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Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2018
All Gave Some~Some Gave All
*****
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Owner cannot afford to feed Jethro any more, as there are no more drug pushers, thieves, murderers, or molesters left in the neighborhood for him to eat.. Most of them knew Jethro only by his Chinese street name, Ho Lee Schitt.
7 Deceptions Inside Democrats’ Rebuttal of GOP FISA Memo
by AARON KLEIN
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee on Saturday released a purported rebuttal to a four-page House Republican memo from earlier this month that alleges abuse of surveillance authority on the part of Obama-era federal agencies.
The Democratic rebuttal contains misleading claims, omits key details, and, perhaps unintentionally, actually proves the FBI and Department of Justice utilized the infamous, largely discredited 35-page anti-Trump dossier to obtain a FISA court warrant to monitor an individual formerly associated with Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Here are seven key problems with the claims made inside the Democrats’ rebuttal memo.
1 – The House Democratic rebuttal opens with a seemingly deceptive statement that Steele’s dossier “did not inform” the FBI’s decision to start its investigation into Trump’s campaign in late July.
This is the first contention in the rebuttal, which relates it is trying to “correct the record.” However, the Republican memo did not assert that the dossier informed the FBI’s decision to launch its investigation in late July or anytime. Instead, the GOP memo documented that Steele’s dossier formed an “essential part” of the FISA court applications submitted by Obama-era federal agencies to monitor the communications of Carter Page, who briefly served as a volunteer foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, even though House Democrats seem to be rebutting a contention that was not made in the Republican memo, there are possible issues with the rebuttal’s claim that the FBI’s investigative team only received Steele’s “reporting” in mid-September, ostensibly referring to the written dossier. The Democrats entirely ignore that last July, Steele reportedly traveled to Rome, where he met with an FBI contact to supply the agency with alleged information he found during the course of his anti-Trump work. The Washington Post reported that Steele met with the FBI on July 5, 2016. The Democratic memo reveals that the DOJ “accurately informed the court that that the FBI initiated its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016.” That is 26 days after Steele met with the FBI in Rome.
2 – While perhaps not intending to, the Democratic memo actually confirms that the Obama Justice Department did use Steele’s largely discredited dossier for FISA court applications to monitor Page.
The memo contains a sentence stating that “as DOJ informed the court in subsequent renewals”; but the rest of that sentence is redacted. The next sentence states that “Steele’s reporting about Page’s Moscow meeting,” with the remainder of that sentence also redacted. The next sentence states that “DOJ’s applications did not otherwise rely on Steele’s reporting, including any ‘salacious’ allegations about Trump…” The word “otherwise” indicates that, according to the Democratic memo, DOJ did indeed rely on Steele’s dossier for something.
As a side note, interestingly, the Democrats only use the term “salacious” regarding the dossier, not fully quoting from former FBI Director James Comey’s famous remarks in which he testified that the anti-Trump dossier contained “salacious and unverified” material.
Meanwhile, the Democratic rebuttal goes on to cite specific instances of the FISA applications utilizing Steele’s dossier, with the applications citing Steele’s alleged sources reporting that Page took meetings in Russia.
In a clear attempt to minimize the importance of the dossier, the Democratic memo refers to a 2013 case in which Russian agents allegedly targeted Page for recruitment. In that case, Page was identified in court documents made public as “Male-1” in reference to a case involving three Russian men identified as Russian intelligence agents. The spy ring was accused of seeking information on U.S. sanctions as well as methods of developing alternate sources of energy. The FBI court filings describe “the attempted use of Male-1 as an intelligence source for Russia,” but Page was not accused of having been successfully recruited or spying. The court documents cite no evidence that “Male-1” knew he was talking with alleged Russian agents. That the Obama-era federal agencies needed to still use the dossier in light of that 2013 case may show that the 2013 episode was not enough to obtain a FISA warrant on Page. Steele’s dossier contains claims of updated meetings between Page and Russians that went into the year 2016.
The House Republican memo and a subsequent criminal referral authored by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) both state that the FISA applications relied heavily on the dossier. Grassley and Graham both reviewed the original FISA applications.
On March 17, 2017, the Chairman and Ranking Member were provided copies of the two relevant FISA applications, which requested authority to conduct surveillance on Carter Page. Both relied heavily on Mr. Steele’s dossier claims, and both applications were granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). In December of 2017, the Chairman, Ranking Member and Subcommittee Chairman Graham were allowed to review a total of four FISA applications relying on the dossier to seek surveillance of Mr. Carter Page, as well as numerous other documents relating to Mr. Steele.
3 – The rebuttal leaves out key information that may dispute the Democratic document’s claim that the FISA warrant was “not used to spy on Trump or his campaign.”
The rebuttal claims this is the case because Page “ended his affiliation with the campaign months before DOJ applied for a warrant.” This is misleading. The FISA warrant givesaccess to phone calls, email, web browsing history and other electronic records, meaning agents can retrieve any emails or recorded communications from the period Page was affiliated with the campaign and would be able to access any recorded communications with the campaign from that period. Also, according to reports, the FBI monitored Page while he spoke to then-Trump adviser Steve Bannon about Russia in January 2017.
4 – The rebuttal tries to give legitimacy to the possibly illicit surveillance of Page by noting that two of the presiding federal judges were appointed by President George W. Bush and one by President Ronald Reagan.
However, the Republicans’ issue has never been claims of partisanship on behalf of the judges, but rather the charge that key information was withheld from the judges, primarily the origins of the dossier, which was produced by the controversial Fusion GPS and paid for by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Republicans also charge that the FISA court was not told about credibility issues related to Steele.
5 – The Democratic memo raises immediate questions about the possible use of a second dossier authored by Cody Shearer, a shadowy former tabloid journalist who has long been closely associated with various Clinton scandals.
The rebuttal states that the DOJ provided the FISA court with “additional information obtained through multiple independent sources that corroborate Steele’s reporting.” The rebuttal does not mention the names of the other “independent sources.”
Shearer reemerged in the news cycle last month when the Guardian newspaper reported that the FBI has been utilizing a second dossier authored by Shearer as part of its probe into Trump and alleged Russian collusion.
The Guardian reported the so-called Shearer memo was given to the FBI by Steele in October 2016 to back up some of his claims.
According to the Guardian report, the FBI is still assessing portions of the Shearer memo. The newspaper reported that, like Steele’s dossier, Shearer’s memo cites an “unnamed source within Russia’s FSB” alleging that Trump was compromised by Russian intelligence during a 2013 trip to Moscow in which the future president purportedly engaged in “lewd acts in a five-star hotel.”
Shearer’s name was reportedly associated with the Grassley-Graham criminal referral of Steele, which contains redacted information that Steele received information from someone in the State Department, who in turn had been in contact with a “foreign sub-source” who was in touch with a redacted name described as a “friend of the Clintons.”
Numerous media reports have since stated that the second dossier author mentioned in the Grassley-Graham memo was Shearer, an associate of longtime Clinton friend Sidney Blumenthal.
According to sources who spoke to CNN, Shearer’s information was passed from Blumenthal to Jonathan Winer, who at the time was a special State Department envoy for Libya working under then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
Citing the same source, CNN reported that Shearer’s dossier is “actually a set of notes based on conversations with reporters and other sources.” CNN reported that Shearer had “circulated those notes to assorted journalists, as well as to Blumenthal.”
National Review previously dubbed Shearer a “Creepy Clinton Confidante” and “The Strangest Character in Hillary’s Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy.”
6 – While trying to argue otherwise, the Democratic rebuttal actually confirms the key contention in the Republican memo that the FBI and DOJ failed to inform the FISA court that Steele’s dossier was funded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) via the Perkins Coie law firm.
In an attempt to rebut the Republican argument that the FISA court was not informed about the dossier’s specific origins, the Democratic memo quotes from an explanation to the court that Steele:
was approached by an identified U.S. person who indicated to Source #1 [Steele] that a U.S.-based law firm had hired the identified U.S. person to conduct research regarding Candidate #1’s ties to Russia. (The identified U.S. person and Source #1 have a long-standing business relationship.) The identified U.S. person hired Source #1 to conduct this research. The identified U.S. person never advised Source #1 as to the motivation behind the research into candidate #1’s ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1’s campaign.
Contrary to the rebuttal’s characterization, this paragraph is a far cry from informing the court that the dossier utilized in the FISA warrant was paid for by Trump’s primary political opponents, namely Clinton and the DNC. Also, the general mention of “a U.S.-based law firm” does not identify to the FISA court the actual firm, Perkins Coie, which is known for its representation of Clinton and the DNC. Further, informing the FISA court about “an identified U.S. person” who hired Steele fails to actually identify that U.S. person as Glenn Simpson, founder of the controversial Fusion GPS.
The Democrats claim that the above-referenced paragraph proves the Obama-era agencies informed the FISA court about the “political” origins of the dossier. However, the Republican memo specifically and apparently correctly charged that “neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts.” The Democratic memo fails to dispute that charge.
7 – The Democratic rebuttal omitted key details about the FBI’s internal assessments of Steele and his reporting.
The Democratic memo claims that the Obama-era agencies “repeatedly affirmed to the Committee the reliability and credibility of Steele’s reporting, an assessment also reflected in the FBI’s underlying source documents.”
Actually, the House Republican memo documents that a “source validation report conducted by an independent unit within FBI assessed Steele’s reporting as only minimally corroborated.”
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
‘NeverTrump’ Columnist Booed, Escorted Out With Security After Calling Marion Le Pen CPAC Invite ‘A Disgrace’
NeverTrumper National Review columnist Mona Charen received boos and jeers amidst a smattering of applause on the main stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) after suggesting the conservative firebrand Marion Marechal-Le Pen should not have been invited to the event.
Charen — who signed the “Never Trump” edition of National Review in early 2016 — was also blasted by the audience for attacking former Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore who was the subject of a number of sexual harassment allegations during his run for office.
She said on Saturday morning: “The only reason she was here is she’s named Le Pen. And the Le Pen name is a disgrace. Her grandfather is a racist and nazi. She claims she stands for him.”
The crowd then audibly booed, after which Charen added: “The fact that CPAC invited her is a disgrace.”
Ms. Marechal-Le Pen — an audience favourite at CPAC this year, whose attendance Breitbart London editor Raheem Kassam helped secure — spoke on Friday morning about her social conservatism, opposition to the European Union, and her refusal to accept the Islamisation of France.
A source close to Ms. Le Pen told Breitbart London exclusively: “I trust more the CPAC crowd’s reaction than someone who uses a man born in 1928 to criticise a 28-year-old woman”.
The American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC, told Breitbart London: “Marion has expressed her support for life, for private property rights, and for individual liberty. She also supports French sovereignty instead of submission to European Union domination, just like we support American sovereignty rather over bowing to the United Nations.
“It seems that Charen has unfortunately chosen to hold a 28-year old granddaughter accountable for the views of her grandfather. Blaming one person for the thoughts and deeds of another is antithetical to conservatism. It is also wrong.”
Mona Charen is a never Trumper and NRO columnist. Frankly these people have no place at Trump-era CPACs anyway. They had their turn at the wheel and steered the West off the cliff of corporatism, neoliberalism, and open borders. Charen is done. https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/967486253909315585 …
Politico’s Tim Alberta reported Ms. Charen had to be escorted out by security guards for her own safety following the event.
Mona Charen, who stunned #CPAC by rebuking conservatives for excusing the behavior of Donald Trump and Roy Moore, was just escorted outside by 3 security guards after her speech. More in @POLITICOMag story later.
During her CPAC speech, the NRO columnist lashed out at the White House, stating: “I’m actually going to twist this around a bit and say that I’m disappointed in people on our side for being hypocrites about sexual harassers and abusers of women who are in our party, who are sitting in the White House, who brag about their extramarital affairs, who brag about mistreating women”.
She also claimed: “[The Republican Party] was a party that was ready to… endorse Roy Moore for Senate in the state of Alabama even though he was a credibly accused child molester… You cannot claim that you stand for women, and put up with that”.
Several audience members of the audience shouted, “Not true!” at this moment.
In January 2016, Charen wrote of candidate Donald Trump: “Trump has made a career out of egotism, while conservatism implies a certain modesty about government. The two cannot mix.”
Raheem Kassam is the editor in chief of Breitbart London. Oliver Lane is Deputy Editor of Breitbart London.
Michelle Malkin: Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel Should ‘Absolutely’ Resign
by ROBERT KRAYCHIK
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel should “absolutely” resign, said Conservative Review’s Michelle Malkin on Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight in an interview with Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour.
Last week’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, was a function of failures among local authorities, including law enforcement, school administrators, and a psychiatric health facility, said Malkin.
Israel is a “feckless sheriff,” said Malkin, noting that he took no responsibility for failures during last week’s CNN town hall forum to discuss gun policy.
Malkin listed several incidents and calls since 2016 in which the conduct of Nikolas Cruz was brought to the attention of the Broward Sheriff’s Office:
It’s disgusting. The CYA campaign that [Scott Israel] has been waging all day long. First, by releasing the log of all the phone calls, and the details, it’s astonishing how specific and credible each and every one of these phone calls was, and you see the very specific threats that Nikolas Cruz had leveled — not only repeatedly against his classmates and the school — but also details about how he had held a gun up to his mom’s head. When you combine that with the transcripts that the fishwrap of record — from when they did something useful — the transcript of the FBI tipster from January that Nikolas Cruz had been imbibing gasoline, that he had cut himself numerous times, that he was rubbing his hands in glee thinking of the inheritance that he was going to get as a result of his adopted father dying. Honestly, it makes me really question the circumstances of his mother’s death and given how incompetent the local law enforcement was, I wouldn’t be surprised if they open a new investigation into the pile of other open investigations they have now.
An incident report dated November 30, 2017 reads: “Caller advised subject Nikolas Cruz is collecting guns and knives. Cruz wants to join the army. Concerned he will kill himself one day and believes he could be a school shooter in the making. Caller advised Cruz was no longer living at the listed Parkland address and is now living [sic] Lake Worth, Fl. Believes the weapons are kept at a friends [sic] house at an unknown location.”
Police officers on the scene during the mass shooting — including Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson, who was assigned to the school to provide security — refused to engage Cruz, said Malkin:
Just tonight, the Broward County sheriff’s Twitter account was doing more CYA, covering themselves, by retweeting a statement from the Coral Springs Police Department from which we got all of the information about the other sheriff’s deputies besides Scott Peterson who had just stood there doing nothing.
“The people that are trying to take away our Second Amendment rights, they want to tell us to rely on the security and the police force, [that] they’ll take care of it,” said Mansour. “I’d rather have some armed teachers as the final line of defense.”
“It is astonishing, the level of incompetence [at the FBI],” said Mansour, pointing to FBI’s reception of a tip on January 5 warning that Cruz is “ready to explode” and plans to “get into a school and just shoot the place up.”
“The FBI completely dropped the ball,” said Mansour. “It didn’t do anything about [the warning it received about Cruz].”
On Friday, the Coral Springs Police Department claimed “any actions or inactions [by local law enforcement] that negatively affected the response will be investigated thoroughly.”
Coral Springs Police Department issues official statement tonight addressing the widely-reported rumors in the news. Thank you, CSPD, for the clarification and for your transparency.
On Thursday, Broward Sheriff claimed to have received 23 calls for service at Cruz’s family’s home, disputing the claim of 39 incidents originally reported by CNN.
In the interest of full transparency, we are making available the list of all 23 calls for service at the Cruz home. 18 involved Nikolas Cruz. None appeared arrestable under Florida law. However, two of the calls remain under internal investigation. http://bit.ly/2HI4Hti
Malkin speculated that the Baker Act — a Florida state law allowing for involuntary institutionalization and medical examination of a person — could have been used to institutionalize and examine Cruz prior to his commission of mass murder. Such an institutionalized would have been on a firearm purchase background check, preventing Cruz for legally purchasing firearms.
“Clearly there were all these red flags,” said Malkin. “I don’t understand why the Baker Act was not triggered. You look at the actual criteria: a clear and present danger and imminent threat to oneself or others; and you look at the reams of laws at the local, state, and federal level.”
Henderson Behavioral Health, a mental health facility in Florida, examined Cruz in 2016and opted against hospitalizing him. “I believe that would have counted as the kind of adjudication… that Nikolas Cruz would’ve had to report on his background check,” said Malkin.
Cruz’s 17-year-old brother Zachary was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility — via the Baker Act — two days after the mass shooting last week, noted Mansour.
Malkin predicted that victims’ families would file lawsuits related to failures of local officials:
Now I have a prediction. I believe that once these parents fully appreciate how it was all of their local failings of the school administrators, the Broward County sheriff, this feckless sheriff, where the fish apparently rotted from the head down at the sheriff’s office. After the afterglow of CNN lies down, these parents are going to be filing multimillion dollar lawsuits for the people that are truly responsible for the massacre there.
“Left-wing students” should direct their ire towards local authorities, said Malkin. “[They] were screaming at the likes of Donald Trump when they should be screaming at their school administrators, the Broward County sheriff, and these school resource officers who treated their job like they were Mayberry police.”
Trump Just Baited This Hollywood Mogul Into Running Against Him In 2020
The Democrats are already starting to rally a contender for President Trump in 2020.
Many names have been brought up as possibilities like Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and even Hollywood A-lister Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
But Trump just baited the most recent name added to this list.
Oprah Winfrey recently won the Cecil B. Demille lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes.
Hollywood elitists and liberals everywhere rejoiced over her “moving” speech, and liberal institutions began to rally around Winfrey potentially running against Trump.
At first, Winfrey responded to the reports saying she would run if people wanted her to.
But in the following days, Winfrey put the rumors to bed that she wouldn’t.
And then recently Winfrey hosted a panel of Michigan voters on 60 Minutes to discuss the 2016 General Election (Michigan was the state where Trump shocked Hillary Clinton).
Following that special, Trump taunted Winfrey into running against him.
Breitbart reports:
“PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP TAUNTED OPRAH WINFREY ON SUNDAY NIGHT VIA TWITTER, EGGING THE NATIONALLY KNOWN TALK SHOW HOST ON IN AN EFFORT TO GET HER TO RUN AGAINST HIM FOR PRESIDENT IN 2020.
Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrumpJust watched a very insecure Oprah Winfrey, who at one point I knew very well, interview a panel of people on 60 Minutes. The questions were biased and slanted, the facts incorrect. Hope Oprah runs so she can be exposed and defeated just like all of the others!
WINFREY ON SUNDAY EVENING’S 60 MINUTES HOSTED A PANEL OF 14 MICHIGAN VOTERS, THE SECOND TIME SHE HAS HOSTED THIS GATHERING, TO GET THEIR THOUGHTS ON THE ELECTION IN 2016 AND WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THEN.
MICHIGAN IS A STATE IN WHICH TRUMP SHOCKED DEMOCRAT HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, BEATING HER FOR THE FIRST TIME A REPUBLICAN HAS WON THE RUST BELT STATE IN DECADES.
TRUMP ALSO WON PENNSYLVANIA, OHIO, AND WISCONSIN, KEY RUST BELT STATES ON HIS PATHWAY TO 306 ELECTORAL VOTES AND A VICTORY.
HE CAME WITHIN A FEW THOUSAND VOTES OF VICTORY IN OTHER BATTLEGROUND STATES LIKE MINNESOTA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, NEVADA, AND MORE—AGAIN SHOCKING THE POLITICAL WORLD.
WINFREY’S PANEL ON SUNDAY NIGHT FOCUSED MOSTLY ON THINGS LIKE TRUMP’S TEMPERAMENT FOR OFFICE, THE PRESIDENT’S REPORTEDLY VULGAR LANGUAGE REGARDING A VARIETY OF THINGS, INCLUDING “SHITHOLE COUNTRIES,” TRUMP’S TWITTER, HIS EGO, AND THE SO-CALLED #METOO MOVEMENT, RATHER THAN ISSUES—THOUGH THE TRUMP SUPPORTERS IN THE ROOM BROUGHT UP THE ECONOMIC SUCCESSES OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION.
THERE HAS BEEN AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF DISCUSSION ABOUT WHETHER WINFREY MAY RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2020, THOUGH PEOPLE CLOSE TO HER HAVE SAID SHE IS NOT CONSIDERING IT.
WINFREY APPEARED AT THE GOLDEN GLOBES, WHERE SHE DELIVERED A POWERFUL SPEECH THAT FUELED THE SPECULATION ABOUT THE POTENTIAL 2020 PRESIDENTIAL RUN.
SOME POLLING HAS SHOWN WINFREY AHEAD OF TRUMP IN A 2020 MATCHUP.”
But we all know who would win that battle, and that’s why he’s trying to bait her into running.
Nobody Noticed What Dem. Sen. Was Doing on Stage During CNN Gun “Town Hall”
BY CILLIAN ZEAL
The phrase “town hall” has been so thoroughly abused by cable networks and debate committees over the past few years that it scarcely means anything anymore. What was once a name for a style of meeting or debate is now pretty much shorthand for a woefully scripted event in which serious issues are discussed in the most facile way possible, and always to the benefit of the political position of whoever’s running the show.
The ringmaster, in the case of this past week’s “town hall” meeting on guns, was CNN, a cable network known for its objectivity in the same way Charlie Sheen is known for his sobriety.
The stars of the show, such as it was, were Florida’s senators — Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Marco Rubio.
However, it became clear from the start that while Rubio was actually there for a discussion of policy (a rather futile gesture during an event which the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass described as “CNN’s many minutes of Second Amendment hate”), Nelson was more interested in his chances of getting re-elected in a potential matchup against term-limited Florida Gov. Rick Scott in the fall.
In fact, Nelson was campaigning so hard that he even moved CNN’s Chris Cillizza — who has dedicated many, many minutes of hate to all things Republican — to chastise the senator publicly for his performance.
“At Wednesday night’s town hall on guns, Sen. Marco Rubio was repeatedly pressed — and criticized — by the audience in Sunrise, Florida, for his past defenses of gun rights,” Cillizza wrote.
“But for me, it was Rubio’s Senate colleague — Bill Nelson — who struck the truly sour notes,” he added.
“Nelson, a Democrat running for re-election next fall, seemed to view the town hall — hosted by CNN and moderated by Jake Tapper — as a vehicle to jump-start his campaign against Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is widely expected to run against him. No matter the question asked of him, Nelson found a way to make it all about Scott.”
I include those excerpts because anyone familiar with the work of Mr. Cillizza should be truly shocked to see those words coming off of his keyboard. If Nelson’s behavior wasn’t so bad, I would probably instruct CNN security to search their headquarters for a moving burlap sack, in which they would surely find the hog-tied Mr. Cillizza, who had been replaced at his desk by Bill O’Reilly.
The thing is, Nelson actually was that bad.
During the town hall, Nelson fielded a question from Samantha Grady, one of the students who was grazed by a bullet during the Parkland shooting.
“What are you going to do to strengthen background checks, to prevent another tragedy like this from occurring again?” Grady asked.
Nelson began by going off on the “gun show loophole” in Florida’s constitution and “intrusive” background checks that could have caught Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen. But then, as he did not infrequently, Nelson used the opportunity to criticize Scott.
“I want to say that my colleague Senator Rubio and I have a good relationship. We get a lot of stuff done together,” Nelson said.
“And I want you to know that I told him before we came out here tonight that he had guts coming here — when in fact there is no representative of the state of Florida. Our governor did not come here, Gov. Scott — but Marco did.”
Amazingly, not too many people caught onto this — Cillizza and Matt Vespa at (ironically) Townhall.com seemed to be two of the more prominent writers who lambasted Nelson for turning the “town hall” into a paid political advertisement for his campaign. (Didn’t he know this was a paid political advertisement for Everytown for Gun Safety, after all?)
“First off: Where is the empathy?” Cillizza was moved to write. “This kid has been grazed by one bullet and hit by the ricochet of another. She has watched someone close to her murdered. To immediately launch into an esoteric discussion of various laws and constitutional amendments as a way to comfort a grieving teenager is just a massive swing and miss.”
“Second, Nelson’s pivot to praising Rubio as a way to take a shot at Scott is both out of nowhere and totally transparent. ‘Hey, by the way, Marco is great! But Rick Scott is terrible! And he’s not even here!'”
Cillizza noted that Scott was invited, but given that the whole thing was as fixed as an Italian soccer game, I don’t necessarily consider it a black mark upon his character that he had the sagacity to stay home.
Unsurprisingly, this wasn’t the only moment during the town hall which should have been preceded by “I’m Bill Nelson, and I approve this message.”
“Let me tell you about the bill that I have cosponsored. It defines very specifically assault rifle, it lists 200 different assault rifles. It lists, for example, the Kalashnikov AK-47 that — did you know? — is manufactured in this state,” Nelson said.
“Did you know that the state of Florida, the governor’s office gave financial incentives for them to come into the state and manufacture?” he unsubtly continued. “Tell you another one, that it is listed in that list of over 200 rifles. It’s the Sig Sauer MCX. That was the one that Omar Mateen, despite the fact that he had been on the terrorist watch list and was off, went into a gun shop and purchased that high-powered assault rifle.”
“And on that list, it also includes the AR-15. And did you know that the state of Florida, the governor’s office, gave financial incentives for the Colt corporation to come to Kissimmee to manufacture AR-15s, the same one that wreaked such havoc here and that you all are suffering so terribly from.”
Nelson’s comments were rebarbative enough that CNN — which is fighting off allegations that questions were scripted at the event — is more or less officially disavowing Nelson’s behavior. (An article from Cillizza, one of the network’s senior writers, is about as close to an unequivocal statement regarding Nelson’s behavior that you’ll get from the network.)
Cillizza added that Scott not showing up was a “mistake” and that the network wanted “even for a night … to just have an honest conversation about guns.” On the last count — in the immortal words of Jeanie Bueller — “Dry that one out and you could fertilize the lawn.”
However, on the first count, we ask which one looks worse: not showing up to a WWE match of a town hall bathed in the raw emotions of a mass shooting, or using that time as a paid campaign announcement? Scott couldn’t have showed up and refused to respond to Nelson’s attacks or be goaded into a battle of demagogy. He was busy doing other things that didn’t involve campaigning: namely, governing.
One hopes that’s something the people of Florida remember this November when they go to the polls.
This Republican’s reaction to the Florida shooting just ended his career
The tragedy in Parkland, Florida motivated the gun grabbers to go on the offense.
They began organizing pressure campaigns to force Republicans to gut the Second Amendment.
But one Republican Governor just ended his career with how he responded.
Florida Governor Rick Scott ran as a Tea Party champion in 2010.
And he is expected to challenge Florida Democrat Bill Nelson in the November midterms.
He may have just thrown his chances away when he announced a series of gun grabs in response to the Florida shooting.
Scott threw gun owners under the bus by championing raising the age to 21 to purchase rifles, judicial orders that allow anti-gun judges to confiscate firearms with little to no evidence, waiting periods, and expanding the gun registration database.
Breirtbart reports:
“CNN reports that Scott is pushing a “Violent Threat Restraining Order,” which are similar to California’s Gun Violence Restraining Orders in that they a designed to secure court orders to confiscate firearms following a family member’s complaint.
It is difficult to see how such orders–designed to be triggered by family requests–would have been effective against Nikolas Cruz. After all, the family with which he was staying repeatedly called the police on him in November 2017 but refused to file charges when sheriff’s deputies arrived. A member of the family with which Cruz was staying explained away Cruz’s erratic behavior by saying he “had been suffering significantly from the loss of his mother” earlier in the month.
Scott is also pushing a bump stock ban, “tougher background checks,” more stringent rules against the mentally ill, and a ban on purchasing or possessing firearms by anyone “subject to an injunction for protection against stalking, cyberstalking, dating violence, repeat violence, sexual violence, or domestic violence.
In other words, gun control, gun control, gun control.”
It will be impossible for Scott to win in November without the support of gun owners.
And he caved to the fake news media which loves mass shootings because it gives them a chance to waive the bloody shirt of gun control.
Gun rights organizations will oppose Scott’s moves and if their members sit home in November, Scott is finished.
Had he stuck by the Constitution and defended the Second Amendment he would likely win the race against Nelson.
Now gun rights supporters in Florida will see they have a choice between two radical anti-gun candidates and stay home.
Every Single Government Authority Failed In Parkland. And They Expect Americans To Forfeit Our Self-Defense Rights To Them?
By BEN SHAPIRO @benshapiro
Michael Laughlin/Sun Sentinel/TNS via Getty ImagesOn Thursday night, the American public learned two bombshell pieces of information regarding the Parkland, Florida mass shooting. First, we learned that the Broward County Sheriff’s Office was told in November that the Parkland shooter “could be a school shooter in the making” but deputies didn’t bother to write up a report; that report “came just weeks after a relative called urging BSO to seize his weapons.” Then, in even more shocking news, we learned that an armed school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School sat outside and waited for four minutes during the six minute attack that ended in the deaths of 17 human beings.
So, here’s what we know.
We know the FBI was warned specifically about the Parkland shooter not once, but twice — and did nothing.
We know the Broward County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the home of the Parkland shooter at least 39 times since 2010.
We know that the Broward County Sheriff’s Office was warned multiple times about the Parkland shooter.
We know that an armed officer was present during the shooting and did nothing — and that JROTC students showed far more courage.
And yet we are told that the solution to mass shootings is for law-abiding citizens to give more authority to the authorities that failed, and to turn over our only way of protecting ourselves?
Why in the world would a single law-abiding gun owner hand over his or her weapon to the same authorities that did nothing to protect the children of Parkland? Why would a single law-abiding gun owner turn over his or her capacity for self-defense to people who were incapable of defending children at every step of the way?
And why in the world should we blame the NRA, which literally had nothing to do with Parkland, for the failures of every institutional barrier to a massacre? Why should we blame law-abiding gun owners who didn’t shoot up kids for the failures of those who are paid to do stop evil monsters like the Parkland shooter? Why should we take Sheriff Steve Israel seriously when he blames lack of gun control, Dana Loesch, and the NRA, rather than his own radical incompetence and the radical incompetence of those under his authority?
Children are dead not because millions of good citizens own AR-15s, but because dozens of pathetic incompetents and cowards in a position to do something instead did nothing. All the misdirection in the world isn’t going to change that inconvenient fact.
Parkland Dad Accuses Chris Wallace of Focus on Gun Control Instead of School Security for ‘More Ratings’
by PAM KEY
On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” Andrew Pollack, who lost his daughter, Meadow at the Parkland, FL school shooting criticized host Chris Wallace for focusing on gun control instead of school security.
Pollack said, “I just heard what you said, what you’re focusing on, polarizing this event, the murder of these kids, you’re talking about gun control. I just had to listen to you, and Gov. Scott talks about gun control. Gun control is a big issue. No one in America is going to come together on control, Chris.”
He continued, “You didn’t say one thing about fixing it. We can get together on school safety. But when you polarize it, this event and every other media — we don’t care about gun control right now. That’s a big issue in the country, and you’re not going to get everyone together on it. But we are going to get everyone together on fixing our school.”
He added, “You are just talking about gun control which is going to just give you more ratings.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
Trump Hits 50%!
By Dick Morris
In the Rasmussen Poll, the only survey that polls actual voters, President Donald Trump has moved up steadily since the new year and has now reached a new plateau of 50 percent job approval with only 49 percent disapproving.
Never before in his presidency has Trump cracked 50 percent, and never before, in any reputable poll, have his positive marks outweighed the negative ones.
Trump is no longer underwater.
Other polls have not reached this level and CNN has his approval at only 39 percent. But CNN surveys registered voters while Rasmussen only counts likely voters.
Since almost half of the registered voters do not actually cast ballots, limiting the survey respondents to those who actually intend to vote is the only real way to gauge popularity and voter attitudes.
Other surveys, like the Reuters/Ipsos poll (which has Trump at 40 percent) don’t even care if the respondent is a voter. All adults over 18 qualify to take the survey.
It’s been a long climb for Trump. But the combination of passing the tax cut and eliminating the requirement to buy health insurance with the good economic news pouring in has done the trick.
But, to put him over the top, the president indicated some flexibility on gun control in the wake of the Parkland school shooting.
By demonstrating that he is not some kind of ideological Republican who won’t bend regardless of the situation, he is engendering a confidence among voters.
The Donald Trump who now backs bans on bump stocks (which permit weapons to be converted into machine guns) and a minimum age of 21 for most purchases of guns is not the angry, intolerant abusive person he has been too often in the past.
Americans want to like and approve of their president and now, at last, Donald Trump seems to qualify.
(Whether one concedes that he is, in fact, at 50 percent, everyone must agree that his ratings have improved for the first sustained period in his presidency since the first of the year).
This positive trend leaves the Democrats stranded.
Rather than advance positive solutions for the country, they have wallowed in “never Trumpism” and just throw adjectives at the president. Their inability to even understand why someone might back Trump leaves them far out of the national consensus.
Such thinking leads to the famous characterization of Trump voters as a “basket of deplorables,” a statement made by Hillary Clinton — en route to her defeat.
Dick Morris is a former adviser to President Bill Clinton as well as a political author, pollster and consultant. His most recent book, “Rogue Spooks,” was written with his wife, Eileen McGann.
Never before in his presidency has Trump cracked 50 percent, and never before, in any reputable poll, have his positive marks outweighed the negative ones.
Trump is no longer underwater.
Other polls have not reached this level and CNN has his approval at only 39 percent. But CNN surveys registered voters while Rasmussen only counts likely voters.
Since almost half of the registered voters do not actually cast ballots, limiting the survey respondents to those who actually intend to vote is the only real way to gauge popularity and voter attitudes.
Other surveys, like the Reuters/Ipsos poll (which has Trump at 40 percent) don’t even care if the respondent is a voter. All adults over 18 qualify to take the survey.
It’s been a long climb for Trump. But the combination of passing the tax cut and eliminating the requirement to buy health insurance with the good economic news pouring in has done the trick.
But, to put him over the top, the president indicated some flexibility on gun control in the wake of the Parkland school shooting.
By demonstrating that he is not some kind of ideological Republican who won’t bend regardless of the situation, he is engendering a confidence among voters.
The Donald Trump who now backs bans on bump stocks (which permit weapons to be converted into machine guns) and a minimum age of 21 for most purchases of guns is not the angry, intolerant abusive person he has been too often in the past.
Americans want to like and approve of their president and now, at last, Donald Trump seems to qualify.
(Whether one concedes that he is, in fact, at 50 percent, everyone must agree that his ratings have improved for the first sustained period in his presidency since the first of the year).
This positive trend leaves the Democrats stranded.
Rather than advance positive solutions for the country, they have wallowed in “never Trumpism” and just throw adjectives at the president. Their inability to even understand why someone might back Trump leaves them far out of the national consensus.
Such thinking leads to the famous characterization of Trump voters as a “basket of deplorables,” a statement made by Hillary Clinton — en route to her defeat.
Dick Morris is a former adviser to President Bill Clinton as well as a political author, pollster and consultant. His most recent book, “Rogue Spooks,” was written with his wife, Eileen McGann.
What Does AR Stand For in AR-15?
The AR in AR-15 stands for “Armalite Rifle.” Follow us as we go over what it doesn’t stand for…plus what is exactly an AR firearm and our favorite picks.
What AR Doesn’t Stand For
A common misconception is that AR stands for “assault rifle,” but that’s not the case. And no, it doesn’t stand for “automatic rifle” either.
For the record, the way states legally define “assault rifles” varies dramatically between states, and journalists have a tendency to basically use “scary looking” as their definition or to act like there’s not a standardized definition at all, depending on their agenda.
The US Army does have a standard definition, however. The US Army considers a firearm an assault rifle if it meets all of the following conditions:
-
It is capable of selective fire;
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It has an intermediate-power cartridge: more power than a pistol but less than a standard rifle or battle rifle, such as the 7.92×33mm Kurz, the 7.62x39mm and the 5.56x45mm NATO;
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It has ammunition must be supplied from a detachable box magazine; and
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It has an effective range of at least 300 metres (330 yards).
Rifles like the AR-15, which is widely cited as an example of an assault rifle, fundamentally fail to meet this definition in that they don’t have selective fire capabilities – they can’t be set to shoot automatically as well as semi-automatically.
Furthermore, new fully automatic firearms have been banned in the United States since the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act of 1986, and they aren’t easy to get ahold of illegally for anyone except well connected career criminals. Ones produced before the ban are still legal, but they command a high cost and are closely monitored by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
So What Does AR Stand For?
In reality, AR stands for ArmaLite rifle. ArmaLite is the company that originated the design for the AR style of rifle back in the 1950s.
And while we’re decoding ARs, the number simply refers to the model number of the rifle, not to a barrel length, capacity, or anything else.
A Brief History of ARs
The first widely produced AR rifle was the AR-5, a .22 Hornet survival rifle. It was adopted by the US Air Force as the MA-1 Survival Rifle. Shortly after, the AR-7, the semi-automatic civilian version of the AR-5, was released, chambered for .22 LR.
Both of these guns are still produced today by several companies, including a takedown version of the AR-7 produced by Henry Repeating Arms.
In the 1950s ArmaLite began designing and producing the AR-10 in small numbers, and in the following decade started producing what is probably the most well known of the AR series of rifles, the AR-15. Colt now owns production rights for both the AR-10 and AR-15.
Next ArmaLite began production on the less expensive AR-16, and AR-17 shotgun, and a smaller AR-18 to meet a variety of different needs, but by the 1970s the company ceased rifle production and in 1983 closed completely.
In 1996 rights to the ArmaLite company were sold and rifle development and production resumed, leading to the introduction of the AR-10, AR-20, AR-50, and more. In 2013 the company was again sold, this time to Strategic Armory Corps, who also owns AWC Silencers, Surgeon Rifles, Nexus Ammo, and McMillan Firearms.
So Now You Know
Now going forward you know better than to believe people who say that ARs are all assault rifles, and you know what an assault rifle actually is.
Once more:
The AR in AR-15 stands for “Armalite Rifle.”
The AR in AR-15 stands for “Armalite Rifle.”
G’ day…Ciao…
Helen and Moe Lauzier
Helen and Moe Lauzier
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