a common sense approach to a liberal world
Whenever Democrats work themselves into a lather, a question is always worth asking:
What are they trying to hide?
Case in point, Elizabeth Warren’s frantic rants over President Trump’s appointment of Mick Mulvaney (Director of the Office of Management and Budget) as Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has a nice sounding name that hides a darker agenda.Continue Reading
A little-known law has suddenly been getting a lot of attention in our nation’s Capital. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) – put into law in 1996 as part of Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America – is an oversight tool that Congress may use to overturn a rule issued by a federal agency.
The CRA was put into law as a means for Congress to oversee and control regulations issued by agencies, yet it has only been successfully used one time – during the start of the Bush Administration. The reason for this is simple. The law requires a Presidential signature for final approval – or a veto. A sitting president is unlikely to sign a resolution overturning regulations issued by his own agency and would therefore veto any CRA resolution passed by Congress.
The CRA applies to rules implemented in the last sixty legislative working days.
The Obama Administration issued literally tens of thousands of regulations (see: Trump’s Deregulation Gift). The 2016 Federal Register (the daily depository of rules and regulations) contains 97,110 pages, the highest page count in its history – dwarfing the previous record set in 2010 (also Obama) of 81,405. The Federal Register page count stood at 81,640 at the start of December 2016 when I wrote the Trump deregulation article – 15,470 pages were added in the last month of 2016 alone. There has never been a time more primed for the revival of the Congressional Review Act.Continue Reading
A Christopher Steele timeline with links. Will update periodically.Continue Reading
President Trump issued an order on Sept. 17 for the immediate declassification of three series of documents related to the Russia investigation and the spying on his presidential campaign.Continue Reading
On March 9, 2016, Department of Justice (DOJ) oversight personnel learned that the FBI had been employing outside contractors who had access to raw Section 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) data, and retained that access after their work for the FBI was completed.
This information was disclosed in a 99-page FISA court ruling on April 26, 2017, that was declassified by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
That wasn’t an isolated incident and the improper access granted to outside contractors “seems to have been the result of deliberate decisionmaking” (footnote – page 87).Continue Reading
Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz has released a report on former FBI Director James Comey’s leaking of personal memos to his attorneys, a personal friend, and the media.
Comey had told the IG that he believed the memos shared with his attorneys did not contain any classified information.
However, the IG noted that specifically: “Memos 1 and 3 contained information classified at the ‘SECRET’ level, and that Memos 2 and 7 contained small amounts of information classified at the ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ level—although Comey redacted all classified information in Memo 7 before sending to his attorneys.”Continue Reading
Carter Page, a U.S. citizen, who was a foreign policy adviser to the Trump presidential campaign in early 2016, was surveilled under FISA Title I.
The FBI used the so-called Steele Dossier—which was written by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC—to portray Page as “an agent of a foreign power,” specifically Russia, to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
FISA warrants on American citizens require formal approval from the FISC and specifically require that there be probable cause to believe the proposed target is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.
A FISA warrant is among the most invasive ways an American citizen can be spied on.Continue Reading
During Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have repeatedly called for an FBI Investigation of events surrounding Dr. Ford’s claim that she was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh when they were both in high school.
Judge Kavanaugh has already been through six FBI background investigations, including one for his nomination to the Supreme Court. The others occurred as Kavanaugh was appointed to previous significant positions.Continue Reading
By Hans Mahncke (originally published on August 29, 2022)
Last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that Facebook censored the Hunter Biden laptop story because of warnings it had received from the FBI.
In response to Zuckerberg’s statement, the FBI issued a vague statement late on Aug. 26, claiming that it had warned Facebook of “potential threat information.” Notably, the FBI didn’t dispute Zuckerberg’s account.
Any kind of collusion or cooperation between government actors and private companies to censor U.S. citizens is a direct infringement of the First Amendment. But what the FBI did may be much worse than that as it now appears that the bureau actively interfered in the 2020 election to gift Joe Biden the presidency.Continue Reading
A review by House Members of a classified document is bringing things to a head in real time.
After reviewing information from the House Intelligence Committee, including a classified memo that required the use of a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), several House Members released what can only be described as troubling statements.Continue Reading