparently filled out the application in 2000. The camp was destroyed by the U.S. bombing campaign in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks.

The FBI got lucky with this one. It has hundreds of thousands of captured documents, photographs, emails, phone numbers, fingerprints, and DNA samples stored in Northern Virginia and FBI headquarters in Washington that have still not been researched. The agency lacks the resources to process this trove of material collected in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past seventeen years.

The Saudi man in Oklahoma was a good catch by the FBI, but this episode highlights the fact that there is still a mountain of work to be done in counter-terrorism, and a lot of holes yet to plug in the immigration system.

The federal government is set to borrow a trillion dollars this year – how much of that is earmarked for actual important stuff? Like catching terrorists on American soil.

Nothing shows military might like... a parade?

We now have something in common with North Korea. Kim Jong Un is planning a grand military parade set to kick off tomorrow, and - as confirmed by the White House yesterday - plans are in motion for our own version of a large spectacle military show. Is this who we are? When did we become a country that emulates the actions of Communist dictatorships?

Let me tell you what this is not. This doesn’t have anything to do with respect for the military. That’s not the purpose for military parades. North Korea, the Soviets, and any other nation that does these things - Democratic or not - isn’t trying to show admiration for their men and women in uniform, they’re just projecting power.

Let’s make it very clear. There’s a huge difference between a Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day parade, and a military demonstration. Ask anyone in the military. They’ll never ask for this kind of tribute. With the amount of money this will cost, why not put those funds into the VA? Divert some of that cash into a program that will help Veterans find jobs after they come back to civilian life. Show the military your admiration and respect by taking care of them. That’s what they really want, and it’s what they deserve.

Wanna show off American power? True American power isn’t in the government nor is it in our awesome military. True American power is the spirit of the individual. It’s the opportunity that individual has to change their stars and become better than what they were born to. Because of that, American ingenuity has become the most powerful force on planet Earth.

At this very moment, a cherry red Tesla Roadster is in space on it’s way to the Asteroid Belt. A manikin nicknamed “Starman” is sitting at the wheel with David Bowie’s Space Oddity playing on repeat. Yesterday, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy. At more than five million pounds of thrust, it is the world’s most powerful rocket. Minutes after reaching space, the two gigantic boosters that lifted the main capsule into space detached and remotely flew back to Cape Canaveral. With synchronization that would rival two Olympic ice skaters, the two boosters simultaneously deployed their landing legs and touched down - side by side - at the same time.

Where else but in America could this be possible? A government didn’t do this. This was one man’s dream, and he pulled it off with other like-minded dreamers at his own PRIVATE COMPANY.

THIS is American power, and it doesn’t need a parade either. The truly powerful don’t need a show to prove their power. The truly intelligent don’t need to prove to people they’re smart. They just are.

The discriminatory Daddy-Daughter Dance

Victoria had her dress and shoes all picked out. She was so excited to go to the Daddy-Daughter dance at PS 65 on Staten Island this Friday.

But yesterday she got some disappointing news. Her school’s Parent-Teacher Association was forced to reschedule the dance because of the Department of Education’s gender-neutral policy—which “requires school events to include all types of students and families."

The Daddy-Daughter Dance was canceled because it only included…daddies and daughters.

Extreme inclusion is taking over our lives. It’s not a Daddy-Mommy-Son-Daughter-Cousin-Godfather-Sister-In-Law Dance. When everyone is invited that’s just called a dance.

For many fathers, daddy-daughter dances offer a much-needed chance to bond with their girls. The madness of political correctness has destroyed this special occasion for them. And that’s really sad.

PS 65 has rescheduled the event to take place in March and is now open to the entire school.

Other schools have followed suit. PS 30 is having a FUDGE Dance. That stands for Fun with Uncles, Dads, Grandpa, Etcetera.

This is just shameful. I would encourage the parents of these schools to organize their own Daddy-Daughter dance—just because the public school system is going crazy doesn’t mean you can’t show your daughters that it’s important to spend time with their fathers.

MORE 3 THINGS

The Dossier 'What If's'

The plotline reads crazier than a movie script. A possibly corrupted FBI director, biased agents manipulating investigations, partisan moles in the Justice Department, and the overall threat of hostile foreign intelligence services. Forget the movies, you’d never be able to dream this stuff up.

I wonder how those on the left would have reacted if everything I just described happened to Obama during his first election. Imagine for a second that a “dossier” describing domestic terrorist ties to Barack Obama leaked to the press. At first, most media outlets don’t want to touch it, but a lesser-known internet site pulls the trigger and opens the floodgates.

Leaks and damaging information begin to drop almost daily. CNN publishes a photograph with Obama and Louis Farrakhan, the New York Times reveals that Obama had ties to domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, Fox News plays sermons from Jeremiah Wright seemingly on repeat for a week straight. EVERYTHING appears to backup and corroborate the “dossier.”

A rumor begins to circulate that the FBI is surveilling the Obama campaign. HOW IN THE HELL DID THEY GET THE AUTHORIZATION FOR THAT?! MSNBC reports that the FBI director’s wife received a campaign donation from John McCain. Rachel Maddow claims that the FBI is partisan and compromised. Later we find out that two of the agents investigating Obama’s ties to Ayers and Farrakhan HATE Obama and really want to see a McCain presidency.

The pieces are starting to fall into place, but then the ultimate scandal drops. We find out that the “dossier” was actually opposition research paid for and directed by the RNC and McCain campaign. Not only that, but Bush appointees in the Justice Department are getting hand fed opposition research from family members that work at the firm that compiled the dossier. Those compromised members of the DoJ and the FBI used that information to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on members of the Obama campaign.

All of this is currently happening, but imagine if even a fraction - JUST A FRACTION - would have happened to Obama back in 2008. Democrats would have been out in the streets in force. It would have been mass chaos. But all of this actually COULD have happened. There was just enough evidence to look into Obama as Trump, but the media considered one beyond reproach. And the media wonders why no one trusts them anymore...

The Dow's Record Drop

Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,175 points. It was the largest single-day point drop on record. That performance came on the heels of the Dow falling 665.75 on Friday, which, when you round up is… 666. But don’t read anything into that.

Barely two weeks ago, the Dow peaked at 26,616. Then, between last Friday and yesterday, it lost over a month of gains. It’s the worst two days the Stock Market has seen in almost two years. However, the market is still up 26% in the last year. Typical annual growth is around 8%.

One director at a brokerage firm said, “This is the first time in a while I’d say it feels like borderline panic-type selling. We haven’t seen something like this since the Brexit vote.”

But a director at a different firm said, “The markets are just taking a bit of a breather, which I’d argue is somewhat healthy.”

So, which is it? Is this just a snowball, or is it the first snowball of an approaching avalanche?

Some bond investors are spooked about there being more inflation on the horizon than they originally forecasted. In its effort to slow down inflation, the Federal Reserve has caused a lot of problems in the past when it becomes overly jumpy and tweaks interest rates too much. Investors got nervous that the Fed might do its usual tinkering and make things worse.

A lot of this over the past couple days is psychology – the market has gone so high, people are worried that it doesn’t make sense for stocks and bonds to stay at the level they’re at, so they’re tapping the breaks. But what if the breaks are out and we’re headed downhill?

The government is borrowing more money than ever. Retirement funds are in crisis. Couple these conditions with the volatility in Europe as it deals with its own immigration issues and financial problems, and the world seems on the verge of a massive reset.

Fair Weather Babies

Climate change isn’t just bad for the environment, it’s bad for the womb.

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story highlighting women who claim their decision to have children is directly influenced by climate change.

For example, Sara considered having another child, but that would mean moving to a bigger house that’s farther from her job. She is not sure she can justify the environmental impact of a larger home and a longer commute.

Allison is concerned about an apocalyptic future of extreme weather. “I don’t want to give birth to a kid wondering if it’s going to live in some kind of ‘Mad Max’ dystopia.”

Mariam shared her concern: “My instinct now is to shield my children from the horrors of the future by not bringing them to the world.”

Amanda actually decided to have more children because of climate change. Her reason? “Someday, my husband and I will be gone. If my daughter has to face the end of the world as we know it, I want her to have her brother there.”

So many women are bringing climate change into their reproduction decisions that the organization “Conceivable Future” was founded to help women make environmentally friendly reproductive decisions and navigate our doomed world.

To not bring a child into the world because you’re scared they’ll increase your carbon footprint or that they’ll live like moody drifters on a desert-like terrain is the very definition of insanity.

These women are deciding not to have children based on their fictional perception of their children’s quality of life.

The disgusting lie of an impending environmental wasteland and an overpopulated planet wasn’t true in the 1970’s and it isn’t true today.

In fact, the birthrate in the United States reached its lowest point in 2016 and the decline continues all around the world.

It’s almost criminal that these women are allowing 50-year-old unsubstantiated fears dictate whether or not they bring a human life into the world.

If these women want to be scared about something, they should be afraid of AI. Some report that artificial intelligence could wipe out the entire human race in 30 years.

We can only hope the robots replace this group first.

MORE 3 THINGS

The Memo is Released

The FISA memo bomb has been dropped. It pretty much confirmed everything Republicans had been talking about in interviews for the past two weeks. If you watched cable news last week you pretty much know everything that’s in the memo. Is that why the information was a little - I don't know - underwhelming? For being billed as a memo full of classified information, I struggled to find anything in it that could be considered damaging to national security. That makes the Democrats, FBI and DoJ look kind of ridiculous in trying to block it’s release.

But it also makes Republicans look a little ridiculous in all the build up and hype that led up to Friday’s release. Now, don’t get me wrong, the information within the memo is interesting. The GOP is accusing the FBI and DoJ of lying to the FISA court in order to get a warrant for former Trump advisor Carter Page. They claim that the Steele Dossier was listed in the initial FISA application, but the roles of Fusion GPS, the DNC and the Clinton campaign were never mentioned. If that’s true then the FBI and DoJ were knowingly trying to pass off partisan opposition research as actual intelligence, AND they hid the truth from the court, not once, but four times.

This all looks really bad, but it’s also only half of the story. Democrats have written their own rebuttal memo, and a vote for its release is expected later today. We can also expect to hear from the FBI AND DoJ at some point as well. Will The Great Memo Wars of 2018 reveal anything new, or will it descend into a giant “liar liar pants on fire” slap fight? Either way, more transparency is still the answer. So get ready for a flood of memos. This is either going to be very enlightening, or brutally painful.

Powerful Super Bowl Ads

A beautiful newborn baby cries and fidgets in her hospital bed. She is perfect. A nurse lifts her up to comfort her. It’s revealed that the child is missing both legs below the knee and one arm.

She is still perfect.

Toyota hit the ball out of the park with its compelling Super Bowl commercial about Paralympic Gold Medalist Lauren Woolstencroft. In 60 seconds, we saw her birth, her struggles to use her mechanical limbs, her failures, and her victories.

People who believe in eugenics see no quality of life for those born with deformities. How can they possibly think that after watching Lauren thrive and go on to win eight gold medals?

In that one minute, Toyota showed the world that all life matters. It’s important to note that no cars are mentioned in the ad, because that wasn’t the point. Toyota is transitioning into a “mobility company” and they wanted to show that the technology they are developing will help humanity.

Dodge also opted to showcase their new technology, but the carmaker was heavily criticized for their commercial.

The commercial featured a new Dodge Ram truck helping bring supplies and volunteers to communities hit by natural disasters. The controversial part? Dodge used Martin Luther King, Jr’s speech on serving in the background.

People were outraged that Dodge would use MLK’s words to sell cars.

I don’t see it that way.

I think anytime Martin Luther King Jr’s words are broadcast and remembered is a good thing.

We need to hear his words, especially now.

Yes, Dodge is selling their new Ram, but they are also selling what you can do with that vehicle: Serve others.

In 120 seconds, the Toyota and Dodge commercials conveyed the message that advancements in technology can be used for good—it’s up to us to use it that way.

The Gender-Neutralization of 'O Canada'

If progressivism is a disease, Canada is terminally ill with it. The U.S. prognosis is probably critical condition.

On Wednesday, Canada’s Senate approved changing a line in the English version of their national anthem, “O Canada,” to make it gender neutral. The second line of the anthem will now be “True patriot love in all of us command” rather than the oppressive, insanely offensive old version, “True patriot love in all thy sons command.”

Now that their anthem isn’t sexist anymore, Canadians can finally feel free to sing it again.

Somehow, I doubt the Canadian senators checked with the people because that’s not how progressives operate. I bet most Canadians would’ve preferred leaving the anthem alone. They’ve had the song that way for over a century and no one died of sexism because of it.

Canadian feminist author Margaret Atwood was one of the people behind this effort. She wrote the novel The Handmaid’s Tale. You can look that one up for insight into her feelings on tradition, faith, and conservatism. She’s real subtle.

This is the dark side of progressivism everywhere – it presumes to know what’s best for the people. But it’s always the agenda of a few, forced on the majority. Or sometimes the agenda, or feelings of just one individual. Progressivism thinks it is promoting more freedom, when often it is tyranny. So, you get things like Michelle Obama dictating to your local school what cafeteria food it can serve. Or one mother in Webster Parish, Louisiana who recently got student-led prayer banned at her daughter’s high school.

Respect for tradition as a stabilizing, enriching agent in society is one of the key diverging points of the Left and Right in the U.S. Decades of progressivism chipping away at things like religion, the flag, the Constitution, and patriotism in general, all the way to Obama’s apologizing tour of a presidency, has created an enormous backlash from heartland Americans. To the point that a whole section of Trump’s State of the Union speech was a lecture on respecting the flag, anthem, and motto. It’s just sad that we’ve sunk so low that the State of the Union has turned into a pep rally about who has more team spirit.

It’s easy to laugh at those Canadians for wimping out on their anthem. But progressivism is a persistent disease, so don’t think it can’t happen here.

MORE 3 THINGS

Is this the great Crypto-Crash of 2018?

Is this the start of the Great Crypto-Crash of 2018? All of the high value crypto-currencies have seen double digit percentage losses in the past 24 hours. Bitcoin has lost 2 thousand dollars since yesterday. That’s a total market value of 120 billion.

So what’s going on? The biggest theory right now is that futures traders are beginning to get worried about Asia launching a massive regulatory crackdown. It’s starting in Asia, but governments all over the world are looking to not only just regulate, but possibly even launch their own state cryptocurrency. South Korea and Russia have been the two most recent countries to mention plans on crypto regulation.

We knew this was coming eventually. The question now is whether cryptos like Bitcoin will be able to endure this bloodbath and recover. As Chancellor Palpatine said to Anakin Skywalker, “All those who gain power are afraid to lose it.” It’s not just losing the power, but the fear of who or what will replace them. Look at what cryptocurrency provides. It can’t be hacked, you’ll never wake up and find that someone stole your identity and emptied your bank account. Also, and this is the ultimate reason governments hate it, cryptos are not subject to a central bank. They can’t be manipulated.

It’s for these reasons that I think cryptocurrency will ultimately not only survive but rebound with a vengeance. The blockchain technology the powers crypto is going to revolutionize hundreds of industries, not just currency. The governments of the world will try and fight it, but I think - in the end - they’ll fail. We’re standing in the doorway of a technological revolution. Bitcoin is a small part of it. The transition period we’re going through will be painful, but EVERYTHING is about to change.

The gender-neutralization of 'O Cananda'

If progressivism is a disease, Canada is terminally ill with it. The U.S. prognosis is probably critical condition.

On Wednesday, Canada’s Senate approved changing a line in the English version of their national anthem, “O Canada,” to make it gender neutral. The second line of the anthem will now be “True patriot love in all of us command” rather than the oppressive, insanely offensive old version, “True patriot love in all thy sons command.”

Now that their anthem isn’t sexist anymore, Canadians can finally feel free to sing it again.

Somehow, I doubt the Canadian senators checked with the people because that’s not how progressives operate. I bet most Canadians would’ve preferred leaving the anthem alone. They’ve had the song that way for over a century and no one died of sexism because of it.

Canadian feminist author Margaret Atwood was one of the people behind this effort. She wrote the novel The Handmaid’s Tale. You can look that one up for insight into her feelings on tradition, faith, and conservatism. She’s real subtle.

This is the dark side of progressivism everywhere – it presumes to know what’s best for the people. But it’s always the agenda of a few, forced on the majority. Or sometimes the agenda, or feelings of just one individual. Progressivism thinks it is promoting more freedom, when often it is tyranny. So, you get things like Michelle Obama dictating to your local school what cafeteria food it can serve. Or one mother in Webster Parish, Louisiana who recently got student-led prayer banned at her daughter’s high school.

Respect for tradition as a stabilizing, enriching agent in society is one of the key diverging points of the Left and Right in the U.S. Decades of progressivism chipping away at things like religion, the flag, the Constitution, and patriotism in general, all the way to Obama’s apologizing tour of a presidency, has created an enormous backlash from heartland Americans. To the point that a whole section of Trump’s State of the Union speech was a lecture on respecting the flag, anthem, and motto. It’s just sad that we’ve sunk so low that the State of the Union has turned into a pep rally about who has more team spirit.

It’s easy to laugh at those Canadians for wimping out on their anthem. But progressivism is a persistent disease, so don’t think it can’t happen here.

You can hate Tom Brady because he's perfect, but not for this

It’s a kiss that made headlines this week…for all the wrong reasons.

The media is in a frenzy over a kiss between Tom Brady and his son.

In the documentary, “Tom vs. Time,” there is a scene showing his 11-year-old son asking Brady if he can check his Fantasy Football standings.

Brady replies, “What do I get?” and his son give him a quick kiss on the mouth. Brady complains “that was like a peck” and his son gives him another slightly longer kiss.

And the universe erupted in outrage.

People are criticizing Brady for the interaction—saying the kiss was “disturbing” and “uncomfortably long.”

Seriously?!

As a society, I think we have completely gone over the edge.

All I see here is a man who clearly loves his kids—the way any parent should.

By all accounts, Tom Brady appears to be a caring and attentive father; That’s the real shocker considering his insane fame and wealth.

Parenting styles are different and Tom Brady shouldn’t be shamed for expressing his completely normal affection for his children.

So, please media, stop trying to foolishly and desperately suggest that Tom Brady could be an incestual, homosexual pedophile.

Look, we all hate him because he’s perfect.

Let’s try to put jealousy aside and just enjoy the big game this weekend.

Plus, Brady has a 50/50 chance of losing—so hope for that instead of your ridiculous sexual predator narrative.

MORE 3 THINGS

Here comes the memo

Fight Club has made its way to Washington DC. The three fighters - Devin Nunes, Adam Schiff and the FBI - have been trading punches and dropping bombs over the past 24 hours as if everything rides on this one memo. The document that’s got everyone so hot and bothered, allegedly, shows abuses by the FBI and DoJ during the Russia investigation.

The FBI came out swinging yesterday saying they have quote “grave concerns” over the accuracy of some of the information within the memo. Put another way… this memo is full of crap.

Devin Nunes immediately threw back a counter combination saying:

“Having stonewalled Congress’ demands for information for nearly a year, it’s no surprise to see the FBI and DOJ issue spurious objections to allowing the American people to see information related to surveillance abuses at these agencies.”

So basically… Oh yeah, well you just don’t wanna the people to know the truth!

All went quiet for the rest of the afternoon. The fighters seemed content to circle the ring... BUT THEN, at 9pm last night, Adam Schiff came out of nowhere with a flying superman punch. In an official statement, that he also tweeted, Schiff accused Nunes of showing an edited copy of the memo to the White House without consulting the rest of the Committee.

Nunes was on the ropes, but he came back swinging saying basically… dude, we added some commas, dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s, and fixed a few minor things the FBI suggested.

All this was as of late last night. An official with the Trump administration has said the memo will “likely” be released sometime today. We’re either going to see the mother of all political bombs, or a let down that would rival one of the many James Comey testimonies.

Whether this memo is partisan or not (it is), whether the Democrats are scared of political blowback (they are), and whether the FBI is nervous about losing credibility (you better believe they are), what we now need is full transparency on all sides. So by all means, release the Nunes MOAB, but also release the Democrat rebuttal memo, AND the FBI should do the same. Let’s get all the information and make up our own minds.

I get the feeling that all the political back and forth over this memo is little more than pre fight trash talk between two boxers. The louder they are - and the more they try and build up hype - usually reveals a boring fight when it’s all said and done. But we’ll all find out for ourselves very soon.

Trey Gowdy is not seeking re-election

House Republicans are going to have to find a new favorite prosecutor.

Yesterday, Republican Trey Gowdy of South Carolina announced he will not run for re-election this fall. He has been a Representative since 2010. Basically, it sounds like Gowdy has had enough of Washington.

As a Congressman, Gowdy gained prominence in 2012 when he was chairman of the special House panel that investigated the attacks in Benghazi and found a lot of fault with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of the crisis.

Through their Benghazi investigation, the House panel discovered Hillary’s extra special private email server, which she used for government business. You know, the email server that is one of multiple excuses Democrats use to explain away Hillary’s impossible loss to Trump.

Republicans in Congress liked the cross-examination skills Gowdy brought to the House from his background as a prosecutor. Unlike many of his colleagues in both parties, Gowdy knew how to ask tough, precise questions.

Most recently, as House Oversight Committee Chairman, Gowdy has been concerned with the integrity of the FBI’s investigation into possible Russia-collusion. He is particularly concerned about the text messages between two FBI agents who were close to the investigation that reveal their anti-Trump bias.

Speculation is that Gowdy is leaving Congress for a possible Federal Judgeship, but so far, his office maintains that he’s returning to private law practice in South Carolina.

The National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman said, “Trey Gowdy exemplifies the persona of a public servant.”

On the other hand, the Democratic Congressional Committee spokesman said Gowdy’s tenure “made a mockery of Congressional oversight.”

And that dichotomy is probably exactly why Gowdy’s getting out of the game.

Yesterday Gowdy said, “I enjoy our justice system more than our political system. As I look back on my career, it is the jobs that both seek and reward fairness that are most rewarding.”

“Seeking and rewarding fairness” – yeah, that doesn’t sound much like politics at all. No wonder Gowdy’s leaving it all behind.

There was way too much complicity in the Larry Nassar case

The Meridian Township Police Department in Michigan will publicly apologize to one person today.

It’s an apology that is 14 years too late.

Brianne Randall-Gay filed a complaint with the police department against disgraced USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar in 2004, stating that he touched her inappropriately during a routine exam.

The police investigated and took Nassar’s word instead of Brianne’s. Nassar claimed the then 17-year-old “misunderstood the treatment because she was not comfortable with her body.”

They believed him and dropped the case.

If someone had believed Brianne that day, how many assaults could have been prevented?

It could have stopped more than a decade worth of emotional and physical torture for so many girls.

But no one stood up for Brianne and Larry Nassar went on to sexually assault more than 100 girls under the guise of medical treatment.

For the last couple weeks, famous faces lined the courtroom, patiently waiting to speak about their assault at the hands of Nassar.

He was ultimately sentenced to 40-175 years in prison after pleading to criminal sexual conduct involving girls under the age of 16.

Nassar is a despicable person who more than deserves his sentence. The biggest tragedy of all is that so many people were aware of the situation.

The biggest lesson we can learn from this story and from the many people who have come out in the #metoo movement is that “not to speak, is to speak.”

Complicity in evil acts is evil itself. We can all do a better job at being brave and speaking up when we know something is not right.

MORE 3 THINGS

The Best Night of Trump's Presidency

“Americans are dreamers too.” That was one of the many great lines and moments from last night’s state of the union speech. It just might have been the most powerful night of President Trump’s political career.

It’s not every day that a political event can move you to tears, but it happened - not once - BUT THREE TIMES LAST NIGHT. Trump, rather than go all hellfire and brimstone on his more controversial topics, breathed humanity into political issues through three powerful stories. A family that had lost two daughters to MS 13 gang violence stood while the President told their story. The parents of Otto Warmbier stood sobbing while the entire building erupted in applause. A North Korean defector stood and triumphantly raised his crutches as the emotion swelled.

It was a powerful night, but maybe the most effective thing to happen for Republicans didn’t have anything to do with what the President actually said. Did the Democrats know that this speech was being televised? Did they know the entire country was watching them as they sat and refused to applaud issues that 99% of the country can all rally behind? Nancy Pelosi’s scowl was so intense, she’s lucky she didn't sprain a face muscle trying to hold it.

Democrats frowned and sat for: bonuses for employees, In God We Trust, the National Anthem, Jerusalem, and higher wages. The Congressional Black Caucus actually remained seated when it was announced that African American unemployment is the lowest it’s ever been… IN HISTORY. I mean, I don’t know, seems kind of like a big deal.

Many American Democrats care deeply about immigration issues. Trump just offered amnesty for 1.8 million illegal aliens! That nearly triples what Obama offered. Did the Democratic leadership show their approval for this obvious big win? Nope. I think Pelosi’s scowl got even colder. At one point, Luis Gutierrez actually stood up and stormed out of the room. Why? The chants of USA USA seemed to offend him.

The truth is, Democrats aren’t happy with Trump’s amnesty because THEY’RE not the ones delivering it. The only thing they’re concerned with is protecting their political racket.

If there was ever an opportunity to at least APPEAR to be bipartisan, this was it. Wittingly or not, Democrats showed the country their true colors last night. So by all means, keep sitting down.

The Out of Touch Democratic Response

White. Wealthy. Privileged.

That’s Joe Kennedy in three words.

To choose someone who so perfectly embodies those adjectives to deliver the Democratic response last night revealed that the left is wildly out of touch with reality.

Democrats continue to claim they are the party of diversity and the poor, but last night they showed the world how they really think of themselves.

It’s no surprise that Joe, the grandson of Robert Kennedy, was hand-picked by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi: two white, wealthy, and privileged people desperately clinging to the fading glory days of the Democratic party.

They are so blinded by their perception of the past that they refuse to address the Kennedy family history of deception, infidelity, sexual misconduct, and murder.

How is it that they thought it was ok to put a Kennedy on a pedestal during the MeToo Movement?

Does no one remember what Ted Kennedy did to Mary Jo Kopechne?

Does no one remember that he left her to die to cover up for his indiscretions and that his family helped him?

Mary Jo Kopechne was a former secretary of Joe Kennedy’s grandfather. Does he remember her?

Democrats, you are being left behind. If Trump’s election didn’t send a clear message that the American people are done with political dynasties, I don’t know what will.

You need to let go of the past. It wasn’t that great to begin with.

It's Probably Not a good Idea to Make a List of Jewish Enemies

Here’s a good general life tip – don’t make a list of Jewish enemies, or any other list based on ethnicity. Just a bad idea.

Yesterday, former Congressional candidate Paul Nehlen – the guy who lost overwhelmingly to Paul Ryan in the 2016 Wisconsin Republican primary – blamed Jews for attacking his “America First” positions. He used Twitter to post a spreadsheet of names, including whether the person is Jewish. He claims to have received 81 personal attacks on Twitter in the last month, which is shocking because everyone knows personal attacks never happen on Twitter.

Of those 81 Twitter attackers, he says 74 are Jewish, which can only mean one thing – a vast Jewish conspiracy to ruin the popularity Nehlen thinks he has.

Or it could be the fact that Nehlen hates Jews. By the way, Nehlen’s research sucks, as it turns out several people on his list aren’t actually Jewish.

He also posted charts with photos of people who work at CNN, NBC, New York Times, NPR, and Fox News, complete with Stars of David on the photos. He said Twitter made him delete those photos. So, Nehlen is also trying to portray himself as a victim of censorship and oppression.

There has always been people like Nehlen. The difference is now they have the megaphone of social media. So why engage with a guy like this? He’s spewing hate and people just can’t take it, so they want to fight back. But you can’t win an argument with a guy like him. Pointing out that he sounds just like a 1930s Nazi isn’t going to suddenly make Nehlen say, “Huh, you know, they’re right. I do sound like a Nazi. Maybe I should reevaluate my belief about Jews.”

Nehlen is a flame-out politician grasping for anything to help keep him afloat as he aims for Ryan’s House seat again this year. Helping him trend on Twitter just throws him a life preserver.

Nehlen is a former darling of Steve Bannon and Breitbart. He’s part of the whole psycho, alt-right, white nationalist fringe that guys like Bannon have been trying to bring under the wing of the Republican Party. These guys are crackpots, but the Left would love America to think those crackpots are part of mainstream conservatism.

The Republican Party cannot run fast enough from Paul Nehlen and the alt-right.

MORE 3 THINGS

Andy's Ouster at the FBI

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, otherwise known as “Andy” in the infamous “insurance policy” text messages between Struck and Page, is leaving the Bureau. Anyone saying this is no big deal is seriously fooling themselves.

McCabe’s ouster comes the same day his boss, Director Wray, reviewed the classified memo prepared by the House Intelligence Committee. Some Congressman are even saying the memo shows KGB like behavior by the FBI. Others say it shows evidence that the controversial Steele Dossier was used as an excuse by the FBI to get a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. For a refresher, the Steele Dossier was financed by the DNC and the Clinton Campaign. Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned Steele to compile the dossier, was also working for someone else during that same timeframe… the Russian government.

As if that doesn't look bad enough, CNN reported late last night that Director Wray sent out an all-employee email yesterday evening hinting that McCabe’s dismissal had to do with an incoming Inspector General report investigating the handing of the 2016 Hillary Clinton email investigation.

And the hits just keep on coming. Was the House Intelligence Committee memo ON TOP OF the incoming Inspector General report the final hit that ultimately knocked McCabe out?

What the heck is going on at the FBI? We know McCabe’s wife received a campaign donation from a Hillary Clinton political action committee when she was running for the Virginia State Senate back in 2015. Did that payment buy his loyalty? We also know that Struck and Page were close to McCabe as revealed in their text messages. I refuse to use the words “Secret Society” here, but were these Three Amigos (McCabe, Struck and Page) the… uh… not spoken of - but definitely not secret - club… but definitely not society?

The House Intelligence Committee memo drops sometime this week. We’re about to find out if this is all just partisan hype or, as Struck says, something “ there there.”. This is feeling more and more like a Looney Tunes cartoon the further we get into this. So on that note… Stay tuned.

The 'Opportunity Zones' of the New Tax Plan

Was that Republican-backed tax plan evil or what?

At least that’s the official line from Democrats, that the plan is all about lining the pockets of companies and rich people. And how trickle-down economics is a myth invented by Republicans to make you poor and miserable. Democrats have repeated basically the same lines since Andrew Jackson. And the media helps repeat that message over and over.

Not that this tax plan was a brilliant overhaul of the system. It’s a very mediocre plan that could’ve been a lot better. But there is one part of the tax plan, which almost no one has talked about, that is designed to help some of the most economically depressed areas of the country.

This stealthy part of the tax plan is buried on page 130 of the bill. It allows states to designate certain regions within their borders as “Opportunity Zones.” These will be areas with high poverty, unemployment, and slow business growth. Businesses and venture capitalists that invest long-term in these “Opportunity Zones” could save a ton of money through avoiding capital gains taxes.

Over the last five years, the U.S. economy has grown and added jobs, but the growth has been mostly in large cities. From 2010 to 2014 – prime Obama years – more businesses closed in rural America than opened.

Investors will be allowed to create “Opportunity Funds” for the designated zones around the country to seed new businesses, expand existing businesses, or develop real estate. If investors maintain their investment for ten years, they avoid paying capital gains taxes altogether.

The chairman of President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers said if this plan works, “We’ll look back ten years from now and say this was one of the most important parts of the tax bill, and one we didn’t talk nearly enough about.”

There are plenty of ways to be cynical about a provision like this. Maybe it’s a corporate scheme to take rural America for a ride while avoiding taxes. Or maybe it really is what it sounds like – the government actually cracking open a window of opportunity, for private business to do what it’s best at, and in the process help parts of the country that need a boost. What a concept.

The 'Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act' Fails in the Senate

At five months in the womb, babies have 10 fingers and 10 toes. They can yawn and stretch. They can also feel pain.

Despite this scientific fact, the Senate voted against the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” which would ban late-term abortions on babies at 20 weeks.

46 out of 97 Senators decided they wanted to continue the debate on the bill rather than pass it.

It’s not a perfect bill by any measure. It still allows babies conceived by rape or incest to be aborted and it draws a hard line at 20 weeks.

Does that mean a 19 week and six-day-old baby conceived by rape doesn’t feel pain?

That baby absolutely feels pain.

And even if there was some point in the womb where babies don’t feel pain, does that mean it’s ok to kill them? Just because it doesn’t hurt, is it ok to take that life? No. Period. We shouldn’t be dismembering and sucking babies up with a vacuum. Abortion is and always will be a hideous and barbaric act no matter what gestation period it occurs or how that baby came to be.

As a society, we need to reject abortion wholly and completely. But this bill was a step in the right direction.

It showed a glimmer of hope that maybe we are beginning to realize the sheer horror and murder of abortion.

I have no doubt humanity will realize what an atrocity abortion has been.

And that realization will serve as a gruesome blemish on mankind’s history.

Let’s hope we open our eyes sooner rather than later.

MORE 3 THINGS

The 5G Crisis

Crisis creates opportunity. That’s the way every progressive and big government scheme takes flight. The threat of crisis gave us the federal income tax. The threat of environmental catastrophe gave us the EPA. The horror of people “dying in the streets” gave us Obamacare. And now, the fear of China is causing the government to consider nationalizing the countries mobile network.

Private companies like AT&T and Verizon built the networks you use to make cell phone calls and surf the internet on your iPhone. Call clarity and internet speeds have advanced rapidly over the years. From third generation, or 3G, in 2010 to 4G almost immediately after. But now there’s a global race for 5G, and the US government is scared to death that China will beat us.

In a leaked memo, the plan lays out two options. One: the US government pays for and builds the network. They would then RENT the airspace to private carriers. What could go wrong there?! And Two: private companies could build the network.

How is this even a hard decision? The leaked memo actually states that having private companies build the network isn’t even a real option because it would take too long and… wait for it… the Chinese might hack into it. And there it is. Every time you’re forced into one option due to a boogeyman, you need to take a step back and realize you might be getting manipulated.

This is America. We don’t nationalize private industry. We incentivize and promote competition. The Last time we nationalized an industry we got the TSA. Is anyone happy with the TSA? Show me almost anything built by the government and I’ll show you a private company building and maintaining it better.

The communications industry should be going absolutely crazy over this. Not only would this significantly hurt their business, but it’s a huge slap in the face. The government is saying, we don't believe in you. You can’t get this done, so we’ll do it for you.

We must not let fear of what’s difficult and challenging turn us into the object of our fear. If the government does this, you might as well call the new 5G network The People’s Network or The Democratic People’s Network. Give it a good communist dictatorship homage.

“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster.” If we do this we’re no better than the Chinese. The government will have greater power to do exactly what the Chinese do to their people. Listen in on calls, track internet usage, monitor GPS… imagine all the applications 5G will have on our lives in the next decade.

As with all progressive power plays, this isn’t about any tangible or real threat, this is about control. Don’t give it to them.

Steve Wynn Steps Down

In 2018, sexual assault accusations have become a daily, maybe even hourly, occurrence.

This is our new reality.

So, it’s no surprise that over the weekend we learned about allegations against both a Republican and a Democrat.

Casino mogul Steve Wynn resigned as national finance chairman of the Republican National Committee amid dozens of sexual misconduct accusations published by the Wall Street Journal.

The worst of these accusations claims Wynn pressured a married manicurist into sex and then paid her a $7.5 million settlement, according to people familiar with the matter.

Wynn denied all allegations, citing that these accusations are the result of his ex-wife—who is trying to resettle the terms of their divorce.

Burns Strider, on the other hand, does not deny the claims against him.

Strider was the Clinton campaign faith adviser. Female colleagues have complained about him going back to 2007.

He is accused of kissing female peers on the nose or forehead, trying to plan commuting times with them, and sending late night emails that expressed loneliness and poor judgment rather than X-rated material.

Strider’s accusations don’t even begin to approach Steve Wynn level allegations, but nevertheless, people are angry that Hillary Clinton didn’t immediately fire him and that he continues to work in Democratic politics.

Whether you’re Steve Wynn or Burns Strider, in the eyes of the new America—you’re guilty the second someone, anyone, claims you’re guilty. You’re immediately a sexual predator no matter how insignificant or outrageous the accusation may be.

Everyone deserves to be believed, but let’s allow common sense back in our world.

Burns Strider is not Steve Wynn—if, of course, the allegations against Steve Wynn are true.

The People's State of the Union

Have you bought your tickets yet?

If not, it’s probably too late. I’m not talking about Super Bowl tickets. I’m talking about the most self-important political rally of our times…

“The People’s State of the Union.” That doesn’t sound communist at all.

President Trump is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address tomorrow night. So, tonight, several brave American patriots, who are more concerned about everyday Americans than you or I could ever dream of being, are banding together for a preemptive rally to protest what the President says in his State of the Union speech.

But, I thought you just said Trump’s address isn’t until tomorrow night. Yes, but don’t haggle over details like that. There’s no time to listen and critically evaluate what a Republican says when there’s so much hashtagging and outraging to be done.

Who are these patriots organizing the “People’s State of the Union?” Well, there’s Sam from Who’s the Boss, Hulk from The Avengers, and Michael Moore from Flint, Michigan, among others. So, regular people. The event is in Manhattan, one of the areas of the country least associated with the common man. And tickets cost $47.

“In essence, it’s a better reflection of our state of the union based on a more populist point of view, based on the people’s point of view,” said Hulk, who also goes by Mark Ruffalo. “We want to celebrate this moment that we’re in of what is now probably one of the most influential and powerful and really beautiful movements to come into play in the U.S. since the civil rights movement.”

Sorry, Hulk. “The people” aren’t going to rally to your cause, because they know you’re not for them. They’re also smart enough to know that President Trump saying dumb things, or signing a tax-cut bill, is hardly in the same universe as the injustices of the Civil Rights era.

The real people’s state of the union is that they’re not going to spend much time this week worrying about Donald Trump’s latest tweet or your phony exercise in outrage. Not because they don’t care about America or its leadership, but because they’re too busy making a living and raising their family. You know, important stuff.

Next time, you might want to get to know some of the actual everyday American people before you decide to represent them in your anti-Trump rally.

MORE 3 THINGS

The Obama/Farrakhan Connection Confirmed

White people are a “race of devils”...“Hitler was a very good man”... Judaism is a “gutter religion.” Who said those statements? Most people, right off the bat, would probably guess David Duke. He probably HAS said very similar things in the past, but that’s not who I’m referring to. These words were spoken by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. He’s absolutely one of the most racist people in America.

If any politician or public figure were caught schmoozing with Farrakhan it would be a big deal, and Barack Obama had been accused of such during the 2008 election. Hillary Clinton even called him out over it during a debate. She said that Farrakhan’s support for Obama needed to be addressed and denounced. Obama basically denied any contact and said that he couldn’t help who supported him. So basically, the exact reasons we rightfully condemned Donald Trump for failing to denounce David Duke’s support of him, AND the exact excuse Trump gave to us.

Yesterday, TalkingPointsMemo.com published a story that featured an interesting photo. There’s Obama, flashing that million dollar smile, with Louis Farrakhan. There’s absolutely NO WAY Obama didn't know who he was taking a picture with. Farrakhan didn’t slide in at the last minute with the mother of all photobombs. Obama knew exactly what he was doing, and palling around with one of the most racist men in America apparently didn't bother him one bit.

So why have we never seen this photo? This quite possibly could have torpedoed Obama’s first run for president. The answer is the media didn’t want this to get out. The photojournalist hid the picture because it would be quote “damaging politically” if it were released. How did the media never follow up on this? Obama and Farrakhan’s contacts was one of the worst kept and dirty secrets in Washington. Despite the rumors, no one pursued this photo.

If the situations would have been reversed - if there was a picture with a white nationalist and John McCain, Mitt Romney, or Donald Trump - this would have been blasted in every newspaper and on every cable news network all over the world. I can’t find it mentioned on any major news outlet this morning. Probably because it’s a glaring reminder that they were both incompetent and also just didn’t care. Every day we’re reminded with more evidence of just how far media has fallen. If it’s not incompetence it’s blatant partisanship. Something has got to change.

Two Minutes to Midnight

We’re all doomed.

Yesterday, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – which definitely sounds like a secret society – moved the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds ahead after its annual assessment of the state of the world.

That means it is now just two minutes ‘til midnight on the Doomsday Clock. It hasn’t been two minutes to midnight since 1953.

This is not some knockoff, Casio doomsday clock. This is the official Doomsday Clock, the one you should be freaked out about.

The board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists includes 15 Nobel Prize winners, so they know their way around a doomsday clock. They’ve been setting this thing for 71 years. One of the members said at the press conference, “Today, the danger of some sort of nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger.”

To what does the organization owe its new alarm? “The failure of President Trump and other world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change.” Ten years ago, the group said climate change is “nearly as dire” as the danger of nuclear weapons. Not quite sure how that can be true, but they’re the atomic scientists.

Trump and climate change – those are the ultimate bogeymen for the Left.

Another doomsday spokesman said the risk of nuclear weapons being used undoubtedly increased last year, which is why they decided to move the clock ahead 30 seconds. But they also said the danger is worse because of humanity’s inaction on climate change.

Reading between the lines, I guess that means the world is getting hotter because of climate change, which puts people in a worse mood, which makes them more likely to launch nuclear weapons?

Okay, maybe I’m being insensitive to the doomsday crowd. Nuclear weapons are no joke. But their argument loses a lot of its punch when you try to put climate change on the same danger level as nuclear weapons.

However, credit to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – they also listed artificial intelligence among their other concerns. Not that nuclear war isn’t a serious threat, but we need a separate, larger, more urgent clock that counts us down to A.I. taking over the world. That is the doomsday clock we should be watching.

The NFL Just Committed Suicide

This year’s Super Bowl is going to be legendary.

No, not because the Philadelphia Eagles somehow managed to have a fantastic season and make the Championship game, but because I predict that it will be the last Super Bowl EVER.

The NFL is gone after this one.

Why?

Three words: Social. Justice. Committee.

The National Football League has officially established an owner-player "social justice committee" to create a "dialogue" to address issues of race relations.

The committee will "focus on education, economic development, community and police relations and the criminal justice system.”

And they’ve already started a program called “Let’s Listen Together” which will use social media to highlight NFL players working on “equality issues” off the field.

I don’t even care about football and this makes me want to throw up.

And we can all thank Colin Kaepernick for this disgusting mix of politics and sports.

I just don’t see how the NFL can survive this way. There is absolutely no justifiable reason for them to have a social justice committee. Zero.

Everyone involved in the NFL should be there to work on one thing: football. That’s it!

If players want to promote social justice outside of their day jobs, fine whatever. That’s their decision. But don’t make it something that the league has to do.

And frankly, I think the NFL already does a great job of bringing people of all backgrounds together. Football makes people of all walks of life feel connected to each other when they are rooting for their team. Every fan is equal and united when they’re on the bleachers. Just keep doing that and you’ll be a force for good in the world.

MORE 3 THINGS

That's one heck of a sentient phone glitch at the FBI

Which one of these is more believable? Bigfoot, alligators in the New York City sewer, OR the FBI’s recent excuse for “failing to preserve” five months of cell phone texts?

The latest FBI explanation for the missing texts is that it was less “failing to preserve” and more “well crap, we had a glitch.” The “glitch” apparently affected 10% of the FBI. Out of 35,000 employees, that’s about three thousand phones.

Riiight. Let’s pretend for a second that we buy this. This glitch would have to be the most picky, selective and fortuitous glitch in history. Ten percent of a large organization such as the FBI is actually pretty small. Somehow it decided to choose the two people, Struck and Page, that were at the center of potentially the biggest political scandal since Watergate. Was it just going through and randomly picking people it didn’t like?

The seemingly sentient “glitch” then decided to turn on right as the Russia investigation was ramping up. Hey, you never know, maybe all the talk of Russians scared it? Whatever it’s reason was, it kept up the mischief as the Steele Dossier was released and as James Comey was fired. Glitching this select group of personnel, during one of the most turbulent times the bureau has seen in years, sure must have been fun!

But - as happens to everyone having a good time - I guess “the glitch” eventually got tired, because - and this is TOTALLY just a coincidence - it decided to end it’s rampage on the same exact day Muller was appointed special counsel. I know it’s strange timing, but those glitches are some strange cats.

Are you kidding me with this excuse? Are we seriously supposed to believe that the FBI IT technicians failed to notice or fix this for FIVE MONTHS? I mean, was the Imran Awan family doing the FBI’s IT in addition to Debbie Wasserman Schultz?

I don’t know if the FBI is covering something up, but all this sure does look bad. These excuses are getting ridiculous. The American public deserves a full and detailed explanation for what’s going on. If not, they might as well announce the formal opening of investigations into Bigfoot and New York City sewer alligators. At least then they’d be consistent in their absurdity.

Lobbying for Google

It’s in your phone, your car, your home. Now it’s in your government too. Google is everywhere.

In 2017, Google out-spent all other companies in lobbying Washington. It was the first time that a tech company claimed this dubious top honor. Google spent $18 million on lobbying.

They had stiff competition of course. Amazon, Facebook, and Apple each broke their own lobbying records last year. Apple spent 51% more on lobbying than it did in 2016. Combined, the four tech giants spent $50 million.

What are they spending it on? Lobbying operations to try to influence policy on DACA, corporate tax reform, regulation of online advertising, mobile medical apps, self-driving vehicles, and naturally, climate change.

Government and the tech giants are barreling toward a showdown because current anti-trust laws are not equipped to handle these tech companies that transcend various industries. Amazon for example – it’s like an old mail-order catalog company, but it’s also a grocery store chain (after buying Whole Foods last year), and a TV broadcaster that produces its own original shows. Google and Apple are now similarly diverse. These are not like traditional companies focused on a single industry. And there seems to be no end to their growth.

These companies have grown so big, so fast, that – surprise – federal regulators haven’t been able to keep pace. That leaves us vulnerable. Why? Because the tech giants have more data stored about us than any government ever dreamed of collecting on its citizens. Our data is gold to these companies, and if the government wants to protect consumers from exploitation, they’ll have to pry our data from the cold, dead fingers of the tech giants. Not likely. Especially when the tech companies are paying $50 million in lobbying efforts to make sure it never comes to that.

Our constitutional form of government is very high maintenance. It requires constant vigilance. You have to keep an eye on government and business. We must be engaged and educated. Too much government interference is not a good thing. But neither is too much corporate interference.

As much as we enjoy all the services and gadgets from the tech giants, they aren’t looking out for your interests. They have their own agendas, and as we saw with Google last year when they fired James Damore for having an opinion, those agendas are not what you want being peddled in Washington.

Self-identifying may not be enough for Democrats anymore

Elizabeth Warren has a problem.

As 2020 approaches, the Democrats are trying to solve the mystery of her Native American heritage.

All her life, Warren has listed herself as Native American. She claimed she was a “minority” in the legal directory of the Association of American Law Schools.

She is listed as Native American in federal forms at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.

She even contributed to the Native American cookbook “Pow Wow Chow” and listed her name as “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee.”

But for some reason, Warren has not officially reported her Native American ethnicity to the Senate’s historian office.

And that reason is apparent to every person on planet Earth.

Elizabeth Warren isn’t really Native American.

She is the whitest white woman ever.

She claims family ties to Oklahoma going back to before it was a state, but that doesn’t mean she’s part Indian.

Warren says she grew up hearing tales from her mother’s side of the family that they had Cherokee and Delaware blood in them.

A thorough examination by genealogists has proved otherwise.

They poured over her family’s birth, marriage, and death records and could not find any conclusive proof of Native American ancestry.

Oopsie.

But does Elizabeth Warren lying about her heritage really matter to people anymore?

Can’t she simply get away with “self-identifying” as Native American? It seems like everyone else on Earth can claim they are something they’re not and we’ll go along with it, so why can’t she?

Or do we still value authenticity in a person?

I think we do, or else the democrats wouldn’t be so worried about her unsubstantiated Native American claims.

And that’s actually a really good sign.

MORE 3 THINGS

Vetting Fauxcahontas

Elizabeth Warren has a problem.

As 2020 approaches, the Democrats are trying to solve the mystery of her Native American heritage.

All her life, Warren has listed herself as Native American. She claimed she was a “minority” in the legal directory of the Association of American Law Schools.

She is listed as Native American in federal forms at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.

She even contributed to the Native American cookbook “Pow Wow Chow” and listed her name as “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee.”

But for some reason, Warren has not officially reported her Native American ethnicity to the Senate’s historian office.

And that reason is apparent to every person on planet Earth.

Elizabeth Warren isn’t really Native American.

She is the whitest white woman ever.

She claims family ties to Oklahoma going back to before it was a state, but that doesn’t mean she’s part Indian.

Warren says she grew up hearing tales from her mother’s side of the family that they had Cherokee and Delaware blood in them.

A thorough examination by genealogists has proved otherwise.

They poured over her family’s birth, marriage, and death records and could not find any conclusive proof of Native American ancestry.

Oopsie.

But does Elizabeth Warren lying about her heritage really matter to people anymore?

Can’t she simply get away with “self-identifying” as Native American? It seems like everyone else on Earth can claim they are something they’re not and we’ll go along with it, so why can’t she?

Or do we still value authenticity in a person?

I think we do, or else the democrats wouldn’t be so worried about her unsubstantiated Native American claims.

And that’s actually a really good sign.

The Oscar for Best Hypocritical Film goes to...

Call Me By Your Name is probably the most hypocritical movie ever nominated for Best Picture. And that’s no easy feat for Hollywood.

If you haven’t heard of this movie, you’re in good company because most of America hasn’t either. That’s what Hollywood hopes to change by nominating it for Best Picture yesterday.

Call Me By Your Name is a new-fashioned romantic weepy about a 17-year-old boy who is seduced by, and has a sexual relationship with, an older man who spends the summer with the boy’s family in Italy.

Critics are contractually obligated to love this movie. The LA Times calls it, “Ravishing filmmaking and piercing wisdom.”

Huffington Post says of the actors who play the lovers, “some of the richest chemistry I’ve ever witnessed in a movie. It’s sublime.”

Esquire says this movie has, “Some of the most emotional moments in film history.”

There are two major problems here. First, the plot romanticizes what would qualify as statutory rape in most of the U.S. But the movie is set in Italy, so I guess that makes it okay.

Besides that, just a few months after the #MeToo movement began, followed by the Roy Moore accusations, and the end of Kevin Spacey’s career, Hollywood is celebrating a story about an older man seducing a teenage boy. Yet, Hollywood literally deleted Kevin Spacey from the movie business because he seduced teenage boys.

We can generalize about the Hollywood community here because the whole Academy votes for Best Picture nominees, not just a small committee. Hollywood is not only excusing a movie about sex between an adult and a teenager, but praising it.

As a business community and a cultural force in this country, Hollywood has zero credibility. How do you type your hashtags and wear your black protest dresses and then nominate The Kevin Spacey Story for best picture?

Here’s the thing Hollywood – you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If #MeToo and #Time’s Up are really more than slogans or a fad to you, then you must prove it through your choices. Who you choose to work with. Your story content. And the movies you nominate for awards.

Right now, all we see is #Hypocrisy.

Reporting Live from Pyongyang

NBC News has been given rare access inside North Korea. A mainstream news outlet with a high profile anchor will FINALLY be able to show the truth about life inside the Hermit Kingdom. Let’s take a look at what they’re exposing:

Seriously? You get rare access into one of the most secretive countries on the planet, and you come back with a report on the “modern” ski resort and how beautifully colored the city is?

Is it beyond journalistic prowess to point out that you’re basically the ONLY person standing in that beautifully colored city? Maybe mention that you’re only allowed to go where your GUARDS ALLOW you to go. You know, anything at all that might actually expose the reality rather than regurgitating state narrative.

If you’re not willing to tell the truth, why even go and report on anything at all? At what point does your work become pure propaganda for a ruthless dictator? I mean, if there’s no follow up to this piece, all you’ve accomplished with this report is allow yourself to be used. Was it worth trading this “rare access” for your credibility?

Doing a stand up in North Korea must have sounded cool, but if NBC was that terrified of offending Kim Jong Un by doing their ACTUAL jobs, why didn’t they just stand Lester Holt in front of a green screen with some cool looking BRoll? At least then it wouldn’t have looked like the North Korean propaganda minister wasn’t directing their broadcast.

In 1944, Kurt Gerron was commissioned by the Nazis to fool the world into thinking that a concentration camp was actually a Jewish paradise. The movie he made was called The Fuhrer Gives a City to the Jews. It showed Jews laughing, playing and enjoying life, but when the cameras weren’t rolling they were all being tortured, murdered and shipped off to Auschwitz.

This NBC News report is dangerously close to Gerron’s movie. Evil exists when good men do nothing. Darkness reigns when people, and especially the media, fail to speak up.

MORE 3 THINGS

Shutdown Averted

The crisis has been averted, Armageddon is put on hold… PEACE IN OUR TIME! Well, for another three weeks at least. The Senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday to open the government back up for business. The great government shutdown of 2018 turned into little more than a three day weekend.

Apparently - in order to get this done - Republicans promised to immediately proceed to discuss immigration reform and DACA. Sure the Democrats come out of this looking kind of silly, but look what is now part of the GOP platform. Amnesty. That sure wasn’t the case during the primaries. Just ask Marco Rubio. He’d probably be President right now if it had been.

Democrats will eventually get their amnesty vote, but not everyone is happy. In the weeks leading up to the shutdown, the left was ironclad in their opposition, but only sixteen held strong yesterday. A civil war is brewing within the Democratic Party. The old guard led by Schumer are living on borrowed time. Their days are numbered. Wanna know what the future looks like? Check out some of the loudest opposition voices yesterday.

Bernie Sanders cast his “no” vote and then proceeded to go on an epic tweet rant. We all know his Socialist past, but he’s now joined by a chorus of new young up and comers. Luis Gutierrez - the representative from Illinois - said:

“They caved. They blinked. That’s what they do.”

Who’s the they that he’s referring to? The Democratic establishment. You see, Gutierrez represents the new blood. You’ll never hear the words revolutionary or radical spoken from these new rising stars, but that’s exactly what they are. In the late 80’s Gutierrez was a member of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, a Marxist -Leninist group. He’s also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is praised by the Democratic Socialists of America.

Kamala Harris has been called the “female Obama.” The one-term junior Senator from California is already being groomed for a run at the White House. She also voted against ending the shutdown and harshly criticized Schumer directly after the vote. Harris helped create California as a Sanctuary State, advocates free college, and was part of Al Gore’s group of Attorney Generals that looked to prosecute companies for questioning climate change.

Other notable “no” votes include Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand.

Radical progressives, overt Socialists, and Marxists. This is the direction the Left is sliding. The field is literally wide open for someone sane to come in and make a difference. An independent candidate might have more of a shot now than ever before. I wonder what Marco Rubio is doing in - say - 2020?

Turpin Family Update

Eight shiny new bicycles glistened in the sun on the front lawn of the Turpin family’s Fort Worth home.

A neighbor, Ricky Vinyard, remembers seeing the bikes and thinking they were perfect gifts for the large family.

Until he noticed the bikes were still untouched months and months after Christmas.

Their intended recipients never got to enjoy them.

The bikes were still there when David and Louise Turpin foreclosed on the trashed house. The ever-growing family left Texas behind and headed West in search of fame and fortune.

Louise chose to move to California because she wanted to be closer to Hollywood.

Louise was consumed with becoming a reality star and she believed that her 13 kids were the key to making her famous.

She was convinced they were going to be the next “Kate Plus 8” or 19 Kids and Counting.”

Louise even gave all her children names that began with the letter J, just like the famous Duggar family did.

When police arrested David and Louise last week, they were trying for a fourteenth child to help their delusional chances of getting their own show.

In a weird twist of fate, Louise and David got their wish. They are finally famous. Every day they can be seen on national television. Every day we gawk at their freakshow life.

But as we watch the Turpin’s story of heartbreaking abuse and neglect unfold in front of our eyes, let’s remember that we are NOT watching a reality TV show. This is real life. These monsters imprisoned, starved, and tortured their own children. The damage these 13 children endured at the hands of the people who are supposed to love them the most is more tragic and shocking than any show on television.

The Notorious R.B.G. on the Silver Screen

RBG is an epic motion picture coming soon to a theatre near you.

Imagine if Fox News produced a documentary about a current Supreme Court Justice, like Neil Gorsuch. Seems like the kind of thing Fox News might do. But it would be slammed by the Left as totally partisan propaganda. A legitimate news network like CNN would never make propaganda like that. Remember? Facts first. Apples are apples and all that.

A documentary about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday. It’s titled RBG – get it? And who produced it? CNN. The news network describes Ginsburg as a “cultural icon.”

When has any conservative human ever been called a cultural icon?

At the premiere, the “Notorious R.B.G.,” which is the hip nickname her fans gave her, was introduced by Robert Redford. After a standing ovation from the crowd, which included CNN boss Jeff Zucker, Ginsburg was interviewed onstage.

It’s bad enough that a Supreme Court justice allows herself to be paraded like a popstar, rubbing elbows with Hollywood and CNN. But then the interview turned to the #MeToo movement. The crowd waited in hushed silence as Ginsburg recalled her own harassment as a Cornell student in the 1950s. She told of a chemistry professor who offered to give her a practice test, which she accepted. But when she showed up to take the real test the next day, it was the same “practice” test he’d already given her. “And I knew exactly what he wanted in return,” she said.

The crowd waited for the next part of the story. But that was it. No more story detail.

It’s very strange to hear a Supreme Court Justice, sit in front of an audience and convict her former professor of sexual harassment without sharing any additional evidence. In trying to support the #MeToo crowd, she accidentally illustrated the biggest pitfall of this movement – convicting people before they’re proven guilty.

That seems very wrong of a judge to do.

Ginsburg also forgot to acknowledge the #MeToo victims of the man who appointed her to the Supreme Court – Bill Clinton.

This is the problem with the radical Progressive agenda, not even a 25-year veteran of the Supreme Court can keep up with the inconsistencies. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase justice is blind.

MORE 3 THINGS

Women's March vs. March for Life

The C word. The F word. The P word. The S word. The D word.

The FCC would surely fine me if I actually told you what was brandished on signs at Women’s Marches across the country this weekend, but you get the picture.

It was an alphabet soup of vulgarity.

The disgusting display at Women’s Marches across the country was appalling for so many reasons.

The worst was how many moms exposed their children to such hatred.

Kids have no idea what this march is about. And I don’t think their parents do either.

Just for a second, think about what you are you teaching your daughters.

What was the message at the Women’s March? Something between “We hate Trump and stay away from our genitalia” I think.

That’s not a productive mission statement.

You need to be for something, not against something.

If those who attended the Women’s March really cared about women’s rights, they would have attended the other rally that happened this weekend: The March for Life.

Their message was much more clear and noble. Let more women be born.

The March for Lifers are literally trying to save the lives of millions of women.

The Women’s Marchers are complaining about Donald Trump.

You tell me which message is more heroic.

The shutdown continues

I’m sure most of you are listening to this right now from inside the safety and security of your Government Shutdown bomb shelters. For those of you that did manage to venture out into the horror, I salute your bravery.

The shutdown is now entering its third day. The Senate has a procedural vote at noon today that could fund the government temporarily until February 8th, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope. Don’t crack the lid on those bomb shelters just yet. The rumor is the relationship between the White House and Chuck Schumer is at an all-time low. Trump met with Schumer on Friday. Trump wanted the wall, and Schumer wanted Amnesty. You can imagine how well that conversation went.

This entire thing is just so silly. The government will eventually get funded, but until that happens we’re going to be forced to watch grown men and women act like children, arguing for things they know they probably don’t have any chance of actually getting. Will the wall get funded?

Anything is possible, but I have my doubts. Will DACA become law? Let’s not forget that Obama had to write an executive order, specifically because he knew both parties wouldn’t be able to successfully vote on it.

One side WILL eventually blink, but - the question is - how long is this going to take? If this stretches through the week, we’re going to get dangerously close to this affecting our men and women in uniform. MIlitary families can’t miss a paycheck. We already pay them next to nothing for what they do. Now, the soldiers risking their lives in combat zones will also have to worry about paying their bills back home.

Both sides are to blame here. Both sides are using military families as a pawn to argue for the highly improbable. You’d think military families would be off limits in this power play between overgrown children, but they’re more than willing to play that card. One Democrat actually tried. Here’s Senator Claire McCaskill on the Senate floor, pleading for an amendment to keep paychecks going to the military:

You’d think Republicans would jump at this and take it. Here’s Mitch McConnell’s response:

The turtle has spoken. Both sides are to blame here, and neither one seems to really care about the military. End this stupidity. Get back to doing whatever it is you guys do. You know, having super cool lunches at the Capital Grille, or whatever. Your arrogance and stupidity has consequences.

N.H.S. Crisis

Great Britain’s government health care system is falling apart.

That is not a conservative talking point. The New York Times reported on it this week, with the headline “Britain’s National Health Service in Crisis.”

The head of Britain’s N.H.S. warned that the system is overwhelmed. Last year he requested four billion pounds in additional funding. He only got 1.6 billion. Also last year, 10,000 nurses quit.

The crazy thing about this New York Times report is that all the things conservatives criticize about socialized medicine, all the reasons we say it’s a bad idea and unsustainable, are actually happening. And the New York Times actually wrote about it!

It’s the kind of worst-case scenario stuff that the Left makes fun of the Right for talking about. For example:

Hospital hallways jammed with beds of frail and elderly patients waiting to be admitted.

Outpatient appointments canceled because there aren’t enough doctors to meet demand.

Patients waiting over 12 hours in emergency rooms before receiving care.

Undergraduate medical students being asked to volunteer to help ease the crush of patients.

Two weeks ago, hospitals were ordered to postpone all nonurgent surgeries until the end of the month. Many British hospitals also declared “black alerts,” meaning they cannot meet patient demand. On Twitter, British doctors described their overcrowded hospitals as “third world conditions” forcing them to practice “battlefield medicine.”

The N.H.S. director warned that the patient waiting list will grow to five million people by 2021, the highest number ever.

If this stuff wasn’t in the New York Times, no one on the Left would believe it coming from me.

A British construction worker learned from the news about the latest round of thousands of postponed surgeries. He said, “If I receive a notification, it will be the third time my operation is postponed. This is a disgrace. We injure ourselves while working to pay our taxes, and the government just leaves us to suffer.”

Are you listening, America? Still interested in that Bernie Sanders government healthcare plan?

MORE 3 THINGS

March for Life

For most of my life, abortion had been a no-go zone topic.

I always shied away from discussing it on radio. I thought it was a discussion that couldn’t do anything positive for my career and there was the fact that at one point, I was very confused about my own position on abortion.

I can proudly say that I am no longer confused.

Abortion is evil and it is wrong.

Period.

On the 45th anniversary of the March for Life on Washington, D.C., I want to take a moment to thank and applaud all the men, women, and children who brave the bitter cold every January to stand up for the lives of the unborn.

YOU are modern day abolitionists. YOU are true heroes.

Thank you for consistently reminding the American people that abortion is a practice that is wildly out of character for our country. We are a people who helped convict the Nazis of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials. We passed Civil Rights. We have a deeply religious and moral foundation. How have we allowed the murder of over 60 million babies since 1974?

Hopefully one day, we will look back at our own barbarism and shudder with shame and disbelief. Let’s pray that we are one march closer to that realization.

The end for government is nigh!

We’re now just a few short hours away from... THE END OF THE GOVERNMENT. It’s an Armageddon too terrible to even think about. Like Voldemort, this is an incident that TRULY should not be named.

I apologize to do this to you, especially if you have small children in the car, but here are the gory details. If Republicans and Democrats can’t come to an agreement on a budget by later today - and this is the part where you may have to cover the ears of your kids - nonessential services AND PERSONNEL may be told to go home!

My God man! This could last days! Will the entire country come to a stop? Oh wait, actually it looks like all essential jobs are exempt and will continue to be manned and running. So really, most of the country probably won't even notice anything happened.

BUT, what about all those “non-essential” workers and even the military? They won’t get paid! Well, actually they will. As soon as the budget is passed, they’ll be retroactively paid if they miss a check. Most federal employees and the military are paid bi-weekly, and it looks like they were just paid 4 days ago. That gives Congress two weeks to get a deal done before people start missing paychecks.

So that’s interesting. It almost looks like a government shutdown is really just a PAID vacation for “non-essential” employees. Why do I get the feeling they’re all sitting in front of the TV right now, praying for an impasse in the same way kids pray for a school snow day?

The truth is, the threat of a government shutdown is the most overhyped and overblown political tool on Capitol Hill. In reality, if a private company like Apple was managed as poorly as the US government, it would be shutting down ALL THE TIME. And they wouldn’t just be sending their “non-essentials” home for a paid vacation, they’d be firing them for good.

In fact, if they could find a way to keep the Department of Defense separate, a government shutdown now and then might actually be a good thing. ANYTHING that forces Washington DC to stare their incompetence in the face is OK in my book.

N.H.S. Crisis

Great Britain’s government health care system is falling apart.

That is not a conservative talking point. The New York Times reported on it this week, with the headline “Britain’s National Health Service in Crisis.”

The head of Britain’s N.H.S. warned that the system is overwhelmed. Last year he requested four billion pounds in additional funding. He only got 1.6 billion. Also last year, 10,000 nurses quit.

The crazy thing about this New York Times report is that all the things conservatives criticize about socialized medicine, all the reasons we say it’s a bad idea and unsustainable, are actually happening. And the New York Times actually wrote about it!

It’s the kind of worst-case scenario stuff that the Left makes fun of the Right for talking about. For example:

Hospital hallways jammed with beds of frail and elderly patients waiting to be admitted.

Outpatient appointments canceled because there aren’t enough doctors to meet demand.

Patients waiting over 12 hours in emergency rooms before receiving care.

Undergraduate medical students being asked to volunteer to help ease the crush of patients.

Two weeks ago, hospitals were ordered to postpone all nonurgent surgeries until the end of the month. Many British hospitals also declared “black alerts,” meaning they cannot meet patient demand. On Twitter, British doctors described their overcrowded hospitals as “third world conditions” forcing them to practice “battlefield medicine.”

The N.H.S. director warned that the patient waiting list will grow to five million people by 2021, the highest number ever.

If this stuff wasn’t in the New York Times, no one on the Left would believe it coming from me.

A British construction worker learned from the news about the latest round of thousands of postponed surgeries. He said, “If I receive a notification, it will be the third time my operation is postponed. This is a disgrace. We injure ourselves while working to pay our taxes, and the government just leaves us to suffer.”

Are you listening, America? Still interested in that Bernie Sanders government healthcare plan?

MORE 3 THINGS

The 2017 Fake News Awards

And the award for the least shocking report on the planet goes to…The GOP and President Trump.

Yesterday, Trump and the GOP put together something called the “Highly-Anticipated 2017 Fake News Awards.”

The report was filled with unflattering headlines from the usual suspects. ABC News, The New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post.

Look, those publications are never going to be nice to the President. They are owned and operated by liberals for the most part. Why does this fact seem to escape Trump and the GOP?

You can call them out on their bias all you want, but the truth is it’s not going to make them change, believe me I know.

It’s the American people’s responsibility to use their brains and think about where their news is coming from and to read both sides of every story.

Not to mention a “Fakes News Awards” report coming from the White House makes me a little bit uncomfortable. In their effort to control the narrative on Trump, they are throwing free speech under the bus. Just because an article is negative about the President doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve to be read or published.

Calling out fake news is what an entertainment show, like this one, does. We call out biased and bad reporting all the time. But Trump and the GOP should really have more important things to do. I would advise Trump to stop worrying about what people think of him and let his actions speak louder than their lies.

California violates first amendment aggressively promoting abortion

Free speech is on trial again at the Supreme Court. This time it’s related to abortion and the stakes could not be higher.

The case is National Institute of Family and Life Advocates vs. Becerra (Becerra is California’s attorney general). It’s about a new California law that requires pro-life pregnancy centers to post signs, in prominent places, to inform women that California offers low-cost, or in some cases free, abortions. The signs must include a phone number for abortion clinics.

California could do all the abortion clinic advertising it wants of course, but it is forcing those who are firmly against abortion to promote the abortion industry. Not only is California clearly violating free speech, it is aggressively endorsing the murder of unborn children over efforts to protect them. What have we become?

It’s kind of like forcing marriage counselors to post advertisements for hitmen, you know, that way their clients always have the option of just having their spouse murdered instead of working on the marriage.

If you crack open this legal door, imagine all the other insane positions that government could force us to start endorsing. This is the Fairness Doctrine on steroids. Imagine mandatory signs inside your church promoting atheism, except that atheist gatherings would not be required to promote your religion.

Two hundred twenty-six years after passage of the First Amendment, you’d think our freedom of speech would be secure. But apparently, the Freedom of Speech part still isn’t clear to the state of California and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. They’re only interested in protecting speech they approve. And not only protecting it, forcing people who disagree with their position to endorse it! It is absolute tyranny.

The people who run these non-profit, pro-life pregnancy centers are humble, loving, caring, genuine, hard-working people. Their mission is helping women and saving lives. They’re unsung heroes on the frontlines of the American holocaust – 21st-century Paulinas – saving people from being murdered.

Apparently, these pro-life pregnancy centers are a little too good at saving lives, because their government is going out of its way to persecute their crazy notion that the baby growing inside you is an actual human life, with inherent value, that deserves protection.

This decision should be a no-brainer for the Supreme Court. Pray that they do the right thing.

Stolen 'NOC' list brings movie plot to real life

A stolen CIA “NOC” list, it’s the plot line in almost every Hollywood spy movie. The good guys have to catch the bad guy before the names and locations of every undercover operative is outed and killed. In the movies, the good guys usually win, but this is real life.

A former CIA officer was arrested on Monday and charged with “unlawfully possessing national defense information.” He was caught red-handed with two notebooks containing the names of CIA assets and the locations of covert facilities in China. He was illegally carrying a NOC list, but he’s suspected of much worse.

The New York Times reported last year that the CIA was losing agents in China at an alarming rate. Since 2010, the Chinese government had all but completely destroyed US spying operations on the mainland. The CIA had a mole, and all the evidence pointed directly at the man arrested this week.

The damage done to the CIA in China was catastrophic, but even worse was the number of lives lost. All in all, he’s responsible for the deaths or imprisonment of twenty American agents. Say what you want about Snowden. He’s definitely a traitor enjoying the protection of Vladimir Putin, but at least he didn’t get anyone killed.

If Doc Brown and Marty McFly traveled here from the year 1985 and looked at the news headlines, they’d see a world that hasn’t really changed all that much. Now granted, the music is a lot worse and the clothes are a lot better, but they’d probably assume the Cold War was still raging.

Despite Cindy Lauper and neon shorts, the world of 1985 was kind of a scary place. Aldrich Ames was a CIA agent selling secrets to the Soviets. Because of him, multiple CIA assets were killed. Korean airlines flight zero zero seven had been shot down just two years prior. Nuclear tensions were at their highest. Both sides looked willing to press the button.

Sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it? It’s been thirty-three years. Have we learned nothing? Three decades and life is just as cheap now as it was then. The only difference between then and today is that, with our technology, we can betray, kill and threaten each other more efficiently.

The bad guy was eventually caught, but the human toll he inflicted makes this story ultimately a tragedy. Likewise, the redundant cycle we’re in is also a tragedy. How do we break it? Both as individuals and as a nation, we can not navigate the ship following pure self or national interest. Principles and values are our true north. If we don’t make a course correction, we’re in for another three decades of nothing but the same.

MORE 3 THINGS

Kentucky now has work requirement for Medicaid

To receive Medicaid in Kentucky, some will now have to work for it.

Kentucky is the first state to require that able-bodied Medicaid recipients will have to work to keep their benefits. Opponents of helping people help themselves are getting ready to sue.

Republican Governor Matt Bevin received federal permission last week to implement the work requirement. Other states had tried before to get permission from the Obama administration but were denied.

So what will this cruel Republican plan entail? Starting this July, if you’re not disabled, and you’re aged 19 to 64, you must work a minimum of 20 hours a week to receive Medicaid coverage. The work requirement is broad – it can be volunteer work, job training, taking classes, caring for the disabled, or even searching for a job. There will also be exemptions to the requirement – people with medical conditions, full-time students, etcetera.

Governor Bevin said around half of the 350,000 Kentuckians who must meet the work requirement are already employed. People will also have to earn dental and vision benefits through things like working toward a GED or taking a financial planning course.

Really, what is so wrong with this plan, other than it coming from Republicans?

“It will soon become the standard and the norm in the United States of America,” Governor Bevin said, “and America will be better for it.”

But critics are already pouncing, saying this plan will seriously harm people and that it violates Medicaid law. So, they’d prefer people stay unemployed and on government assistance?

Another politician had something to say about that: “We must make it a national principle that we will not tolerate a large army of unemployed, that we will arrange our national economy to end our present unemployment as soon as we can, and then to take wise measures against its return. I do not want to think that it is the destiny of any American to remain permanently on relief rolls.”

What insensitive Republican jerk said that? None. That was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Apparently, not even the godfather of the American nanny state himself wanted people permanently on government relief.

Why do Americans seem to value the best ideas in all areas of life except government? Maybe because in politics we’re too concerned with who gets the credit.

Good for you, Kentucky. I hope this experiment works.

Japan has false missile launch alert

First Hawaii and now Japan. The flash message rang across cell phones yesterday:

“NHK News alert. North Korea likely to have launched a missile. The government J alert (which is the Japanese version of EAS): evacuate inside the building or underground.”

It took the state of Hawaii almost 40 minutes to issue the false alarm. The Japanese took just 5 minutes, but that makes two nuclear weapon false alarms, within the Pacific theater, in just a matter of days.

What’s going on? Oh wait, what’s that? We’ve got secret camera footage into the emergency broadcast control centers from both Hawaii AND Japan? We go there now:

Well now that explains everything. A little tip, Baby Groot is probably not the best employee to have pushing your emergency alert buttons.

After seeing the computer interface for the Hawaiian system, I’m not at all surprised a mistake finally happened. It looks like a screen grab from an old Apple 2. Hey guys, 1981 called… they want their technology back.

But I have absolutely NO idea what caused the false alarm in Japan, and the Japanese apparently don’t either. If they do, they aren’t telling anyone.

We better get a full and detailed explanation from both incidents because speculation is beginning to run wild, and you can’t really blame people for filling in the holes themselves when information is this scarce. Especially at a time when nuclear war seems more likely now than it has been since the Cold War.

It doesn’t help that this latest fake alert came simultaneously as Japan, along with 19 other countries, were meeting in Canada to talk about… wait for it… escalating pressure on North Korea over its nuclear program.

I don’t know whether it’s faulty out of date technology or if Kim Jong Un has weaponized Baby Groot, but these incidents are waking people up to a very dangerous reality, and that’s this: nuclear weapons are no longer the modern day first strike. Cyber warfare is. This is probably NOT what caused these false alarms, but we all have that creeping thought that these things are now all too possible in this day and age.

Science fiction becomes reality between now and the next 10 years. It’s a brave new world.

Corruption abounds in Puerto Rico following hurricane

The air was thick with tension as FEMA agents, U.S Army Corps of Engineers, and their armed security detail entered the warehouse.

They were on a mission to see if the rumors were true.

100 days after Hurricane Maria ripped through the island, half the population is still living without electricity, despite the relief aid and construction materials that were sent to restore the electrical grid.

There was speculation that the Puerto Rican Electric Power Authority (or PREPA for short) had been hoarding these critical materials.

Once inside the warehouse, it was easy to see this was true. It was filled to the brim with equipment and resources.

That explained why FEMA agents were always so perplexed by the lack of construction materials.

PREPA received the equipment to rebuild, they just failed to do anything with it.

So while the people of Puerto Rico are forced to get by without life-saving electricity every day, their salvation has just been sitting in a warehouse.

It’s just another example of government inefficiency and idiocy at the expense of its citizens. How many lives could have been improved or even saved, if PREPA just did their job and distributed the materials?

MORE 3 THINGS