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Thurs. June 29, 2017
Gingrich: Congress Should Call on Obama to Testify Under Oath
by JEFF POOR
Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich reacted to host Sean Hannity’s claim that despite President Barack Obama knowing about the potential for Russia interfering in the presidential election as early as August 2016, he took no action because as Hannity put it, “he didn’t want to rock the boat” for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Gingrich responded by saying there was “no question” Congress should call the former president to testify under oath about his handling of potential Russian interference.
“There’s no question that Congress should call the former president in to testify under oath to explain what he was doing and why he was doing it,” Gingrich said. “There’s no question that they should build the case from the ground up. Who was doing the investigating? Who was reporting to the president? Who did it go through? What were the meetings like when they decided not to pursue it? I mean, talk about an extraordinary failure of national security.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
BOOM: Consumer Confidence Rises Again!
Consumer confidence rose in June, with consumer’s appraisal of current economic conditions hitting a nearly 16-year high, according to the Conference Board.
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index, which fell in May, bounced back in June, the board said on Tuesday. The is now at 118.9, up from 117.6 in May. The index had been expected to decline to to 116, according to economists estimates.
Consumers’ appraisal of current conditions drove the index upward. The share of consumers saying that business conditions are “good” increased to 30.8 percent from 29.8 percent in May. Those saying conditions are bad fell to 12.7 percent from 13.9 percent.
Consumers’ views of the labor market also improved. Those saying jobs are plentiful rose to 32.8 percent, up from 30.0 percent. Those who take a negative view, saying jobs are “hard to get,” feel to 18.0 percent from 18.3 percent.
Despite this rise in positive sentiments about current conditions, consumers were slightly less optimistic about the short-term outlook than a month earlier. The share of those saying they expect conditions to improve over the next six-months fell to 20.4 percent from 21.5 percent. On the other hand, those who expect conditions to worsen declined to 9.9 percent from 10.3 percent.
In other words, more Americans feel good about business conditions and jobs but fewer expect things to get even better in the near term.
Study: Seattle’s Minimum Wage Hike Hurting City’s Most Vulnerable Workers
A new study from the University of Washington says that Seattle’s minimum wage hike is hurting the very workers it was supposed to help.
The study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the city’s wild hike in the wage to $13 last year caused employers to cut hours, layoff workers, and eliminate jobs
In fact, the higher wage actually cut employees’ salaries by lowering their take home pay by $125 a month, the Blaze noted.
But that isn’t the worst of it. Not only did many workers lose their jobs and others have their take home pay cut, but the study also found that the higher minimum wage cost the city an additional 5,000 jobs that would have been created if businesses could have expanded at the rate seen before the new wage was forced upon them.
The new jobs could have added up to 3.5 million hours of work for Seattle workers, according to the liberal FiveThirtyEight blog.
Predictably, the higher wage actually hurt the very workers it was supposed to help, according to Jacob Vigdor, UW researcher and co-author of the study.
“The goal of this policy was to deliver higher incomes to people who were struggling to make ends meet in the city,” Vigdor said. “You’ve got to watch out because at some point you run the risk of harming the people you set out to help.”
FBI Interviews Employees of Russia-Linked Cyber Security Firm Kaspersky Lab
by KEN DILANIAN and TOM WINTER
FBI agents on Tuesday paid visits to at least a dozen employees of Kaspersky Lab, a Russian-based cyber-security company, asking questions about that company’s operations as part of a counter-intelligence inquiry, multiple sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
In a classic FBI investigative tactic, agents visited the homes of the employees at the end of the work day at multiple locations on both the east and west coasts, the sources said.
There is no indication at this time that the inquiry is part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling and possible collusion. Kaspersky has long been of interest to the U.S. government.
Its cyber-security software is widely used in the United States, and its billionaire owner, Eugene Kaspersky, has close ties to some Russian intelligence figures, according to U.S. officials. He graduated in 1987 from the Soviet KGB-backed Institute of Cryptography, Telecommunications, and Computer Science.
An employee walks behind a glass wall at Kaspersky headquarters in Moscow, October 2016.Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP - Getty Images fileKaspersky Lab paid former national security adviser Michael Flynn $11,250 in 2015 for cyber-security consulting, according to public documents, but that was not a focus of the FBI questioning, multiple sources said.
FBI agents told employees they were not in trouble, and that the bureau was merely gathering facts about how Kaspersky works, including to what extent the U.S. operations ultimately report to Moscow.
Kaspersky sells cyber-security software to businesses and the government in the U.S., although intelligence officials have warned for years that the company has ties to Russia. Kaspersky Labs has sought to raise its American profile with corporate sponsorships, including of National Public Radio.
"I wouldn't put their stuff on my computer if you paid me," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official.
In a statement, Kaspersky Lab said it "has no ties to any government, and the company has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its cyberespionage efforts. The company has a 20-year history in the IT security industry of always abiding by the highest ethical business practices, and Kaspersky Lab believes it is completely unacceptable that the company is being unjustly accused without any hard evidence to back up these false allegations. Kaspersky Lab is available to assist all concerned government organizations with any ongoing investigations, and the company ardently believes a deeper examination of Kaspersky Lab will confirm that these allegations are unfounded."
FBI agents told employees they were not in trouble, and that the bureau was merely gathering facts about how Kaspersky works, including to what extent the U.S. operations ultimately report to Moscow.
Kaspersky sells cyber-security software to businesses and the government in the U.S., although intelligence officials have warned for years that the company has ties to Russia. Kaspersky Labs has sought to raise its American profile with corporate sponsorships, including of National Public Radio.
"I wouldn't put their stuff on my computer if you paid me," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official.
In a statement, Kaspersky Lab said it "has no ties to any government, and the company has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its cyberespionage efforts. The company has a 20-year history in the IT security industry of always abiding by the highest ethical business practices, and Kaspersky Lab believes it is completely unacceptable that the company is being unjustly accused without any hard evidence to back up these false allegations. Kaspersky Lab is available to assist all concerned government organizations with any ongoing investigations, and the company ardently believes a deeper examination of Kaspersky Lab will confirm that these allegations are unfounded."
REPORT: TOP FBI OFFICIAL HAD IT IN FOR FLYNN
We know that President Obama had it in for Gen. Michael Flynn. The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency was a persistent critic of Obama’s feckless policies, especially regarding ISIS. Obama reportedly advised president-elect Trump not to offer Flynn a high level position.
According to this report from Circa, the FBI’s Andrew McCabe also had an ax to grind with Flynn. A few years ago, Robyn Gritz, a supervisory special agent, filed a discrimination/retaliation claim against the FBI. Flynn supported Gritz’s claim. According to Circa, he wrote a letter of support in 2014 on his official Pentagon stationery, backed her in a 2015 public interview, and offered to testify on her behalf. (The FBI opposed allowing Flynn to testify. As I read Circa’s story, it appears that he did not testify.)
McCabe was implicated in the retaliation part of the case. Circa says he admitted that the FBI opened an internal investigation into Gritz’s personal conduct after learning that the agent had filed or intended to file a sex discrimination complaint against her supervisors. McCabe’s involvement was such that he had to submit a sworn statement to investigators.
Such developments are hardly a feather in the cap of an FBI official trying to climb the ladder to the top. I doubt McCabe was amused.
In late 2016, McCabe was the number two man at the FBI. He emerged as a central player in the FBI’s Russia election tampering investigation.
This put him in a position to get back at Flynn. Three FBI employees told Circa they personally witnessed McCabe make disparaging remarks about Flynn before and during the time the retired Army general became a figure in the Russia case. They say that McCabe’s disparaging remarks made them uncomfortable as the Russia probe unfolded and pressure built to investigate Flynn. One employee says he even consulted a private lawyer.
If Circa’s reporting is accurate, it seems clear that McCabe should have recused himself from any aspect of the probe pertaining to Flynn. Instead, according to Circa’s sources, he drove the probe in all of its aspects.
I don’t mean to say that Flynn shouldn’t be investigated or that the investigation itself has been unfair. I have no knowledge one way or the other that bears on these questions. (The well-publicized, see below, phone conversation with the Russian ambassador doesn’t warrant an investigation because there wasn’t anything improper about it).
However, we all know that Flynn has been the victim of improper leaking. Circa reports:
FBI agents’ concerns became more pronounced when a highly-classified piece of evidence — an intercepted conversation between Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak — suddenly leaked to the news media and prompted Flynn’s resignation as Trump’s top security adviser.
“The Flynn leaks were nothing short of political,” one FBI employee said, noting the specific contents of the conversation were known by only a handful of government officials when they leaked. “The leaks appeared to be targeted to take Flynn out.”
Who within the FBI had a personal reason for wanting to take Flynn out? The answer, it appears, is Andrew McCabe.
What about James Comey? He says that when President Trump asked him if he might go easy on Gen. Flynn, a “good guy,” Comey responded, “I agree, he is a good guy.”
Did Comey really say this? If so, was he just deflecting Trump’s request or did he believe what he said?
At this point, who knows? It seems likely, though, that McCabe, not Comey, was Flynn’s enemy at the FBI.
“Good guy” or not, the FBI’s leaking of adverse information about Flynn was unconscionable. If McCabe is responsible for it, he should be held accountable.
Breitbart Exclusive — Pornstar Jenna Jameson Bashes Playboy for Defending Very Fake News CNN: ‘Have a Seat, Playboy’
Getty Images
Legendary pornstar Jenna Jameson is calling out “the liberals behind the bunny” at Playboy Magazine after Playboy was the only publication in the White House briefing room on Tuesday to defend embattled CNN amid its very fake news scandal.
Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders lit into CNN after getting asked by Breitbart News about the scandal that forced three of CNN’s senior most editorial staff to resign in disgrace after the retraction of a blatantly false hit piece on President Donald Trump and his associates.
After Sanders lit into the media, Playboy Magazine’s White House reporter Brian Karem was the only person in the entire media to spring to the defense of CNN. He jumped up and bashed the White House for calling out the very fake news scandal ripping CNN apart. Karem’s lack of courage for journalistic integrity has made him into a semi-celebrity in the media since he pulled this stunt in Tuesday’s briefing, as BuzzFeed played him up and even CNN had him on as a guest to promote him on Wednesday morning.
Karem, in his latest column for Playboy, waxed poetic for nearly a thousand words about how great he thinks he is for standing up to the meanies in the White House. But Karem’s behavior against journalistic integrity on behalf of the institutional left’s ideals is, in Jameson’s mind, another sign of Playboy’s lack of credibility.
“Well to be honest I’m surprised Playboy is even allowed at the White House,” Jameson told Breitbart News. “Since they thought it was a good idea to remove the nudity from their failing publication, I have to say they lost credibility. The fact that they think people actually DO read Playboy for the articles shows they took their finger off the pulse of what people will spend their hard earned money on, a long time ago. Once again, this is a failed attempt by the liberals behind the bunny to drum up a bit of publicity in hopes to make us all care again. Have a seat, Playboy.”
Playboy infamously pulled nudity out of its magazines in 2016, then reversed course in early 2017 opening it back up.
“I’ll be the first to admit that the way in which the magazine portrayed nudity was dated, but removing it entirely was a mistake,” Hugh Hefner’s son Cooper Hefner said in early 2017.
Jameson, a hardcore conservative and supporter of President Trump, is the world’s most famous adult entertainment star. A few years ago, even CNN’s Anderson Cooper admitted when he interviewed her that Jameson is the “queen of porn.”
Clarence Thomas: SCOTUS Ought Not ‘Stand by Idly’ as Gun Control Cripples 2nd Amendment
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by AWR HAWKINS
In a June 26 dissent that accompanied the Supreme Court of the United States’ (SCOTUS) announcement that it would not hear Peruta v. California, Justice Clarence Thomas said the court ought not “stand by idly” as state-level gun control cripples the Second Amendment.
On January 12, 2017, Breitbart News reported SCOTUS was asked to review Peruta in hopes of securing a ruling on fundamental rights, particularly as to “whether the Second Amendment entitles ordinary, law-abiding citizens to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense in some manner, including concealed carry when open carry is forbidden by state law.”
Thomas contended that SCOTUS’s decision to pass over Peruta was “indefensible.”
Thomas: 'truly blessed' to share court with Scalia
Cornell published the text of Thomas’s dissent, in which he expressed concern that SCOTUS is treating the Second Amendment “as a disfavored right.” He observed, “The Constitution does not rank certain rights above others, and I do not think this Court should impose such a hierarchy by selectively enforcing its preferred rights.”
Thomas then expressed concern that a sheltered, inside-the-beltway lifestyle is blinding many to the Framers’ intentionality in hedging in gun rights for the citizenry at large:
For those of us who work in marbled halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem antiquated and superfluous. But the Framers made a clear choice: They reserved to all Americans the right to bear arms for self-defense. I do not think we should stand by idly while a State denies its citizens that right, particularly when their very lives may depend on it. I respectfully dissent.
Thomas was joined in dissent by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
G’day…Ciao…….Helen and Moe Lauzier
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