Today, while liberal pundits were going wall-to-wall on the cable-news panels denouncing Trump as an obstructor of justice, our Commander-in-Chief flew to Florida and played golf with Rush Limbaugh.
Under a sweeping surveillance program, the Drug Enforcement Administration secretly spied on Americans who bought money counters, “the vast majority” of whom “were never shown to be connected to illicit drug-related activities.” In an extensive audit, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General revealed that between 2008 and 2014, the DEA had collected tens of thousands of records, including the names, addresses, and phone numbers of buyers, though only 131 arrests were made. (The DEA declined to reveal how many convictions were secured following those arrests.) During the same period, however, bulk purchaser data helped the DEA seize $48 million in cash, $4 million in real estate, 88 vehicles, and 179 firearms, as well as nearly 1,500 pounds of cocaine and over 21,300 pounds of marijuana.
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April Perry, Foxx’s chief ethics officer, and Conviction Integrity Director Mark Rotert have both tendered their resignations and will serve their last days on the job in May.
I wonder what they know that we don’t know?
Foxx’s office released a statement announcing that she had recused herself, but the office was forced to clarify that she had recused herself only “in the colloquial sense” after it was reported that she had continued to involve herself in the case.
(SNL voice) Never mind!
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Charles C.W. Cooke resists the cuckiness of his colleagues at National Review.
David [French] writes:
the idea that anyone is treating this report as “win” for Trump, given the sheer extent of deceptions exposed (among other things), demonstrates that the bar for his conduct has sunk so low that anything other than outright criminality is too often brushed aside as relatively meaningless.
I disagree. It is, in fact, a “win” for Trump. The central question in American politics over the last two years — and, indeed, the central question that the investigation into Russian interference gradually evolved to answer — was not “is Donald Trump a good person?” or “is Donald Trump a liar?” or “is Donald Trump fit to be president?” or even “does Donald Trump behave well when under investigation?” It was “is Donald Trump a traitor who colluded with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election, and if not, did his campaign do so on his behalf?” The answer to that question — to those questions, in fact — is a resounding “No.”
People in politics, especially people in Washington, persist in measuring Trump by the behavior they expect of Garden Variety Politicians, and whenever he doesn’t match their expectations they denounce his failure to meet their expectations as some kine of character flaw. What they forget is. that there is no basis in either history or morality for Garden Variety Politician behavior to be held up as some sort of ideal. It’s just what they’re used to. Deception is like breathing to a Garden Variety Politician; to complain about Trump is merely to complain that his sliminess is different from te expected sliminess and therefore somehow unacceptable. Additionally, the deranged hatred of Trump is such that even when he does the sort of stuff that Garden Variety Politicians do, they complain about it just because he’s Trump. Obama lied as often and as frequently as Trump is accused of doing (and don’t get me started on Bill Clinton), and even lied in circumstances where Trump tells the truth — such as the objectives of programs — and yet he’s still the Magic Negro and Trump is somehow Hitler.
Support for the Tories is plunging following Theresa May’s latest Brexit can-kick (a six-month extension until Halloween), and as cross-party talks for a Brexit compromise stall, it appears Nigel Farage’s newly formed Brexit Party is emerging as the biggest winner from all the Brexit chaos.
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Manufactured by Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group under China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC), the new drone boat, dubbed Marine Lizard, passed “delivery checks” and left the factory on April 8 in Wuhan, capital of Central China’s Hubei Province, state-run Global Times reported on Monday.
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CRB: Some people say that Trump has a blue collar sensibility. Do you see that?
NP: I do see it and even before Trump—long before Trump—actually going back to when I was in the army in the 1950s, I got to know blue-collar Americans. I’m “blue collar” myself, I suppose. I’m from the working class—my father was a milk man. But in the army I got to know people from all over the country and I fell in love with Americans—they were just great! These guys were unlike anybody I had ever met in New York or in England or France. They were mostly blue-collar kids and I think Trump has, in that sense, the common touch. That’s one of the things—it may be the main thing—that explains his political success. It doesn’t explain his success in general, but his political success, yes. Also—I often explain this to people—when I was a kid, you would rather be beaten up than back away from a fight. The worst thing in the world you could be called was a sissy. And I was beaten up many times. Trump fights back. The people who say: “Oh, he shouldn’t lower himself,” “He should ignore this,” and “Why is he demeaning himself by arguing with some dopey reporter?” I think on the contrary—if you hit him, he hits back; and he is an equal opportunity counter puncher. It doesn’t matter who you are. And actually Obama, oddly enough, made the same statement: “He pulls a knife, you pull a gun.”
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The Democratic field, which could boast more than 20 candidates by end of summer, is reaching absurd proportions. A tragedy of the commons looms. Too many Democrats grazing on the same limited resource — the non-Sanders primary vote — will help Bernie win the nomination. Why are Democrats willing to take such a risk?
Sanders provides a clue. His tax returns confirm that 2016 made America’s most famous democratic socialist a wealthy man. He might be a cause-oriented-politician — Moulton too — but for many officeholders a presidential campaign is above all an excellent business opportunity. Cable appearances build notoriety. Fundraising enhances professional networks. Losing candidate often emerge with television contracts or book deals. No one had heard of Andrew Yang before he launched his (long shot) bid. Now he’s been on The Daily Show and Tucker Carlson Tonight.
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Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP) won a landslide victory against the liberal New Democratic Party (NDP) Tuesday night.
UCP Leader Jason Kenney’s first priority: repeal the province’s carbon tax.
It’s the first time an Albertan government has been toppled after only one term in power, and it’s the third time in the last year conservatives have won a landslide victory on a platform centered around repealing carbon taxes.
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Most European countries use a form of proportional representation, which means that voters select a party, not an individual, and the parties choose who from their ‘list’ will actually wind up in the legislature. This traditionally leads to confused programs, inconsistent legislation, and stuff that nobody really voted for. It also leads to short-lived administrations.
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Can the California grid handle the charging challenges for the EVs the state is promoting to be on the grid? The knee-jerk reaction to going green as fast as possible has the potential to crash California’s already fragile economy. No one’s even talking about the load it’s going to put on the current grid. The silence is deafening.
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Steve Sailer reads this stuff so you don’t have to.
Sofia Leung:
One of the mind-blowing things she shared was this idea of how our library collections, because they are written mostly by straight white men, are a physical manifestation of white men ideas taking up all the space in our library stacks. Pause here and think about this.
If you don’t already know, “whiteness as property,” is a seminal Critical Race Theory (CRT) concept first introduced by Cheryl I. Harris in her 1993 Harvard Law Review article by the same name. She writes, “slavery as a system of property facilitated the merger of white identity and property” (p. 1721) and the formation of whiteness as property required the erasure of Native peoples. Basically, white people want to stay being white because of the privilege and protection whiteness affords under the law that they created. Harris also makes this really good point, “whiteness and property share a common premise — a conceptual nucleus — of a right to exclude” (1714). Bam! That really hits it on the head.
As I’m collaborating on this book about CRT in Library and Information Studies (LIS), I’ve been having lots of discussions on these topics with some really smart folx.
All the “experts” on the Democrat side (most of whom are connected to the Clinton machine, in one way or another) believe Bernie Sanders can’t possibly defeat Trump, so they’re doing everything they can to stop him. Ask yourself why there’s been so much enthusiasm in the liberal media for Pete Buttigieg. That’s got all the hallmarks of a Team Clinton propaganda operation. After the attempt to launch Beto O’Rourke as a “rock star” candidate fizzled, Team Clinton looked around for some other available weapon to hurl at Bernie — they really hate Bernie — and apparently Buttigieg got the nod. Another hallmark of a Team Clinton operation? It’s failing. Despite everything his enemies have done to try to boost other candidates, Bernie’s support keeps growing. He’s gained more than five points, from 16.5% to 21.7% in the Real Clear Politics national average, in just the past couple of months.
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