Radio America Online News Bureau

News & Politics

Reporter Actually Meets Red State Voters, Trump vs. Corker, Math is Racist

by


David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud former NPR CEO Ken Stern for taking the time to meet voters in red states and realizing they are nothing like the caricature offered by the mainstream media.  They’re also exasperated as President Trump and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker resume their public feud and accomplish nothing other than choke momentum for tax reform and tax cuts.  And they react with disgust to a University of Illinois professor who argues that proficiency in algebra and geometry perpetuates unearned white privilege and that “mathematics itself operates as Whiteness.”

Share

Mueller Looks at Podesta, Right Needs to Reject O’Reilly, CNN’s Rotten Apple

by


David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome the news that special counsel Robert Mueller is looking at possible criminal activity by the Podesta Group, which not only shows Mueller is looking at activities on the left but also highlights the fact Russia and the Soviet Union have meddled in U.S. politics for decades.  They also discuss the latest reports of former Fox News allegedly shelling out $32 million to settle a lawsuit from a former Fox contributor who alleged a “non-consensual sexual relationship” with Bill O’Reilly, and David concluding the political right should treat O’Reilly as a pariah akin to Harvey Weinstein.  And they roll their eyes as CNN unveils its new “Facts First” campaign by showing an apple and saying that some people – clearly referring to President Trump – insist the apple is a banana.  They explain why CNN’s does not have the moral high ground in this debate.

Share

Lawyer for FBI Informant Talks Russia Uranium Probe

by

The lawyer for a former FBI informant who gathered evidence of a massive Russian bribery scheme to influence U.S. nuclear policy during the Obama administration says it is illegal for the government to prevent her client from speaking to Congress about what he knows.

She also says her client’s revelations went largely ignored by the FBI for political reasons and that he was threatened with criminal prosecution by the Justice Department under former Attorney General Loretta Lynch if he ever spoke publicly about the case.

Victoria Toensing has been representing the unnamed informant for the past several weeks.  Toensing is a former deputy assistant attorney general and a former federal prosecutor.  She is now a partner in the Washington law firm of diGenova & Toensing.

She says this whole saga began more than eight years ago.

“My client began working with the FBI in 2009 after he was contracted with the Russian company in the nuclear business.  All of a sudden, he was asked to take part of his salary and give it as kickback money in bribes.  They didn’t say it that way.  They just said take part and pay this person, pay that person.  So he went to the FBI.  He was appalled,” said Toensing.

“The FBI saw an opportunity and they said, ‘Work undercover for us.’  So he thought he was being a good American and he reported not only the payoffs – that was just run of the mill corruption, it’s bad corruption – but also it was important for the government as a counterintelligence measure to get information about what the Russians were doing,” said Toensing.

Toensing says her client fed volumes of information to the FBI only to learn the bureau did nothing with it.

“So that started in 2009.  Can you imagine my client’s surprise when he finds out in October 2010 that the U.S. government authorized the purchase by these corrupt companies of a company [that provided] 20 percent of the uranium for the United States?” said Toensing.

The informant was dumbfounded.

“‘Why did this go through?  Why did this happen?  Look, I’ve been giving you all this information,’ he says to his FBI people.  They kind of rolled their eyes and one of them said, ‘Politics,'” said Toensing.

No prosecutions occurred in the case until 2014 and Toensing says even then the worst penalties amounted to a slap on the wrist.  The ordeal took a much uglier turn when the Justice Department refused the informant’s request for reimbursement.

“My client was never given the money back that he paid out from his own salary that the FBI had promised to give him, so he brought suit in 2016,” said Toensing, who was not representing him at that time.

“When he filed this suit, the Loretta Lynch Justice Department called his lawyer and threatened him and said, ‘If you don’t withdraw this lawsuit, we’re going after your liberty and reputation,” she added.

The Justice Department staked its argument on the non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, that the informant signed when first agreeing to funnel evidence to the FBI.

“They said, ‘You signed a non-disclosure agreement when you started working and you will be violation of that non-disclosure agreement, and we will prosecute you for that,'” said Toensing.

In decades of legal work, Toensing says she’s never come across a threat like that over an NDA.

“I’ve never heard of a criminal penalty in a non-disclosure agreement.  It’s usually a civil penalty, a $25,000 fine or something,” said Toensing, who also says there almost always exceptions to the NDA, such as court subpoenas or congressional testimony.

Furthermore, she says the Justice Department won’t even allow her client to see his NDA.

“How do I know?  When the lawyer in 2016 filed a [Freedom of Information] request to get that non-disclosure agreement, the government refused to answer, wouldn’t even respond,” said Toensing.

The effort now is to waive the terms of the NDA.  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is formally inviting Toensing’s client to testify and also asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to release him from the NDA to testify.

Toensing says if given the opportunity, her client’s testimony will be “significant” but she doesn’t see how the testimony can legally be blocked.

“It’s a constitutional issue.  The executive branch can’t forbid someone from giving information to the legislative branch.  That’s a separation of powers issue,” said Toensing.

When asked if Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the probe into Russian involvement in the 2016 elections could complicate his decision on Grassley’s request for the informant to testify, Toensing says it is vital no to intertwine or conflate the two matters.

“No, no, no, no.  Don’t do this.  This is not all things Russia.  I haven’t met a reporter yet who understands this, which shows you how good the Democrats are in their talking points.

“Jeff (Sessions) recused himself because he was involved in the campaign and there’s a specific Justice Department guideline that says if the campaign is being investigated, if you participated in the campaign you have to recuse yourself.  This is not all things Russia,” said Toensing.

She says Trump could also release her client from his NDA.

While on the subject of recusal, Toensing says former FBI Director Robert Mueller ought to step aside as special counsel following the revelation from the informant that the FBI sat on the Russian corruption while Mueller was in charge.

Toensing says that alone is not evidence of any misdeeds by Mueller, but she says the mere appearance of impropriety should lead him to step away from the investigation.

In addition, she says the virtual media blackout on this story since the explosive reports emerged earlier in the week is stunning.

“Gosh, it’s just amazing.  I was told by a friend of mine that knows something about this that he approached CNN and they said, ‘No, we don’t want to do it.’

“I was called by CNN [Thursday] just to give some facts.  At the end, I said, ‘Well, why don’t you have me on.’ ‘Oh that’s a good idea.  We’ll get back to you,'” said Toensing.

“Jake Tapper had (former Attorney General) Eric Holder on the other day after this story broke and didn’t even ask him if he had been briefed on the corruption investigation.  He didn’t even ask him.  He calls himself a journalist?” said Toensing.

Standard Podcast [ 11:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Share

Kelly’s Critical Message, Revolting ‘Rock Star,’ Left Suddenly Respects Bush 43

by


Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud White House Chief of Staff John Kelly for painfully explaining to reporters and the public what the family of a fallen service member goes through and why he was stunned at Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson going public with her condemnation of President Trump’s phone call with the grieving widow of a slain soldier.  They also vent their disgust as Wilson reacts to Kelly’s criticism by claiming she is stunned at all the attention she is getting from the White House and planning to tell her children she’s now “a rock star.”  And they roll their eyes as many liberal writers and commentators claim they’ve always thought George W. Bush was a decent guy in the wake of his speech that many see as a rebuke of Trump.  Jim reminds lefties of how they compared Bush to Hitler on a regular basis and accused him knowing about the 9/11 terrorist attacks ahead of time.

Share

Property Rights Advocates Plead with Trump

by

Property rights advocates are pleading for President Trump to get much more aggressive in rolling back national monument declarations on federal lands, asserting jobs and communities are scarce because of Uncle Sam’s tight grip on any sort of activity in those areas.

At issue is a 1906 law called the Antiquities Act.  Originally designed to protect sensitive areas containing fossils and petrified wood from looters in the sparsely populated western United States, the law gave the president the power to unilaterally protect vulnerable sites, with the specific instruction of taking control of as little land as possible to get the job done.

Over the past 111 years, however, the government has gotten far more aggressive in designating larger and larger swaths of lands in the West and elsewhere as national monuments and grinding business and recreational activity to a halt.

“They just use it to prevent the American people from using their own land.  That’s what president Trump said he would end, that he would end this egregious abuse of federal power and return the decisions on how these lands are used to the people who live on the land,” said Robert J. Smith, a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Smith’s organization is leading a push consisting of 37 different groups and activists in getting Trump to take decisive action on the issue.

They are worried that Trump will tread lightly since Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke conducted a study of what many property rights advocates consider the 27 greatest abuses of the Antiquities Act.  They were not impressed with Zinke’s conclusions.

“I don’t think he has really followed the directions he got from President Trump to really look at these and end this abuse of federal power.  On most of them, he has essentially left them as they are.  I think all these that were under consideration – all 27 – should be rescinded,” said Smith.

Smith is urging the president not to accept Zinke’s recommendations.

“When he has finally had a chance to go through Zinke’s report, he should send him back to the drawing board and say, ‘That’s a nice start but now you really have to do what I suggested and that’s end this abuse of federal power,” said Smith.

The Antiquities Act was first used by Theodore Roosevelt to protect Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, a designation that put two square miles under tighter federal control.  Smith says that cautious approach was largely honored until 1996 and presidents of both parties have pushed the envelope ever since.

President Bill Clinton stirred major controversy by designating in 1996 by designating Utah’s Grand Staircase Escalante as a national monument without ever conferring with any Utah officials.  That move locked up 1.9 million acres of land by the federal government with the stroke of a pen.

Smith says there was an ulterior motive than just keeping certain lands pristine.  Environmental groups were threatening to boycott Clinton’s re-election that year unless he gave them what they wanted in terms of national monument declarations.

And why did the green movement have their eyes on that particular land?

“Among other things, it included the Kaiparowits coal deposits, one of the two largest EPA-compatible clean coal deposits on the planet, enough clean coal to run the U.S. for hundreds of years,” said Smith.

Smith says Clinton authorized other major land grabs, so did George W. Bush and he says Barack Obama did it “in spades.”  In fact Bush and Obama teamed up for an unthinkably huge monument designation that didn’t even involve land.

“One of those was called the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, created first by George W. Bush and then expanded by Obama.  It’s 500,000 square miles in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,” said Smith.

Smith says the economic impact of national monument designations has been devastating to job creation and the economies of the local communities.  With no development allowed, good jobs in energy exploration, forestry and mining are gone and only low-paying service jobs remain to cater to the tourists visiting the monuments.

He says the creeping of federal control also makes if harder for ranchers to let their cattle graze, as locks on grazing areas will suddenly be changed.  Even vehicular traffic is greatly restricted in many of these areas despite government promises that would not happen.

Smith hopes Trump will push Secretary Zinke to be much more aggressive in his recommendations.  But he says Congress ultimately holds the key on this problem and needs to repeal the 1906 Antiquities Act.

“It’s an antiquated act.  These western lands are not unpopulated and unwatched and being looted and pillaged and destroyed today.  In fact you just about can’t do anything on these lands.  Almost everything is now illegal,” said Smith.

Standard Podcast [ 18:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Share

Sunlight for New Russia Scandal, Unmasking Mess Gets Worse, ‘Fake Melania’

by


As they celebrate seven years of the Three Martini Lunch, Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America also applaud Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley for requesting testimony from the FBI informant behind the explosive reports of Russians engaging in bribes, kickbacks, and Clinton Foundation donations in order to get Hillary Clinton’s help in steering 20 percent of U.S. uranium to Russia.  They also wonder just how deep the unmasking scandal goes, as former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power says she had nothing to do with the vast majority of the 260 unmasking requests done in her name.  And they have fun with the absurd but viral contention among liberals on social media that someone else was pretending to be First Lady Melania Trump during a recent appearance with the president.

Share

EPA Sinks ‘Sue and Settle’

by

Limited government advocates and property rights champions are cheering Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt for publicly announcing he will scrap the tactic known as “sue and settle” for as long as he is in office.

“We will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the Agency by special interest groups where doing so would circumvent the regulatory process set forth by Congress,” Pruitt said in a statement.

So what is “sue and settle?”  In short, it’s a way that politicians and bureaucrats shift policy by pretending to be in a legal fight with a political ally and altering a specific rule in order to supposedly avoid a lawsuit.

Patrick Hedger, manager of the Regulatory Action Center at the FreedomWorks Foundation, offers a more detailed description of how this political and legal charade plays out.

“(Government) agencies will sometimes collude with private actors, such as third party non-governmental organizations, non-profits, and other activist organizations in order to facilitate an expedited rule-making process that goes outside the normal rule-making,” said Hedger.

“There will be a faux lawsuit and instead of taking that suit to court, they will settle it out of court, generally behind closed doors, in a process known as a consent decree.  That consent decree will force the agency to act in a way that’s normally a lot faster and more aggressive than a normal federal rule-making process,” said Hedger.

Hedger says this bureaucratic maneuver then provides political cover for an administration that wanted to change the rule all along.

“This is a way for agencies to avoid political accountability for controversial decisions.  Usually, we’ve seen very expensive and aggressive regulations being passed, particularly environmental regulations.  This is a way for agencies like the EPA, in the past, to say, ‘We had our hands tied by this lawsuit,’ even though this was their ultimate political goal,” said Hedger.

Hedger is quick to add that no party is innocent when it comes to using “sue and settle” but some administrations have utilized it much more than others.

“This has basically been a bipartisan practice but it accelerated greatly during the Obama administration,” said Hedger.

He also offered some examples of the more onerous rules established through “sue and settle,” including the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule.

“It basically forces power plants to put in expensive new infrastructure to achieve extremely stringent emissions standards.  That’s estimated to cost almost $10 billion annually.  There were Clean Water Act rules that applied to the Chesapeake Bay.  Those are estimated to cost anywhere from $18-20 billion per year.  All of these were achieved through ‘sue and settle’ litigation,” said Hedger.

Hedger is thrilled that Pruitt declared an end to a practice that subverts the normal rule-making process.

“This is a process that has been used by both Republican and Democratic administrations.  This just shows that the Trump administration is very much still committed to getting back to regular order and the proper way of doing things.

“Instead of using this political end around to achieve its own goals, the Trump administration is just trying to bring the government back in line with the Constitution and the Administrative Procedures Act, which is supposed to govern regulations,” said Hedger.

Scrapping “sue and settle” is just one of several moves from Pruitt’s EPA that is drawing high praise from limit government activists.  Earlier this month, Pruitt announced what many see as the beginning of the end of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which required substantial decreases in carbon emissions and was considered the death blow to the coal industry.

Earlier this year, Pruitt also started the rollback of the Waters of the United States rule, or WOTUS.  That update changed the definition of navigable waterway from one you could actually navigate with a boat and was usually connected to a larger body of water to virtually and standing water in a drainage ditch or even a puddle.

Hedger likes Pruitt’s policies but likes his fidelity to his oath even more.

“I think Administrator Pruitt is doing a phenomenal job of, first and foremost, putting the Constitution first,” said Hedger.  “There is a way to achieve a clean environment while also adhering to the rule of law and I think that’s the structure that we’re seeing from Pruitt’s EPA.”

But while Pruitt is making a lot of big moves, Hedger says the next EPA boss could easily reverse it all.  He says lawmakers need to get involved.

“This does, at some level, have to fall back on Congress to stop passing these vague laws.  Particularly in the case of ‘sue and settle,’ there are parts of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act that encourage that encourage this type of practice.  So Congress should go in and clarify that they never intended for this ‘sue and settle’ and consent decree practice to happen,” said Hedger.

Hedger says Pruitt’s moves on process and on existing rules are a breath of fresh air to property and business owners.  However, he says much more can be done to relieve the regulatory burden on American families and businesses.

“Right now, there’s so much focus on tax reform, which is good, but if you look at the estimates of the economic burden of federal regulation versus the economic burden of taxes, they estimate that the regulatory burden in this country approaches two trillion dollars per year, which is more than is collected in individual and corporate income taxes,” said Hedger.

Standard Podcast [ 9:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Share

Gillespie Gains, Alabama Dead Heat, Pathetic Plan to Make Hillary President

by


Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America note Republican Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie grabbing a small lead in one poll and greatly closing the gap in others as his tough stance on gang violence resonates with voters.  They’re also stunned to see Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones knotted at 42-42 in a new poll of the special election to fill a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama.  And they suggest an intervention may be needed after Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig unveils his ludicrous five-point plan to make Hillary Clinton president in the near future.

Share

Bolton Talks Iran Deal, ISIS Defeat, Tillerson & Trump

by

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says President Trump took a good first step in decertifying the Iran nuclear deal but he says the whole thing must be scrapped in order to remove the smokescreen that Iran is an honest player and end the financial windfall for the the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.

Bolton is also cheering the collapse of ISIS and commending President Trump for policy changes that expedited that outcome, however he is deeply concerned about the fate of the Kurds as Iranian-backed militias and even the official Iraqi forces look to force Kurdish fidelity to the regime in Baghdad.

And he is also urging Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to get on the same page quickly for the sake of American foreign policy.

On Thursday, Trump announced he was decertifying the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, negotiated among the Obama administration, Iran, and five other nations in 2015.  Decertifying the agreement does not kill it but gives Congress 60 days to act on it.  If Congress cannot reach a consensus on how to move forward, Trump could then decide to abandon the deal.

Bolton has long called for a complete withdrawal from the JCPOA, but he is encouraged by Trump’s decision to declare Iran non-compliant.

“It’s certainly much better than recertifying that the deal is in America’s national interest.  What he did is to at least serve notice that it’s not.  Nobody should be under any illusions that we’re still in the Obama administration,” said Bolton.

But he says it is vital for Trump to kill the deal once and for all in the next couple of months.

“The reason that United States needs to withdraw entirely is to create a new reality, to strip away the camouflage that Iran is provided by this deal, where it gains resources from trade and investment deals from all over the world but basically continues to pursue its nuclear weapons program without adequate inspection or verification,” said Bolton.

And Bolton is confident that Trump will have the chance to kill it because he has no confidence in Congress.

“This basically gives Congress 60 days to see if they can come up with some kind of comprehensive strategy.  I have no faith whatever that Congress will be able to do that.

“So at 60 days, it’ll be back to the president.  I’m hoping then that having given the supporters of the deal and the people who think the deal can be improved time to play out their option and failing, that he’ll then take the next step and get out of the deal entirely,” said Bolton.

Bolton says “camouflage” of a compliant, responsible Iran is nonsense.

“The argument to stay in the deal is that somehow the deal is constraining them and I believe that it’s not.  They gave up temporary, easily reversible concessions in exchange for hundreds of billions of dollars of trade and investment and assets being unfrozen,” said Bolton.

Furthermore, Bolton says Iran’s supposed transparency is also a farce.

“Every time that the Iranians have made a disclosure about their nuclear program for the last 20 years, it’s only been after U.S. intelligence uncovered it or Iranian opposition groups made it public,” said Bolton.

He says Iran did have one brief moment of honesty that also reveals the futility of the JCPOA.

“Just about two months ago now, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said that if they made the decision themselves to withdraw from the deal, they could get back to pre-deal levels of uranium enrichment in five days.

“Now, you take everything the Iranian leadership says with a big grain of salt but in that case they happen to be right, and it’s an indication of just how minimal their concessions were,” said Bolton.

But if the JCPOA is not an effective nuclear deterrent for Iran, what would be?  First, he says it’s time for the U.S. to see Iran and North Korea as part of the same nuclear threat instead of separate challenges.  He says the following step is to make sure neither rogue actor has nukes.

“I know people don’t like to hear it but you can’t leave the military option off the table because if you believe, as Trump said in his UN speech just about a months ago, that only way forward with North Korea is denuclearization, and I think the same is true with Iran, that means we can’t leave the current scenario with them still in possession of nuclear weapons.

“Otherwise, they’re available to extort and blackmail the United States as far as the eye can see,” said Bolton.

In neighboring Iraq, the news is better at least for the moment.  On Tuesday, U.S.-backed militias said they had routed ISIS in its home base of Raqqa, Syria.  U.S. officials indicated there is still work to do but that the vast majority of Raqqa had fallen.

Bolton says the speed of military success against ISIS is a big change from the previous administration.

“The president is right to say that he significantly speeded up  the end of the ISIS caliphate.  I think we are at the point where there may still be resistance here and there, but functionally the caliphate is over,” he said, while being quick to point out many ISIS figures fled to other hostile nations, so the ISIS threat itself lives on.

However, Bolton is worried that the Iraqi forces and the Shia militias backed by the U.S. and Iran are now taking aim at the Kurdish forces in the north, already wresting control of Kirkuk away from the Kurds who saved the city from ISIS.

Bolton says the Iraqis and militias are now moving on the Kurdish capital of Irbil and they’re doing it with American weapons.  He says the Trump administration ought to respond in two ways, help the Kurds now and depose the Iranian government in the long term.

“The safety of the United States depends upon the ayatollahs being overthrown.  I’ve believed that ever since the Ayatollah Khomeini took over in 1979.

“In the near term, I think we need to provide the Kurds with the armor and the artillery that, ironically, we’ve provided the forces of the Baghdad Iraqi government and the Shia militias.  The Kurds are now being attacked with American weapons,” said Bolton, noting the Kurds have not been given such weapons.

Finally, Bolton says only President Trump and Secretary of State Tillerson know the true state of their relationship, but he says it is vital that they get on the same page fast as these two men are at the center of executing American foreign policy.

“It’s not something you can let drift on and paralyze our decision making.  It’s just too important of a combination not to have both ends of it working effectively,” said Bolton.

Bolton has some criticism of Trump on the personnel front.  Unlike Trump, he believes it is vital for Trump to nominate good people to fill a myriad of vacancies at the assistant and deputy level in the State Department.  He says Trump can’t bring about the change in bureaucracy and policy he’s promised without putting the right people in critical positions.

“The bureaucracy is like a big aircraft carrier.  The way it was sailing when the president took office on January 20th is the direction it’s going to sail in until somebody says to turn it around.  If you don’t have people around, your ability to turn it around is greatly reduced.  I think that harms the president, ultimately,” said Bolton.

Standard Podcast [ 12:59 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Share

Jerry Brown’s Good Vetoes, New Russia Scandal, Beam Her Up!

by


Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are pleasantly stunned to see liberal California Gov. Jerry Brown veto bills from his even more liberal legislature, including one that guts due process for those accused of sexual assault on college campuses and another that would ban morals clauses for employees of religious institutions.  They also throw up their hands over reports that the FBI spent years documenting Russia’s shady but successful efforts to steer U.S. nuclear policy and uranium deals its way during the Obama years  – but never made any of it public until now.  And they get a kick out of the Republican congressional candidate in Florida who claims to have been abducted by aliens and communicated with them telepathically several times since.

Share