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Yeah, that’s a real head-scratcher, all right.

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The Federal Election Campaign Act holds that an “expenditure” is any “purchase, payment, loan, advance, deposit or gift of money, or anything of value, for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.” According to Cohen and the U.S. Attorney, the hush-money payments were, it appears, made in the hopes of preventing information from becoming public before the election, and hence were “for the purpose of influencing” the election. This means that, at a minimum, they had to be reported to the Federal Election Commission; further, if they were authorized by Mr. Trump, they would become, in the law’s parlance, “coordinated expenditures,” subject to limits on the amounts that could be spent. Since the lawful contribution limit is much lower than the payments made, and the payments were not reported, this looks like an open and shut case, right?

Well, no. Or at least not in the way some might presume. To the contrary, the law — following our common sense — tells us that the hush-money payments outlined by the U.S. Attorney are clearly not campaign expenditures. There is no violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act.

So why would he do that? Obviously because that gets The Law off his back with as little lost skin as possible. By getting Cohen to plead guilty to something that wasn’t a crime, they create the illusion that it actually was a crime, which is all part of the attempt to railroad Trump. They can’t indict a sitting President, so this claim will never be tested in an actual court during Trump’s term of office, but it does provide a Clever Plastic Disguise for use by Congressional Democrats in potential impeachment activity.

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Honestly? More than I care to.

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Black population loss in Chicago is substantial but has received scant attention. In the city alone the black population has dropped 8.9% since 2010, and almost 25% since 2000. Blacks were once the largest racial/ethnic group in Chicago, but are now second behind whites; blacks are close to being surpassed by Latinos. In the entire metro area, black population is down about 5%.

Considering the rate of black-on-black crime, which never makes it to the DemLegHump Media because it isn’t really news, one can hardly blame them.

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Despite these atrocities, European leaders, even those quick to condemn Saudi Arabia for the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, have been reluctant to take action against Iran. Only Denmark has called for re-imposing sanctions following the assassination plot there. Yet, as the European Council on Foreign Relations cautions, “if Europe refrains from punishing state-sponsored assassinations and disappearances, not only will authoritarian regimes continue their repressive tactics, but the EU will lose its ability to defend its common area of freedom, security, and justice.”

The Antiplanner is on the case.

Early signs indicate at least some housing markets are cooling off. Homes for sale in Seattle aren’t seeing as much intense bidding as a few months ago. Bidding wars are also becoming rare in Portland. The Case-Shiller index says that markets are weakening in other regions as well.

The problem with the housing market is that housing costs are too high in many markets for non-rich people to find accommodation, and yet housing prices can’t come down without a lot of economic Bad Stuff happening. It’s like inflation: Inflation is a bad thing but once it happens you’re kinda stuck with it because reversing it, deflation, is even worse.

Steve Sailer watches the crazies so you don’t have to.

Jewish publications have been getting worked up lately over how several of the celebrated leaders of the anti-Trump Women’s March are big fans of the anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan and employed the Black Muslims’ bully boy squad, Fruit of Islam (or “Fruit” for short … yeah, that’s the name), as security. What’s funny is how the whole story nicely illustrates Ann Coulter’s point about how the only thing intersectionalists can come together over is hating the White Man.

I have never seen any aspect of Louis Farrakhan that could reasonably be said to qualify as ‘attractive’. I am therefore at a loss to explain why various Big Name Lefties waste their time schmoozing him, OTHER THAN the fact that he influences a lot of Voters of Color.

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I guess the Estrogen Post has nothing more important to write about.

Rap ‘stars’ can dye their hair a color not found in nature and no one of the Usual Suspects thinks it worth comment, but if a Republican decides to grow a beard it’s front-page material.

They actually get paid for this stuff.

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What a novel innovation — although I swear I’ve heard that somewhere before.

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One of the law firms involved in a trove of California lawsuits targeting ExxonMobil and other energy companies is poised to rake in millions of dollars from their climate crusades, according to Climate Litigation Watch.

Sher Edling LLP could capitalize on a big pay-day if San Francisco’s lawsuit against the oil company settles, according to documents obtained Wednesday by the watchdog. The contract between the firm, San Francisco and the county is complex and lays out a multi-tiered payment method for Sher Edling. Altshuler Berzon LLP also represents the city.

The California-based firm’s pay is dependent on the amount of the settlement. If the city secures a $100 million settlement, then lawyers could take home roughly $25 million; if the settlement exceeds $100 million, then they get $32.5 million; and roughly $36.5 million for any settlement hitting $200 million, according to the document obtained by CLW.

Political activism pays pretty well these days.

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“When I was on there it was hilarious because they initially had me come on because they wanted me to be the pop culture girl,” the 46-year-old actress explained during her recent appearance on “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen” aftershow.

Her boobs are very Republican — they are self-supporting.

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We should care deeply about what kind of shape they are going [back] in…. Recidivism rates of nearly 50 percent of federal inmates and over 75 percent of state inmates is simply unacceptable. The First Step Act will provide [support for] low-risk offenders who could become productive members of society.

I have an alternative method of Prison Reform that I would like to suggest.

1. Take prisoners into the courtyard.
2. Shoot them in the head.

The advantages of this proposal are manifest. Not only would the government save the amount that it would cost to support the prisoners for the remainder of their sentence, but it would also have — wait for it — zero recidivism rate.

That’s right. Zero recidivism. No more 50 % of federal offenders, no more 75% of state offenders … Zero. Zero recidivism.

You’re welcome.

Trump was right about “raking” Finnish forests

Government Indicts Ham Sandwich: Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty

Donald Trump warned ‘no one is above the law’ by new House intelligence committee chairman  Translation: ‘No, we still haven’t found any evidence that you broke the law, but we’ve got our eyes on you!”

Democrats See No Comparison Of Congressional Sexual Harassment Settlements To Trump Payoffs To Women

Critics Ignore White House Tradition To Smear Melania’s Christmas Trees

#PsychicNewsNetwork Trump ‘worried about impeachment’ following Cohen sentencing  He doesn’t look worried to me.

Trump inauguration spending ‘under criminal investigation’ after materials seized in Cohen case  Scraaaaape that barrel….

Barack Obama launches thinly veiled attack on Trump for ‘making up facts’  Like Obama making up the facts that he was the reason for the great current economy? Like that?

#PsychicNewsNetwork Trump’s presidency is at the ‘beginning of the end,’ House intelligence committee members says  He hopes, he hopes, he hopes….

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Continuing to chronicle the degeneration and dissolution of California.

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Research suggests that elite colleges don’t really help rich white guys. But they can have a big effect if you’re not rich, not white, or not a guy.

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Oh brave new world, that has such prices in it….

Eventually companies will have to provide housing to their employees, which will lead to the ‘company apartment house’ in place of the ‘company store’.

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Thank God for those strict gun control laws in Britain or the place would look like Texas.

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And the spirit of Ned Ludd roams the open spaces….

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

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But you have to bear in mind that Trump has accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING during his term in office.

Just remember that.

Absolutely nothing.

Read it.

And yet, as in ‘Zimbabwe’, you have clueless white people sticking around and waiting for things to get better, like Jews in 1930s Germany, never thinking that the mobs will eventually come for them.

Read it.

Bread has long been a foundational part of the human diet, but a revolt against it has been building for years—and seems to be reaching a crescendo. Today, many regard bread as a dietary archvillain—the cause of bigger waistlines and the possible origin of more insidious health concerns. Popular books and health gurus claim that bread and the proteins it harbors can cause or contribute to foggy thinking, fatigue, depression, and diseases ranging from Alzheimer’s to cancer.

But go digging through the published, peer-reviewed evidence on bread and human health, and most of what you’ll find suggests that bread is either benign or, in the case of whole-grain types, quite beneficial.

Read it.

Trump, the gift that keeps on giving.

Read it.

What drives anti-vaxxers, besides their unfounded warnings about autism, is the same principle that motivates the non-GMO crowd: we need to keep our technological hands off the supposedly divine order of nature, even if elements of that divine order, like viruses, are killing us.

I found this out firsthand years ago, when I had a conversation with the late Arne Naess, the Norwegian father of what is known as “deep ecology” and guru of the European Green movement. How seriously did Naess regard the divinity of Mother Nature? He told me that the eradication of smallpox was a technological crime against nature. The smallpox virus, he said—which had maimed, tortured, and killed millions of human beings—somehow “deserved” human protection.

The things that might be done to-day! The things indeed that are being done! It is the latter that give one so vast a sense of the former. When I think of the progress of physical and mechanical science, of medicine and sanitation during the last century, when I measure the increase in general education and average efficiency, the power now available for human service, the merely physical increment, and compare it with anything that has ever been at man’s disposal before, and when I think of what a little straggling, incidental, undisciplined and uncoordinated minority of inventors, experimenters, educators, writers and organisers has achieved this development of human possibilities, achieved it in spite of the disregard and aimlessness of the huge majority, and the passionate resistance of the active dull, my imagination grows giddy with dazzling intimations of the human splendours the justly organised state may yet attain. I glimpse for a bewildering instant the heights that may be scaled, the splendid enterprises made possible.

— Wells, H. G. (Herbert George). The New Machiavelli

This feeling is the engine that drives every ideologue’s life, regardless of political orientation. We see it primarily in the activities of the proglodytes who are in charge of our world today, but it motivated Hitler and Mao, Lenin and Stalin, Robespierre and Napoleon.

In the modern industrialized and technologically advanced world, there is all this power sloshing around, that it is impossible for people (who think that the world not only could be a better place but ought to be a better place) to resist attempting to take that power into their hands (and the hands of those who agree with them) to remake that world in the image of the utopia they have in their heads. This is what is meant by the phrase ‘immanentizing the exchaton’, and it never works; but people are eternally trying, vowing ‘This time for sure!’

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The L. A. Times published a story presenting scientifically disproved claims of sinking island assertions which were supposed to show the terrible consequence of rejecting the exaggerated IPCC climate report which was based on flawed and failed climate models.

,,,’

The Times ignored the results of scientific studies which clearly showed that Pacific island groups are not sinking and in fact are growing in stark contrast to the phony alarmist claims of sinking islands.

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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Perhaps it was something she said.

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Senan Molony is a journalist in Ireland who has been studying the Titanic for over 30 years. He recently came across an amazing discovery hidden in an attic in England. This hidden gem was pictures taken of the Titanic by the ship-building firm before it left the shipyard. One of these amazing pictures shows a 30 foot long dark marking on the hull, right where the iceberg was known to have struck the ship. This mark was judged by engineers at the Imperial College of London to be caused by the coal fire that took place in the three story-high coal bunker on the ship.

The fact that a coal fire was going on aboard is well documented. During the inquiry after the sinking, Charles Hendrickson was brought up to testify and talked about the fire. He mentioned that the fire was known of before the Titanic left Belfast and Hendrickson and three to four other men worked to put out the fire. The only way to put out a coal fire in a bunker like this, was to put the burning coal into ship’s furnace.

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

Note to self: Don’t be a ‘possible burglar’.

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The Wednesday report comes in the wake of sinking membership and multiple controversies surrounding the 108-year-old organization, including sex abuse allegations and its controversial decision to change its program name from Boy Scouts to Scouts BSA and allow girls into that program.

…

As the organization has made decisions deemed to be more inclusive, such as allowing openly gay scouts in 2013 and scoutmasters in 2015 as well as the 2018 decision to allow girls, membership has continued to decline sharply, from over 4 million members at its peak to a claimed 2.3 million members at present.

Saw that coming.

Read it.

Gotta pay for the welfare state somehow.

Pelosi and Schumer have Trump’s back against the wall  A very rich fantasy life. All they need is the foam #1 finger.

Trump impeachment: What would happen to the president and America?  Writing fantasy is not dead in Britain.

Protestors mock Trump official promoting fossil fuels at climate conference  Apparently successfully heckling a Trump administration official at a climate conference is considered a major victory.

Christian Bale met Donald Trump on set of Dark Knight film: ‘He thought I was Bruce Wayne’  More ‘mind reading’. He was probably just being polite.

Trump impeachment: President claims ‘people would revolt’ if he is removed from office after Mueller probe  Some certainly would.

Trump ‘storms out and throws briefing papers across floor’ after extraordinary televised row with Pelosi and Schumer

Scott Adams: “President Trump is in deep, deep trouble because a lot of other people did unrelated things.”

Andrew Sullivan’s false gods

Stephen King mocks Donald Trump over US border wall payment  We’ll see who laughs last.

Scott Adams: “Who knew that when you’re in the government the Russians want to talk to you.”

Trump’s says he’s not worried about impeachment – but after what just happened to Cohen he really should be  A very rich fantasy life.

For Trump’s Troubles, Blame McCain, Nixon, and George W. Bush

Trump administration halts research into potential HIV cure  Because they need dead baby parts for the research.

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Basically, because he’s an ignorant ideologue asshole, I suspect, who wants to tell other people how they can live their lives.

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Of course he does. He’s a Democrat.

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After an unexpected surge of new users caused some technical difficulties earlier in the week, the new app that some are calling the answer to the ongoing battle between conservatives and Twitter is back up and running, promising to support free expression online.

The platform, called Parler News, is named for the French word meaning “to speak,” and many are saying it is the next logical move for those who wish to do so freely without fear of being silenced.

…

The structure of the app itself closely mirrors that of Twitter, limiting the learning curve for those who choose to make the jump. User posts are limited to 1,000 characters, which other users can then support by “voting” and “echoing,” rather than “liking” and “retweeting.”

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They must think Obama is still President.

Two groups of Central American migrants made separate marches on the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana Tuesday, demanding that they be processed through the asylum system more quickly and in greater numbers, that deportations be halted, and that President Trump either let them into the country or pay them $50,000 each to go home.

Hey, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

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I wasn’t aware that Steve Bannon had anything useful to say about sex robots.

I also wasn’t aware that Political Correctness had made any inroads into the sex robot community. But apparently it has.

Huh. Ya learn somethin’ new every day.

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He was such a good boy.

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How about that GREAT government-provided health care! Don’t you wish we had a system like that in the U.S.?

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I’ll bet there’s a movie in there somewhere.

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New York State officials offered to use the power of eminent domain to seize private property for Amazon’s “HQ2” project, according to documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal.

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But you knew that.

Ace of Spades keeps us abreast of the zeitgeist.

Baizuo [Chinese & IPA characters omitted], literally “white left”]) is a derogatory Chinese neologism used to refer to Western leftist liberal elites. It refers to the left faction in the culture wars in Western politics, implying support of multiculturalism, political correctness and positive discrimination.

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Hiring cartel members to execute the entire caravan would be cheaper.

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According to the New York Times, China has to step in as the global climate champion because President Trump.

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I blame Global Warming climate change.