Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud the FBI for arresting a man in connection to threats made against Jewish Community Centers and other institutions, and the suspect might surprise you. They also get a kick out of Colin Kaepernick suddenly ending his national protests now that he needs a job. And they unload on Rep. Cedric Richmond for his horrible comments about KellyAnne Conway and for stating that Trump is not his president.
A former Justice Department official says the liberal outrage over Attorney General Jeff Sessions having contact with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 campaign is much ado about nothing and that Democrats are doing whatever they can to thwart the Trump agenda.
He also says reports of a slush fund at the Justice Department created during the Obama years and funneled money to liberal activist groups are a big deal and further evidence that Democrats turned a blind eye to the Justice Department when far more serious things were happening.
It’s the Sessions story that has the media in a frenzy Thursday after Wednesday reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions misled senators during his confirmation hearings in January.
At that hearing, Sen. Al Franken cited CNN reports that officials in the Trump campaign discussed the election on multiple occasions with agents of the Russian government. When asked by Franken what he would do if the reports were proven true, Sessions indicated he was unaware of such activity.
“I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians. And I’m unable to comment on it,” said Sessions during the confirmation hearing.
New revelations show that Sessions was at an event that included Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the Republican National Convention in July 2016. They also crossed paths later in the year.
Democrats are now accusing Sessions of perjury for that answer and for not clarifying the statement in writing after the hearing.
On Thursday, Sessions did try to clarify.
“I have not met with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaign,” he told NBC News.
So is Sessions in real political or legal trouble for his testimony under oath or are his critics deliberately blurring the line between communication about the campaign and communication for other purposes?
Former Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky says this controversy is way overblown.
“Those calls for his resignation are all overblown and there’s no reason for him to resign,” said von Spakovsky, who now runs the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation. “There’s really nothing to this story.”
He says the Democrats are still in shock over losing the elections and are lashing out in every possible direction.
“They did not want Jeff Sessions to become attorney general because he’s a conservative, rule of law type of guy. They’re seizing on this, even though there’s nothing really to it when you dig down into it, because they want to oppose anything the attorney general might do, such as actually start enforcing our immigration laws. That’s the real goal here,” said von Spakovsky.
But why is there nothing to the story? Von Spakovsky says you have to understand Sen. Franken’s question in its proper context.
“It’s clear Sen. Franken is asking about communications between the Trump campaign and Russian intermediaries or agents about the election. Sen. Sessions had no such meetings with the Russians over the elections as a surrogate of the campaign,” said von Spakovsky.
He also says the meetings in question hardly qualify as election collusion.
“One of them was a conference at which there was a hundred people, ambassadors and their staff. They had been invited to observe the RNC convention by the State Department. The Heritage Foundation, a number of other organizations and the U.S. State Department had this conference at which Jeff Sessions was the keynote speaker,” said von Spakovsky.
“The idea that he engaged in some hush-hush conspiracy talk with the Russian ambassador in a conference with a hundred folks where he’s giving the keynote speech is just ridiculous,” said von Spakovsky.
“The only other meeting was a meeting when he was a member of the (Senate) Armed Services Committee and he had a meeting with the Russian ambassador last year in which they talked about relations between the countries, no discussion of the election,” said von Spakovsky, noting Sessions met with roughly two dozen ambassadors in 2016.
Several Republicans are joining Democrats in demanding Sessions recuse himself from the federal investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 elections and any collusion it had with the Trump campaign. Von Spakovsky says there’s nothing for Sessions to recuse himself from.
“That’s premature because at the moment there’s nothing in front of the attorney general. The FBI has not sent over any kind of investigative file for him to look at,” said von Spakovsky.
While Sessions stands in the media and political cross hairs, the Obama Justice Department is under fire for operating a slush fund to give a boost to liberal activist groups. Instead of sending money won through legal cases to the U.S. Treasury, the Justice Department instead sent billions to activist groups, including the National Council of La Raza, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and the National Urban League.
Von Spakovsky and co-author John Fund exposed this slush fund in their book, “Obama’s Enforcer,” which details the legacy of former Attorney General Eric Holder. Von Spakovsky says this activity is unique to the Obama Justice Department.
“This has been an open secret in Washington for years, but nothing has been done about it. I would hope the new attorney general would this down and, frankly, go in and try to get these funds back if that can possibly happen,” said von Spakovsky.
He admits the action is most likely no illegal but he says it should never be done.
“I do think it was unethical. I think any funds recovered by the federal government in a lawsuit should go to the U.S. Treasury because they belong to the American taxpayer. Those funds should not be given to third party advocacy organizations, certainly not political organizations like La Raza,” said von Spakovsky.
Von Spakovsky says Holder politicized the Justice Department far more than any of his predecessors and adds that Loretta Lynch was no better. He notes the federal judges scolded DOJ attorneys for their unethical conduct and Holder was the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt of Congress for withholding documents related to the ill-fated and deadly “Fast and Furious” gun-running operation.
He says the people now venting over Sessions had no problems with the Justice Department from 2009-2017.
“We never heard any complaints whatsoever from Chuck Schumer or any other Democrats about that behavior,” said von Spakovsky.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss Democrats killing their own goal of immigration reform by refusing to work with Trump. They also discuss Attorney General Jeff Session and the significance of his comments under oath about Russian communication with the Trump campaign. And they discuss the new interior secretary’s first commute to work and comments from a GOP House member that may come back to bite him.
The Virginia congressman who defeated his own party’s House Majority leader three years ago is hailing President Trump’s speech as a “total conservative tour de force” but says Republicans must resist the temptation to embrace Obamacare-lite and truly embrace repeal and reform.
Trump’s speech Tuesday night to a Joint Session of Congress highlighted a number of conservative priorities. It received acclaim for both style and substance. Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., was thoroughly impressed.
“He hit it out of the park. It was just a total conservative tour de force across all the issues and it was all upbeat. It just gave everybody hope,” said Brat. “When MSNBC can’t say anything negative, you know you had a good speech.”
Brat hailed Trump for pushing tax cuts as part of overall tax reform and for lifting the regulatory burden from families and businesses. While politicians and pundits alike suspect tax reform cannot happen this year, Brat says Trump has a way of motivating people that the so-called experts may not understand.
“This city has a way of delaying and letting the special interests take over. Trump is the one guy who can light a fire and make sure that does not happen,” said Brat.
One of Trump’s most forceful demands was for Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. But how that can be done is becoming increasingly contentious inside the GOP.
Last week, a leaked memo of a Republican replacement plan set off fierce debate as the more conservative members of the House and Senate balked at replacing health care subsidies with refundable tax credits.
Brat also revealed that the debate over tax credits is playing out only in the wake of the leaked memo because GOP lawmakers haven’t assembled to work through a replacement bill.
“We’ve never even had a show of hands for , ‘Hey, which way do you want to go on this? That’s part of the problem with this town. Our conference needs to be more transparent and represent the will of the people,” said Brat.
“We all ran to represent the will of the people. We all ran for six years on repeal of Obamacare. So when you say repeal of Obamacare, I think the average person means repeal of Obamacare, right? If we end up putting Obamacare-lite in its place, our base is going to be furious. The average small businessperson is going to be furious,” said Brat.
Brat reminds citizens and lawmakers how we got into the current predicament with respect to Obamacare.
“The insurance guys walked into the White House eight years ago looking at their shoes. They were going to get 18 million new customers, but they knew they were setting up a non-free market death spiral system,” said Brat.
He says Republicans can’t leave the American people effectively headed down the very same road.
“Having taught economics for 20 years, you’ve got to get the system right. That’s what some of us are very worried about, that’s we’re going to do an Obamacare-lite. Then our team is going to own that product. That will be a disaster,” said Brat.
“We’ll just do the same thing and call it (something) different, but you keep the insurance regulations. You keep the implicit mandates. The tax credits will turn into a new entitlement. And then we’re also getting rid of the health care deductions in the piece that was leaked on Politico,” said Brat.
Pointing out that entitlement spending is set to engulf the entire federal budget within a decade, Brat says responsible lawmakers cannot create another entitlement through the tax credits.
“We do not want to provide another federally-run entitlement program. The others are all insolvent, right, Medicare, Social Security. Everything the feds touch is insolvent,” said Brat, who points out Trump will need to fend off the growth of mandatory spending, either through entitlement reform or pushing tax reform that spawns major economic growth and tax revenues.
Brat says the most obvious priority in replacing Obamacare needs to be lowering the costs.
“Everybody’s paying attention to who’s covered and whether everybody’s covered, but we’re ignoring the cost of 300 million Americans,” said Brat. “If you can half the cost, then the money we’re spending goes twice as far just on simple math.”
In the meantime, Brat urges the public to see through the slanted media coverage on repeal and replace. The congressman points out bronze plan deductibles are now averaging $12,000 per year while premiums increase roughly 20-25 percent per year.
“Then the press calls and they say, ‘Hey, can you assure us that every single person is going to be just as well off or have gold-plated health care?’ I’m like, ‘You’re missing the thesis. Obamacare is in a death spiral, according to the heads of Humana and Aetna,'” said Brat.
“The entire system is collapsing under it’s own weight. About five million people lost their plans due to Obamacare. Where’s the reporting on there? The reporting is just in the realm of fake news at times and they’re acting like the Republicans are in charge of the disaster that just happened over the past eight years,” said Brat.
Despite his frustrations with the media and a lack of communication within GOP ranks, Brat is still optimistic repeal and replace will happen and that it will be done right.
“The car’s in the ditch. Now we’ve got to pull it out, get some free market principles going and I think we have plenty of time to get it right,” said Brat.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America found a lot to like in Pres. Trump’s speech, from conservative principles to powerful moments to a calm but determined delivery. They also point areas where Trump is embracing big government: including infrastructure, family leave, and health reform. And they have fun with the very awkward Democratic response.
Social media, premium and cable television and educational resources are all among the worst corporations to profit from and facilitate sexual exploitation, according to a new story.
The “Dirty Dozen List” is a project of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. Communications Director Haley Halverson says the list is designed to highlight the worst offenders in several different venues.
“We’re targeting 12 mainstream corporations or organizations that we invite into our home, and that we think of as a reputable brand, that are facilitating pornography, prostitution or sex trafficking,” said Halverson.
The “Dirty Dozen List” has a page of information for each entity, so concerned citizens can reach out and urge the companies to change course.
“We don’t typically advocate for boycotts since that’s often not that effective. But we have created several different ways you can reach out and email the executives at these companies and it’s been tremendously expensive,” said Halverson, noting public pressure works quite well.
“We’ve changed policies at Google, the Department of Defense, at Walmart and Hilton Worldwide. The Hilton Worldwide hotel company used to sell on-demand pornography. For an example, when they contacted us to say that they would stop selling this contact, they told us they were receiving a thousand emails a week from our supporters,” said Halverson.
The list includes social media giants Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat. Halverson says Snapchat’s entire history is clogged with trafficking in obscenity.
“Snapchat is frequently used for sexting. With its new addition of Snapcash, Snapchat is actually monetizing a lot of sexting, some child pornography and also prostitution,” said Halverson.
“That’s something that Snapchat could easily fix or at least clean up by allowing users to age-gate some sexually graphic content that in their ‘Discover Stories’ section. Snapchat has actually been sued by a 14-year-old who was exposed to some graphic material in their stories section, which users can’t opt out of. They have to see what these images are,” said Halverson.
YouTube has volumes of explicit material available and Halverson says that site and Twitter do a terrible job of enforcing their policies against such content.
“They’ll have a policy against something like pornography or prostitution but then they won’t do anything to enforce it. It’s time that we just stand up and say. ‘It’s your platform and if you’re going to have this policy, you need to do your best to actually create a safe and friendly user environment,” said Halverson.
Comcast makes the “Dirty Dozen List” while Verizon does not. Halverson says Verizon is taking steps to force users to access explicit programs rather than listing it where every family member can see it. She says Comcast is doing just the opposite.
“Not only do they sell this on-demand pornography, but they’ve actually written us a letter defending the pornography on there that has very violent, incest and racist themes, saying it’s all part of their consumer choice,” said Halverson.
HBO is also cited. Halverson says the premium cable outlet is guilty of “mainstreaming” pornography in popular television programs such as “Game of Thrones” and “Westworld.” Other violators in this category include Roku, Amazon, Backpage, and Cosmopolitan magazine.
The list also takes aim at educational institutions that insist on making explicit material available to users of any age, specifically the American Library Association, or ALA, and Ebsco. The American Library Association consistently says it refuses to allow internet filters because of its commitment to the first amendment.
Ebsco specifically caters to kids.
“They’re an online resource to public and private school and some libraries. They’re basically a big database that kids can go in and find some academic resources for their papers,” said Halverson.
However, she says they end up finding a lot more.
“You can go in there and search something as innocent as seventh grade biology and there will be links to hardcore pornography websites. There will be articles advising kids to try public, violent, and anal sex and on how to convince your girlfriend to do that,” said Halverson, who notes that elementary school kids use the resource as well.
Halverson also pushes back against the argument that the first amendment is an adequate defense for allowing kids to see such content.
“The first amendment does not protect obscenity, which is most hardcore pornography. That has been upheld by the Supreme Court several times. Secondly, the Supreme Court rules against the ALA in a case, saying that it is OK within the first amendment to filter out sexually graphic material in order to create a safe environment for children to learn,” said Halverson.
One asset in the fight against the proliferation of obscene materials is a Justice Department willing to enforce existing laws. Halverson says the DOJ almost made the list due its inaction.
“The last administration did not enforce this law. They’re on the watch list now because it’s still early. We’re waiting to see what the DOJ will do moving forward,” said Halverson.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are encouraged by some of the budget tightening the Trump administration wants to do but are concerned that there seems to be no appetite for entitlement reform. They also wonder why George W. Bush is coming forward to criticize Trump after virtually eight years of silence on the Obama administration. And they have fun with Sen. Tom Udall’s suggestion that the Senate confirm Neil Gorsuch AND Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.
Former President George W. Bush indicated he considers President Trump’s recent executive order a “Muslim ban” and opposes efforts to infringe upon anyone’s freedom to worship, an analysis that one immigration experts suggests is evidence Bush doesn’t know what is in the policy and is continuing with his narrative that anyone killing in the name of Islam cannot be a Muslim.
Bush appeared on NBC’s ‘Today’ show to promote his new book, “Portraits of Courage,” but soon found himself immersed in a conversation about the president, the press and Trump’s temporary pause on immigration from seven nations suffering from the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism.
‘Today’ host Matt Lauer began the discussion of the executive order by quoting Bush’s positive portrayal of Islam following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
“That’s very different talk than what we’re hearing today about a Muslim ban,” said Lauer. “Do you think the president’s position on this has been well thought out?”
“It’s important for all of us to recognize one of our great strengths is for people to worship the way they want to or not worship at all. A bedrock of our freedom is the right to worship freely,” Bush responded.
Bush later said he supported an “immigration policy that is welcoming and upholds the law.”
Center for Immigration Reform Executive Director Mark Krikorian says Bush’s focus on the freedom to worship suggests he’s not all that familiar with Trump’s executive order.
“He still misunderstands what the struggle is and specifically about the travel ban he didn’t push back against Lauer’s comment that this was a Muslim ban. How can it be a Muslim ban if it only covers 10 or 12 percent of the world’s Muslims. He hasn’t been keeping up with the news and he really shouldn’t be commenting on it if he hasn’t,” said Krikorian.
But Bush wasn’t done.
“I understood right off the bat, Matt, that this was an ideological conflict and people who murder the innocent are not religious people. They want to advance an ideology,” said Bush.
Krikorian says Bush sees the threat in much the same way former President Barack Obama does.
“Even President Obama made these points about how if you’re a terrorist killing innocent people, you’re not religious. Well, that’s completely misunderstanding what it means. Who are we to say that a terrorist acting in the name of Islam doesn’t understand what Islam is?” asked Krikorian.
“Former President Bush would have been correct in saying that sort of violent perspective on Islam is not the only way to see it, that there are many Muslims who reject it. But he steps over the line, and Obama did this too, when he said that other perspectives of Islam that see it legitimately as killing infidels are not really Islam,” said Krikorian.
Krikorian is also keeping a close eye out for Trump’s revised executive order banning travel from the seven nations with significant terrorism problems. He expects the new order to carve out exceptions for anyone holding green cards.
He says the massive fight over the order is largely a distraction from the real fight over which branch of government gets to establish immigration policy.
“It’s only 90 days for seven countries. What this is really about is whether the elected representatives of the people or the judges get to decide who moves to the United States,” said Krikorian, who says the statutory power clearly gives authority to Congress, which allows the president to ban any alien or class of alien he wants.
He says the left wants that power to be in the hands of judges.
“This is something that the anti-borders people, whether on the right or on the left, have been pushing for for years, where every single visa decision – everything – would be decided by judges ultimately. That’s not what the law says,” said Krikorian.
“The courts suspending that old executive order were acting lawlessly. It was literally an illegal act by those judges,” said Krikorian.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America think Republicans ought to be pleased with the radical liberals now running the DNC. They also rip everyone involved in the flap over the White House excluding some media outlets from Friday’s gaggle. And they discuss the annual self-righteous preening of the Hollywood elite and how their air of superiority blew up in their face at the biggest moment of the night.
Social conservatives and proponents of federalism are cheering the Trump administration’s decision to rescind the Obama policy requiring public schools to accommodate transgender students and personnel according to their gender identity, but the fight is far from over.
The battle now shifts to the a Supreme Court case, state supreme courts and countless school districts around the country, but Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver says this week’s Justice Department ruling is critical.
“Removing this lawless directive from the Obama administration will do a lot to get the federal government off the backs of these local schools,” said Staver, who says the Obama order put girls at great risk by placing them in vulnerable situations with biological males.
He says the backlash by liberals and the media is
“There’s such a big backlash about this in the liberal media, like there’s something horrible that he did. Frankly, he’s just following the law. The law does not include gender identity, or sexual orientation, or gender expression – or whatever you want to say – to the non-discrimination categories,” said Staver.
Staver notes that Congress has rejected such efforts to amend Title IX to expand the application of non-discrimination policies. He further states that the authors of Title IX and the 1964 Civil Rights Act had no intention of extending such protections.
Despite the Trump administration’s move, the Supreme Court may soon weigh in the issue. On March 28, the eight justices will hear arguments in in a high profile case out of Virginia. Gavin Grimm, a biological male who identifies as male, is in a legal battle with the Gloucester County Schools.
However, Staver now believes the high court may defer on the issue as a result of Trump’s actions.
“It’s possible that the court may simply punt on this and dismiss the case because of this new development. One of the questions before the Supreme Court is should they give deference to the administrative agencies for interpreting the statute. That administrative agency has gone back to the original intent of the statute,” said Staver.
The Trump administration’s decision also impacts Staver directly.
“This comes at a good time for a case that I’m arguing next week before the Virginia Supreme Court. In the next few days, I’ll argue before the Virginia Supreme Court on the Fairfax County case,” said Staver.
“That’s a school board in northern Virginia that, on its own, included gender identity, sexual orientation and gender expression to its policies. Virginia doesn’t allow that. It has to be set at the state level,” said Staver.
“Our case deals with something that many states have and that is that these non-discrimination categories have to be set at the state level, not at the local level. You don’t want to have different policies at the state, county, and local level all conflicting with one another,” said Staver.
He says this battle is playing out around the United States.
“Just a few days ago, the Arkansas Supreme Court came down with the same thing. Fayettevile added gender identity to its non-discrimination policy. The Arkansas Supreme Court said no, you can’t do that. It has to be set at the state level. That’s exactly what I’m arguing at the Virginia Supreme Court,” said Staver.
Even more battles on this and other key issues will play out at school board meetings around the country. Staver urges people to get active at the local level.
“It’s very important to get involved with the local school board because you can stop these policies before they occur. That’s the first line of defense. You need good people at the school board, not just for these policies but for other things as well. We need good Christians and people of moral values to be on these school boards all across the country,” said Staver.
