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‘Rudolph’ Actor Speaks out After Leftists Target Holiday Classic


Around the end of November, CBS aired a beloved holiday special on television. While some look forward, with fond memories, to watching it each year, others had a different take on it, particularly this year.

In fact, the left went wild with criticism over the story of acceptance, making charges of things such as bullying and bigotry. For some, such reactions over pretty much everything nowadays is why we can’t have anything nice anymore.

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Now, an actor who voiced one of the characters from the TV special has spoken out after the left attacked the holiday classic. TMZ spoke to Corinne Conley, who was the voice of “The Dolly for Sue.”

Should ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ be banned from television?

The doll was on the Island of Misfit toys because like the rest of them, she was different, too. She was missing a nose.

The actor who voiced the doll, Conley, specifically addressed the topic of bullying. It was a “problem” with the tale that was pointed out often on social media.

Conley defended the message of the “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” story. She also pointed out how relevant the moral of the story is in today’s society.

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“I would say it’s more relevant now than ever, because there is so much bullying going on. But it’s all reconciled in ‘Rudolph.’”

“And surely people wouldn’t love it so much if it left a resonance of bullying. It wouldn’t be so indelible on people’s hearts.”

Conley noted that even with 60 years of credits to her name, when people find out she was part of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” it is that credit that stands out to them the most, and in a tender way. To her, that is a clear sign that the holiday story is very much a treasured tale.

She added that now, more than ever, the message from the story is relevant. “There is quite a bit of bullying that is going on now, at this time.”

“And so perhaps we’re all getting a little more sensitive to it, but that’s good. I don’t think by getting sensitive to bullying that you want to copy it. You want to get rid of it.”

“I don’t think people are tempted to bully so much if they watch nice, warm-hearted shows like ‘Rudolph.’” She added, “If they do (watch it), they might learn a lesson.”

Conley also had a message for the haters. “I just can’t imagine it affecting anyone in a negative way. They must be like Scrooge. Tell them to watch ‘Scrooge.’”

Score one more point for common sense. Merry Christmas, leftists!

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

via Conservative Tribune

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TRUMP UNLEASHED: ‘Force Leakin James Comey to Answer Questions Under Oath!’


TRUMP UNLEASHED: ‘Force Leakin James Comey to Answer Questions Under Oath!’

Cristina Laila
by Cristina Laila
December 7, 2018

President Trump lashed out at former FBI Director James Comey Friday evening over Comey’s refusal to cooperate and answer pertinent questions about FISA abuse and Russiagate in a closed-door interview on Capitol Hill.

Comey was not cooperating with GOP lawmakers on Friday and was told by his DOJ attorney not to answer many pertinent questions on FISA abuses and Russiagate.

Rep. Darrell Issa told reporters that James Comey is not answering questions – on issues like the start of the Russia investigation and the Carter Page FISA – at the direction of a Justice Dept. attorney who is accompanying Comey

“We absolutely need to get answers,” Issa said

President Trump was furious with the “bias and corruption” and immediately called for Comey to be forced to answer the questions under oath.

TRUMP: It is being reported that Leakin’ James Comey was told by Department of Justice attorneys not to answer the most important questions. Total bias and corruption at the highest levels of previous Administration. Force him to answer the questions under oath!

Comey remained defiant after his deposition and told reporters that accusations of FISA abuse are “nonsense.”

James Comey will be back for a second interview by the House Judiciary Committee on December 17th.

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via The Gateway Pundit

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Revealed: Clinton Foundation whistleblowers have been working with FBI and IRS since last year


The reckoning for the Clintons I have dreamed of for a quarter of a century finally approaches with whistleblowing and documents about the slush fund known as the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.  The ability of the Clintons to blow off charges of criminality will be crippled by the latest evidence revealed to be in the hands of prosecutors.  With the former first couple humiliated by their inability to draw a decent crowd anymore, and plenty of other Democrats anxious to move on and put this embarrassment behind them, it is starting to look as though karma finally is catching up with them.


John Solomon of The Hill reveals the story that has been percolating for a long time but kept tightly under wraps – because that is what serious prosecutors do, especially when grand juries are poring over evidence and issuing indictments that remain sealed until the right moment comes.  The trigger for the story coming out now probably is a House subcommittee hearing scheduled next week by Mark Meadows, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, while the GOP still can set the agenda of House hearings.  



[A] GOP-led congressional subcommittee, led by Rep. Mark Meadows (N.C.), is planning to hold a hearing next week to review the work of John Huber, the special U.S attorney named a year ago to investigate all things Clinton.


It turns out that whistleblowers inside and outside the Clinton Foundation have amassed “6,000 pages of evidence attached to a whistleblower submission filed secretly more than a year ago with the IRS and FBI.”  Among that evidence can be found: 


… internal legal reviews that the foundation conducted on itself in 2008 and 2011.


Those reviews flagged serious concerns about legal compliance, improper commingling of personal and charity business and “quid pro quo” promises made to donors while Hillary Clinton was secretary of State.


The submission also cites an interview its investigators conducted with Andrew Kessel that quotes the foundation’s longtime chief financial officer as saying he was unable to stop former President Clinton from “commingling” personal business and charitable activities inside the foundation and that he “knows where all the bodies are buried.”


Their own investigation!  That’s hard to put down as politically motivated.


Having the chief financial officer of the Clinton Foundation turn informant is a nightmare for the Clintons.  The CFO has to process all the cash, and because that person usually is on the hook for any criminal violations, there is ample incentive to turn state’s evidence.


That evidence was assembled by a private firm called MDA Analytics LLC, run by accomplished ex-federal criminal investigators, who alleged the Clinton Foundation engaged in illegal activities and may be liable for millions of dollars in delinquent taxes and penalties.


In addition to the IRS, the firm’s partners have had contact with prosecutors in the main Justice Department in Washington and FBI agents in Little Rock, Ark.


MDA Analytics claims to be motivated by the prospect of reaping a substantial bounty from the IRS, as the agency pays informants a portion of the taxes it is able to recover.  The fact that they are not politically motivated is a huge plus, because they have invested their own resources in the investigation in the expectation of a financial return.  These experienced pros believe they have a strong enough case to yield many millions to the IRS and a portion of those millions for themselves.


As an outsider, it is impossible to know if the prosecutors have been stalled by Deep State bureaucrats and the Meadows hearing is lighting a fire under them, but this does look suspicious:


The IRS sent multiple letters in 2017 and 2018 to MDA Analytics, confirming it had received the submission and it was “still open and under active investigation.”  But, shortly before last month’s election, the agency sent a preliminary denial letter indicating it did not pursue the allegations for reasons that ranged from a lack of resources to possible expiration of the statute of limitations on some allegations. …


And last week, a federal prosecutor suddenly asked for documents from their private investigation.


There is considerable detail on the process so far.  Now that this information is public, it will be harder to avoid DoJ and IRS prosecutions, especially now that the clout of the Clintons has diminished.


This is very good news for those of us who have been frustrated at the ability of the Clintons to avoid prosecution over prima facie crimes while associates of President Trump are ensnared in process crimes and pressured to incriminate him with testimony some of them claim would be false.  The hysteria ginned up by the Mueller investigation can be harnessed to focus on the Clintons, using the same techniques that the left has embraced when used against Trump.


The reckoning for the Clintons I have dreamed of for a quarter of a century finally approaches with whistleblowing and documents about the slush fund known as the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.  The ability of the Clintons to blow off charges of criminality will be crippled by the latest evidence revealed to be in the hands of prosecutors.  With the former first couple humiliated by their inability to draw a decent crowd anymore, and plenty of other Democrats anxious to move on and put this embarrassment behind them, it is starting to look as though karma finally is catching up with them.


John Solomon of The Hill reveals the story that has been percolating for a long time but kept tightly under wraps – because that is what serious prosecutors do, especially when grand juries are poring over evidence and issuing indictments that remain sealed until the right moment comes.  The trigger for the story coming out now probably is a House subcommittee hearing scheduled next week by Mark Meadows, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, while the GOP still can set the agenda of House hearings.  


[A] GOP-led congressional subcommittee, led by Rep. Mark Meadows (N.C.), is planning to hold a hearing next week to review the work of John Huber, the special U.S attorney named a year ago to investigate all things Clinton.


It turns out that whistleblowers inside and outside the Clinton Foundation have amassed “6,000 pages of evidence attached to a whistleblower submission filed secretly more than a year ago with the IRS and FBI.”  Among that evidence can be found: 


… internal legal reviews that the foundation conducted on itself in 2008 and 2011.


Those reviews flagged serious concerns about legal compliance, improper commingling of personal and charity business and “quid pro quo” promises made to donors while Hillary Clinton was secretary of State.


The submission also cites an interview its investigators conducted with Andrew Kessel that quotes the foundation’s longtime chief financial officer as saying he was unable to stop former President Clinton from “commingling” personal business and charitable activities inside the foundation and that he “knows where all the bodies are buried.”


Their own investigation!  That’s hard to put down as politically motivated.


Having the chief financial officer of the Clinton Foundation turn informant is a nightmare for the Clintons.  The CFO has to process all the cash, and because that person usually is on the hook for any criminal violations, there is ample incentive to turn state’s evidence.


That evidence was assembled by a private firm called MDA Analytics LLC, run by accomplished ex-federal criminal investigators, who alleged the Clinton Foundation engaged in illegal activities and may be liable for millions of dollars in delinquent taxes and penalties.


In addition to the IRS, the firm’s partners have had contact with prosecutors in the main Justice Department in Washington and FBI agents in Little Rock, Ark.


MDA Analytics claims to be motivated by the prospect of reaping a substantial bounty from the IRS, as the agency pays informants a portion of the taxes it is able to recover.  The fact that they are not politically motivated is a huge plus, because they have invested their own resources in the investigation in the expectation of a financial return.  These experienced pros believe they have a strong enough case to yield many millions to the IRS and a portion of those millions for themselves.


As an outsider, it is impossible to know if the prosecutors have been stalled by Deep State bureaucrats and the Meadows hearing is lighting a fire under them, but this does look suspicious:


The IRS sent multiple letters in 2017 and 2018 to MDA Analytics, confirming it had received the submission and it was “still open and under active investigation.”  But, shortly before last month’s election, the agency sent a preliminary denial letter indicating it did not pursue the allegations for reasons that ranged from a lack of resources to possible expiration of the statute of limitations on some allegations. …


And last week, a federal prosecutor suddenly asked for documents from their private investigation.


There is considerable detail on the process so far.  Now that this information is public, it will be harder to avoid DoJ and IRS prosecutions, especially now that the clout of the Clintons has diminished.


This is very good news for those of us who have been frustrated at the ability of the Clintons to avoid prosecution over prima facie crimes while associates of President Trump are ensnared in process crimes and pressured to incriminate him with testimony some of them claim would be false.  The hysteria ginned up by the Mueller investigation can be harnessed to focus on the Clintons, using the same techniques that the left has embraced when used against Trump.




via American Thinker Blog

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Billionaires Demand Fast-Track Green Cards for 400,000 Visa Workers


Internet billionaire Marc Benioff is urging the GOP Congress and President Donald Trump to fast-track 400,000 foreign visa-workers — plus 400,000 family members — to green cards, the U.S. job market, and the ballot box.

“This is good for our economy,” Benioff said in a Tuesday tweet that was applauded by Silicon Valley lobbyists. “We need to grow our workers to grow our economy.” 

Benioff’s comment is a tautology: Expanding the population by importing more than 800,000 people would obviously grow the nation’s economy, retail sales, government taxes, company profits, and Wall Street stock options. 

But Benioff’s cheap-labor importation plan would also shrink the income and careers sought by millions of American college graduates, many of whom will vote in 2020 for or against Trump. 

The planned giveaway is in a pending House bill, dubbed H.R. 392. It is also hidden in the House version of the 2019 funding package for the Department of Homeland Security. If Trump accepts that funding package, he will help companies import more cheap visa-workers from India and China an inflict more economic and career damage to the nation’s professional-status workforce of at least 55 million American college-graduates.

The nation’s workforce now includes roughly 1.5 million foreign college-graduate contract-workers who are imported via the H-1B, L-1, OPT, O-1, J-1, and other visa programs. These outsourcing workers are not immigrants, but instead, they are contract workers hired for one to six years, at lower wages, to take jobs that would otherwise go to American graduates.

This massive level of middle-class outsourcing has suppressed the wage growth needed by many American graduates to repay their college debts, get married, buy homes, and raise children. For example, the salaries for 21 million “professional and business services” employees rose by just roughly one percent after inflation from the second quarter of 2017 to the second quarter of 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Their after-inflation pay was flat from 2o15 to 2016.

The Americans’ salary loss, however, would be a gain for the CEOs who see their profits rise and their stock options spike as middle-class salaries decline. 

The MyVisaJobs.com site shows that Benioff’s company asked for 1,063 H-1B visa workers in 2018, up from 880 in 2017. The site also shows job titles and work locations. 

Benioff also sought 1,071 green cards for his contract workers in from 2016 to 2018. 

The company’s stock price has doubled since Trump’s election, but Benioff and most of his employees have strongly supported Democrats, including Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. For example, only 5.2 percent of employee donations to candidates went to GOP candidates in 2018. 

Now Benioff and his fellow executives as asking Trump to raise their stock portfolios by fast-tracking green cards to roughly 400,000 foreign contract-workers — plus 400,000 family members — who sidelined hundreds of thousands of American college graduates. 

Benioff’s support for the visa workers was echoed by Todd Schulte, who is the director of a pro-migration lobbying group. The Democratic-aligned group, FWD.us, was formed and funded by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and numerous other CEOs and investors who prefer to import visa-workers instead of hiring Americans.

Without irony, Schulte’s website declares that “We believe that when every person has the opportunity to achieve their full potential, our families, communities, and economy thrive.” 

Amazon is also urging Trump to approve the green-card giveaway. Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, also runs the Washington Post and supported Clinton.

In 2018, Amazon asked the government for almost 6,000 H-1B visa workers and almost 5,000 green cards. Facebook asked for almost 2,400 H-1B workers and 1,400 green cards. Those outsourcing requests add up to 15,000 white-collar jobs sought by U.S. graduates. 

Business lobbyists are trying to minimize publicity about their demand for a green-card giveaway and they are pressing GOP leaders behind closed doors to keep the giveaway in the 2019 DHS budget. 

But opposition is rising as Americans graduates have begun organizing to block the giveaway. For example, Protect US Workers helped defeat Rep. Kevin Yoder who used his authority as an appropriations chairman to insert the giveaway into the DHS budget. 

The American graduates are also using federal data to show U.S. legislators how many Americans’ middle-class jobs are being outsourced in their districts to the foreign workers. 

The managing director of Thiel Capital, Eric Weinstein, tweeted to Benioff to highlight his report which shows that the federal officials created the H-1B visa program to lower salaries paid to American technology experts:

The mass outsourcing also adding pressure to the lives of many American technology workers, many of whom have already lost jobs to cheaper contract-workers. An informal survey of tech workers shows that almost four-in-ten say they are depressed.

One of the leading advocates for the green-card giveaway is Leon Fresco, an immigration lawyer who helped Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer pass the disastrous 2013 “Gang of Eight” amnesty through the Senate. The bill was so unpopular that the GOP gained nine Senate seats in 2014, preventing Schumer from becoming Senate Majority Leader.

On December 6, Fresco suggested there is only a small chance that the giveaway will get into the final DHS bill:

Many Indian contract workers are lobbying to help pass the green-card bill:

In the United States, the establishment’s economic policy of using migration to boost economic growth shifts wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market with cheap white collar and blue collar foreign labor. That flood of outside labor spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor that blue collar and white collar employees offer.

The policy also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least five million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.

Immigration also pulls investment and wealth away from heartland states because coastal investors can more easily hire and supervise the large immigrant populations who prefer to live in the coastal states.

via Breitbart News

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Survivors: Cuba Has Detained Half a Million Dissidents, Still Starving Prisoners to Death


WASHINGTON, DC — Cuba continues to employ starvation and dehydration as a mechanism to break political prisoners physically and mentally, Breitbart News learned from a former political prisoner on Friday.

The practice of starving detainees and limiting their access to water remains “a systematic and official practice,” Luis Zúñiga, a former political prisoner, declared during an event on human rights in Cuba hosted by the Organization of American States (OAS).

“You go today and ask a political prisoner who has just left jail what system of feeding he was subjected to and what he is going to say is a regimen of hunger, thirst, and malnutrition,” he added.

Echoing Zúñiga, Paulo Abrao, the chief of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) at OAS, noted that human rights abuses against political prisoners and the population as a whole “persist” in Cuba.

The Cuban regime’s practice of “harassment, threats, arbitrary detentions, detentions for the exit of the country, deportations, and the criminalization of freedom of expression, and human rights abuses” continue unabated, Abrao said, adding, “We can affirm that systematic abuse persists.”

During the event at OAS headquarters, the Justice Cuba international commission presented testimony from former political prisoners who have witnessed the torture and atrocities at the hands of the Cuban government first-hand.

The commission has compiled legal evidence against the Castro regime’s most prominent officials to bring them to justice at an appropriate tribunal.

According to the witnesses, the regime’s oppression is not confined to the political prisons and forced labor camps – it affects all citizens. They acknowledged that, just like political prisons, Cuba continues to operate forced labor camps.

Pedro Corzo, a former political prisoner and one of the investigators who assisted Justice Cuba in amassing evidence against the communist government, revealed that the regime has detained “over half a million people for political reasons” since it came to power nearly 60 years ago.

He noted that the communist government has also carried out “massive raids in which individuals are apprehended for their sexual orientation, for liking foreign music … and having long hair.”

Zúñiga testified that the Cuban regime continues to use malnutrition and dehydration as an oppression tool against dissidents, saying during the event, “Another of the physical and mental destruction mechanisms employed against political prisoners in Cuba has been … imposing a permanent system of hunger and malnutrition on political prisoners. All political prisoners know what extreme hunger is — the need to feed and especially malnutrition.”

It is likely that “political prisons in Cuba are responsible for the only cases in the world where there are prisoners who have died of malnutrition without going on a hunger strike, just by eating the food they gave them,” he proclaimed.

Zúñiga also noted that prisoners are subjected to “a permanent system of arbitrary beatings.”

“They are hit without reason and justification. In many cases, when the regime received adverse actions by the United Nations or the international community … the Cuban government immediately took revenge against the political prisoners with arbitrary beatings,” he said.

“I have a fractured cranium from one of those beatings,” Zúñiga continued.

Currently, there are between 150 and 180 political prisoners in Cuba, excluding those beaten and detained on a weekly basis for publicly expressing disapproval of the Castro regime.

On Friday, the OAS hosted an unprecedented day-long event offering an international platform to the victims of crimes against humanity and their families at the hands of the Cuban communist regime.

During the event, Justice Cuba announced that it had completed the investigation phase of its efforts to compile legal evidence against the Castro regime, noting that it is currently in search of a tribunal that can successfully try Cuban government officials accused of torture and other atrocities against the opposition.

Some U.S. lawmakers of Cuban descent have expressed support for indicting members of the Castro regime.

In March, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) urged U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to indict former Cuban dictator Raúl Castro.

“In the spirit of Cuban Independence Day, we urge you to consider new, additional actions to hold the Castro regime accountable for its crimes,” the Cuban-American lawmakers wrote in a statement. “For that reason, within all applicable rules and regulations, we urge you to direct the Department of Justice to review whether Raúl Castro should be indicted for the illegal and heinous act of shooting down in international waters two American civilian aircraft flown by Brothers to the Rescue on February 24, 1996.”

via Breitbart News

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Prosecutors: Illegal Alien Murdered 16-Year-Old Girlfriend After Break Up


An illegal alien allegedly murdered a 16-year-old New Jersey girl after the two split following a ten-month relationship, prosecutors claim.

Bryan Cordero-Castro, a 20-year-old illegal alien, was arrested and charged after allegedly stabbing to death 16-year-old Madison Wells, Breitbart News reported a few months ago.

This week, Cordero-Castro appeared in court for the first time, where prosecutors accused him of murdering Wells after she broke off their ten-month relationship.

According to prosecutors, the illegal alien repeatedly contacted Wells for nine hours before her murder, demanding she meet with him. When Wells agreed to the meeting, prosecutors allege Cordero-Castro stabbed the teenager to death.

Investigators said the illegal alien stabbed her at a residence blocks away from her home in Long Branch, New Jersey. When police arrived on the scene, Wells was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Following the illegal alien’s court appearance, friends of Wells spoke fondly of the victim to CBS New York.

“She was just this bright light that everybody needed in their life,” one friend said.

Cordero-Castro entered the U.S. through the southern border as an unaccompanied minor, arriving in the country illegally without any adult border crosser accompanying him, Breitbart News confirmed months ago.

Since 2014, there have been as many as a quarter of a million unaccompanied minors who have arrived at the southern border, entering the country illegally.

Should Cordero-Castro be convicted of murdering Wells, he will face at least 30 years in prison before he is deported to Guatemala.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

via Breitbart News

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Inside the Ring: Air Force Study on EMP Threat


Solar flare

Solar flare / Getty Images

BY:

U.S. military facilities involved in command and control of forces face a growing risk of disruption by an electromagnetic pulse attack or solar superstorm that could knock out all electronics at the strategic bases, according to a report.

The report by the Air Force Electromagnetic Defense Task Force, made up of civilian and military experts, also warns that EMP or geomagnetic disturbances could cause catastrophic damage and the loss of life in the United States.

“Multiple adversaries are capable of executing a strategic attack that may black out major portions of a state’s grid,” the report said. “An EMP attack affects all devices with solid-state electronics and could render inoperative the main grid and backup power systems, such as on-site generators.”

Read the entire article at the Washington Times.

via Washington Free Beacon

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Ocasio-Cortez Threatens Trump, Jr. With Her ‘Subpoena Power’ Because He Made Anti-Socialist Meme About Her


So the socialist is saying they’ll use their subpoena power to go after him because he made a truthful meme about them.

Because that’s not fascist or an abuse of power or anything…

So instead of apologizing, after she got a lot of backlash, she said this:

Yeah, that doesn’t cure it.

via Weasel Zippers

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U.S. Becomes Net Oil Exporter for First Time Since Truman Presidency


And that’s what can happen when you promote American interests.

Via Free Beacon:

After three-quarters of a century relying more heavily on foreign oil, the United States became a net oil exporter in 2018, a step toward what President Donald Trump calls “energy independence.”

During his campaign, Trump told voters that “Under my presidency, we will accomplish a complete American energy independence. Complete. Complete.”

The shift toward exporting more U.S.-refined oil than the country imports reflects increased oil production in areas such as Texas, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania.

Michael Lynch, the president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, said the United States is becoming dominant in the world of energy.

Keep reading…

via Weasel Zippers

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6 Things to Know About AG Nominee William Barr

William Barr is a former U.S. attorney general, an advocate of investigating Hillary Clinton, and a bagpipe player for 60 years.

President Donald Trump announced Friday that he would nominate Barr, 68, to serve again as attorney general.

He previously served in the position from November 1991 to January 1993 under President George H.W. Bush, who died last Friday and was laid to rest this week.

In confirming to reporters outside the White House that he would nominate Barr, Trump called the lawyer and former business leader “one of the most respected jurists in the country, [a] highly respected lawyer” and “a terrific man, a terrific person, a brilliant man.”

Already, some Democrats are criticizing Barr for comments he has made in media interviews and op-eds.

If confirmed by the Senate, Barr would succeed acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who took over after Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“I did not know him until recently when I went through the process looking at people, and he was my first choice from Day One,” Trump said of Barr. “Respected by Republicans and respected by Democrats, he will be nominated for the United States attorney general.”

Here are six things to know about the president’s pick to run the Justice Department.

1. Senators Choose Sides

Barr’s first stop is the Senate Judiciary Committee, the scene of brass-knuckle partisanship this fall over the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Trump’s hope is that the Barr confirmation will not be nearly so fraught with partisan rancor.

The senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, didn’t come out with guns blazing, but indicated he had questions. Leahy tweeted:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., slated to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee in January, tweeted that he will do all he can to push through the nomination:

2.  Confirmation and Praise from Joe Biden in 1991

Barr’s first run at a confirmation hearing was anything but controversial.

In 1989, the elder Bush named Barr as an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Bush promoted him to deputy attorney general in 1990.

Like Whitaker, Barr also served as acting attorney general. Just days into that assignment, he impressed Bush with his handling of a hostage crisis at a federal prison in Talladega, Alabama, The Wall Street Journal reported in 1991.

More than 100 Cuban inmates who were awaiting deportation to Cuba took nine hostages. Barr ordered an FBI hostage rescue team to take control of the prison, resulting in the rescue of the hostages without any deaths.

After Bush nominated Barr for attorney general in 1991, the Judiciary Committee unanimously confirmed him, with the approval of then-Chairman Joe Biden, a Democrat from Delaware. (Biden, of course, would go on to become Barack Obama’s vice president in 2009.)

On one of the most contentious issues, Barr was asked about the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 that legalized abortion across the nation. Barr replied that he didn’t believe the right to an abortion was part of the Constitution.

Biden said he disagreed with Barr, but said it was “the first candid answer” he had heard on the topic.

“It’s astounding to me,” Biden said to Barr. “You should be complimented.”

Biden later said: “I know of no one on the Democratic side asking for a roll call vote [by the committee]. I see no need for one.”

The Senate confirmed Barr as attorney general by a voice vote in November 1991.

Barr is a strong choice by Trump and “eminently confirmable,” said John Malcolm, who was an assistant U.S. attorney working in Atlanta when Barr was deputy attorney general and attorney general.

“He is an excellent pick,” Malcolm, now director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “He is smart, independent, and knows the Department of Justice’s mission well.”

No one should expect this nomination to go as smoothly as the last time, Malcolm said.

“Very few Trump nominations get through without resistance,” Malcolm said. “The Democrats will want to extract promises from him that he will protect the Mueller investigation.”

For nearly two years, a team led by special counsel Robert Mueller has looked for evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia to secure Trump’s election as president in 2016.

3. Tenure as Attorney General

While serving as the nation’s 77th attorney general, Barr presided over significant events and investigations.

Andrew McCarthy, who was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York when Barr was attorney general, had high praise. McCarthy tweeted:

According to his biography on the website of the Kirkland and Ellis law firm, where he works in private practice, as attorney general Barr “set significant new enforcement policies in a wide range of areas, including financial institutions, civil rights, and antitrust merger guidelines.”

The bio continues:

At the Department of Justice, [Barr] established innovative programs to combat violent crime and set significant new enforcement policies in a wide range of areas, including financial institutions, civil rights, and antitrust merger guidelines. He led the department’s response to the S&L crisis; oversaw the investigation of the Pan Am 103 bombing; directed the successful suppression of the Talladega prison uprising and hostage taking; and coordinated counter-terrorism activities during the first Gulf War.

4. Views on Independent Investigators

Barr hasn’t directly criticized Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. However, he has raised questions about Mueller’s vetting of prosecutorial staff.

Mainly, Barr has raised questions about why the staff includes so many donors to Democrat candidates, including Hillary Clinton.

“In my view, prosecutors who make political contributions are identifying fairly strongly with a political party,” Barr told The Washington Post for a story that ran in July 2017.

“I would have liked to see him have more balance on this group,” Barr said of Mueller.

Among the issues that Mueller is believed to be investigating is Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.

Shortly after the FBI director’s dismissal, in a Washington Post op-ed with the headline “Former attorney general: Trump made the right call on Comey,” Barr wrote:

Comey is an extraordinarily gifted man who has contributed much during his many years of public service. Unfortunately, beginning in July, when he announced the outcome of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, he crossed a line that is fundamental to the allocation of authority in the Justice Department.

Barr told journalist Bob Woodward, in an interview for the 1999 book “Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate,” that he considered removing Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh for “misconduct” in 1992.

He said he believed that Walsh was overtly political.

But, Barr told Woodward, he opted against removing Walsh.

5. The Clintons and Uranium One

Barr has said the Justice Department should investigate the Uranium One scandal, which involves both Bill and Hillary Clinton. He noted that he sees more evidence to warrant an investigation there compared with the suspicion of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“There is nothing inherently wrong about a president calling for an investigation,” Barr told The New York Times in November 2017, referring to Trump.

“Although an investigation shouldn’t be launched just because a president wants it, the ultimate question is whether the matter warrants investigation,” he said.

The Times reported: “Barr said he sees more basis for investigating the uranium deal than any supposed collusion between Mr. Trump and Russia.”

“To the extent it is not pursuing these matters,” Barr is quoted saying about the Justice Department, “the department is abdicating its responsibility.”

The mining company Uranium One contributed $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton’s four-year tenure as secretary of state under Obama, The New York Times reported in 2015.

Figures associated with the company also paid former President Bill Clinton $500,000 to speak in Moscow.

In a 2010 deal approved by a committee including Hillary Clinton and eight other members of Obama’s Cabinet, a Kremlin-connected entity obtained 20 percent of America’s uranium production by acquiring Canada-based Uranium One.

6. Bagpipes, the CIA, and More

Barr has been a bagpipe player since he was an 8-year-old boy, and he was a notable member of the City of Washington Pipe Band.

After leaving the Justice Department in 1993, Barr built a career in corporate law, serving as general counsel and executive vice president of Verizon Communications Inc. from 2000 to 2008.

He was general counsel for GTE Corp. from 1994 until 2000, helping to negotiate a merger of GTE and Bell Atlantic Corp. that produced Verizon Communications. He also argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and the European Commission.

After graduating from Columbia University, he went to work for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1973 to 1977. While at the CIA, he attended law school at George Washington University and was a clerk to Judge Malcolm Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Barr also served President Ronald Reagan from 1982 to 1983 as a member of the White House’s domestic policy staff.

Barr and his wife, Christine, were married in 1973. Their daughter, Mary Daly, works in the deputy attorney general’s office as the Justice Department’s point person on the opioid drug crisis.

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