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Scott Pruitt Is ‘Reliable Foot Soldier’ in Getting Trump Deregulation Agenda Accomplished: $1 Billion in Savings

Scott Pruitt Is ‘Reliable Foot Soldier’ in Getting Trump Deregulation Agenda Accomplished: $1 Billion in Savings

by Penny Starr5 Apr 20180



Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt has been a media target in recent weeks due to his D.C. housing arrangements, but even the liberal press admits the former Oklahoma attorney general is getting President Donald Trump’s deregulatory agenda accomplished.

“He’s a reliable administration foot soldier, making good on President Donald Trump’s campaign promises for fewer environmental regulations and to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement,” CNN reported.

“Since he was confirmed to the job last February, Pruitt has taken an aggressive approach to rolling back Obama-era regulations, most recently this week’s announcement that he would revise fuel efficiency rules designed to cut back on emissions of greenhouse gases,” CNN reported.

“In Administrator Pruitt’s first year, EPA issued more deregulatory actions than any other federal agency, amounting to $1 billion in cost savings for the American people,” an EPA spokesperson told Breitbart News. “Administrator Pruitt is focused on advancing the president’s agenda and fixing the misguided policies of the past.”

At a press conference on Tuesday concerning the fuel standards, Pruitt said, “This is another step in the president’s regulatory agenda, deregulatory agenda … a billion dollars in savings with respect to over 22 significant regulatory actions that we’ve been involved in here at the agency.”

CNN reported:

In the 14 months since he became the nation’s top environmental policy official, Pruitt has bit-by-bit overseen the dismantling of a number of regulations and agreements across the agency, and impacting a wide range of issues.

Pruitt has withdrawn the “once in, always in” policy under the Clean Air Act, which determined how facilities that are major sources of hazardous air pollutants are regulated.

As Breitbart News reported:

Leftist reporters, pundits, and politicians came out recently to attack Pruitt and subsequently call for him to drop out.

CNN, the Washington Post, and other outlets have attacked Pruitt for renting out a condominium owned by lobbyists. Pruitt leased a room for roughly $50 a night, paying a total of $6,100.

Breitbart News also reported that despite the ongoing rumors that Pruitt is on his way out, which the same left-wing media are promoting, the president has expressed his ongoing support for the administrator.

President Trump said on Monday, “Keep your head up, keep fighting. We have your back.”

“White House chief of staff John Kelly reportedly also called Pruitt on Tuesday to reiterate his support for the head of the EPA,” according to Breitbart News.

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Obama CIA Director: Trump’s CIA Pick Is ‘Best Person Within CIA to Do This Job’

Former CIA Director John Brennan on Thursday said President Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director "is the best person within CIA to do the job."

Brennan appeared on MSNBC where he defended nominee Gina Haspel’s background working with "enhanced interrogation" methods during the George W. Bush administration.

Host Katy Tur asked Brennan whether there were any CIA operatives who were qualified to lead the agency and weren’t involved in "overseeing torture."

"Quite frankly, I think Gina Haspel is the best person within CIA to do the job. She is a dedicated experienced professional. She has over 30 years of experience working on some very tough issues," Brennan said.

He went on to say she was "part of a covert action program that was authorized by the President of the United States, that was deemed lawful by the highest legal body within the Executive Branch–that’s the Office of Legal Counsel [at the] Department of Justice–a program that was briefed to congressional oversight committees who authorized appropriate funds for it, and some of those members happen to have amnesia."

Brennan went on to say Haspel was carrying out a "duly authorized, legal program" and she should be given an opportunity to speak to her experience as a whole.

"Her nomination should be given the appropriate scrutiny by the Senate Intelligence Committee. They should look at her record. They should look at what she did," Brennan said. "But she was carrying out a duly authorized, legal program. And as controversial as it is, and as many of us had objections to how it was directed for the CIA to do this, I think she needs to be given a fair hearing."

This is not the first time that Brennan has defended the nominee. Shortly after Trump nominated Haspel, Brennan told MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson that Haspel "deserves the chance to take the helm at the CIA."

"Gina Haspel has a lot of integrity," Brennan said. "She has tried to carry out her duties at the CIA to the best of her ability, even when the CIA was asked to do some very difficult things in very challenging times."

Haspel was nominated by Trump in March to replace Mike Pompeo as CIA chief. Pompeo, in turn, was nominated to replace Rex Tillerson as the next secretary of state.

The post Obama CIA Director: Trump’s CIA Pick Is ‘Best Person Within CIA to Do This Job’ appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

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Liberal Governor Says She Won’t Allow Oregon National Guard To Be Deployed Along US/Mexico Border

Yesterday president Trump announced he would be sending National Guard troops to the Southern border to assist immigration officers in stemming the flow of illegal aliens into this country. Naturally liberals are triggered by this even though Obama did the exact same thing. Oregon’s liberal governor says she will not allow her state’s National Guard to be deployed along the US/Mexico border. You know, that border that runs along California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, but not Oregon? Even crazier is that she, as the governor of the state, has no idea that she doesn’t have the power to stop the President from doing this.

Kate Brown is the governor of Oregon. Her claim to fame is that she is the first openly bi-sexual governor, which is to say she has no claim to fame. Nor does she have any claim on sanity. Check out her tweet:

“If @realDonaldTrump asks me to deploy Oregon Guard troops to the Mexico border, I’ll say no. As Commander of Oregon’s Guard, I’m deeply troubled by Trump’s plan to militarize our border,” wrote Brown.

She wasn’t deeply troubled by Obama’s plan to militarize the border, but as I all ready pointed out, the left doesn’t care when one of their own does something. It’s only bad if Trump does it. She is all not deeply troubled by the the drugs and violence that come across our largely unprotected Southern border and that’s because liberals love illegal aliens more than Americans. Hey, that’s where their votes come from.

Someone must have asked Brown if Trump had actually asked her about deploying the Oregon Guard because she tweeted out this clarification:

“There’s been no outreach by the President or federal officials, and I have no intention of allowing Oregon’s guard troops to be used to distract from his troubles in Washington,” Brown wrote.

Oh, so Trump hasn’t asked for help, but she’s denying it to him anyway? What a bold stance. It’s as pathetic as saying you will refuse to got to a party that you were not invited to. Nobody cares and you are a sad woman.

The thing is, should Trump decide to use the Oregon Nation Guard, there’s not a damn thing Brown can do to stop him. The National Guard is the US military. They can be under the command of the various states, but if the President decided to mobilize them, it’s within his power to do so. The President can “nationalize” the Guards from any state for any reason: to fight in a war, to help with disaster relief, and even to provide border security.

You’d think that as Oregon’s governor, AKA the commander of the Oregon National Guard, that Brown would be aware of this, but she’s not. I suspect this isn’t the only reason why she is woefully unqualified for the position.

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Donald Trump Tosses Script at Tax Reform Event to Talk Illegal Immigration

Donald Trump Tosses Script at Tax Reform Event to Talk Illegal Immigration

File Photo: David McNew/Getty Images

by Charlie Spiering5 Apr 20180



President Donald Trump tossed his script during a tax reform event in West Virginia, choosing instead to talk about immigration enforcement.

“To hell with it,” he said, throwing the paper over his shoulder as the audience cheered and applauded. “That would’ve been a little boring … we have to tell it like it is.”

The president vowed to get rid of the frustrating “catch and release” laws that allow illegal immigrants to stay in the United States while they wait years for an immigration court date.

“No other country in the world does this,” Trump said, complaining about the “weak” laws in the U.S.

He complimented Mexico for their laws allowing them to disband the caravan of illegal immigrants, but warned that illegals would continue trying to cross the Southern border.

Trump also said many illegal immigrants who were women were raped while making the journey through Mexico to the United States.

“[Y]esterday it came out where this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before,” he said. “They don’t want to mention that.”

Trump also highlighted chain migration, pointing out the recent ISIS inspired attack in New York City by an immigrant who came to the country through extended family members.

“This is what the Democrats are doing to you,” he said. “They like it because they think you’re going to vote Democrat. Believe me, they are doing it for that reason.”

Trump revisited a campaign complaint about anchor babies, where pregnant women came to the United States to give birth so that their children will be citizens. Trump again called the laws “weak.”

“If you have a baby on our land, congratulations, that baby is a United States citizen,” Trump said. “We are the only ones.”

He told the people in the audience that he had started the wall on the Southern border, and would have the military helping secure the border.

“We will have our wall and we will get it strongly,” he said.

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Commentary: How the left bullies everyone who disagrees with them, and what you should do about it

The far-left has become notorious for orchestrating boycotts of companies that hold positions or make decisions contrary to its agenda.

In 2012, it was Chick-fil-A, but more recently, the boycotts have honed in on right-wing media hosts, the National Rifle Association and anything dealing with the Second Amendment.

Yet each boycott always seems to have a “backfire” moment, where the pressure asserted on groups and companies swings the pendulum back to the left — literally — and ends up benefitting the boycotted group. It’s become a tiresomely predictable process.

So, how do they happen? Lets examine the two most recent boycotts that went mainstream.

The NRA boycott

Following the tragic shooting in February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the left concentrated its outrage on the NRA, alleging the “gun lobby” — a term the left uses to describe the pro-Second Amendment organization — was partially responsible for the shooting because it advocates against gun control and for firearm freedoms.

In just hours, the left organized and begin zeroing in on companies that do business with the NRA. ThinkProgress, a liberal news outlet a part of the Center for American Progress — an organization founded by Clinton ally John Podesta and funded in part by George Soros — published a list of companies that aligned themselves with the NRA, either directly or by offering discounted services to NRA members.

Image source: screenshot
Image source: screenshot

Liberal activists also circulated lists online. Their purpose, of course, was to apply pressure to the companies. Money speaks, so it’s easy to see how pressure from tens of thousands of people moved the needle and forced companies to make a decision about the NRA — whether they wanted to be a part of the conservation or not.

The first company to fold was First National Bank of Omaha — and it didn’t take long for more than a dozen companies to follow suit, including: MetLife, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Enterprise Holdings, Avis, Hertz, Wyndam Hotel groups and many others.

But the NRA has millions of members, and millions more supporters. The group felt like the boycott was an attack on their Second Amendment rights, so just as quickly as the left initiated its boycott, mainstream Americans initiated a counterboycott.

No only did those opposed to the NRA boycott counterboycott companies that had folded to the liberal mob, but thousands of people joined the NRA, while thousands of others donated to the pro-gun organization.

In the end, the boycott only helped the NRA, in both messaging and physically with new members and more revenue.

The Laura Ingraham boycott

In March, Fox News host Laura Ingraham came under fire for tweeting a story about high school senior David Hogg, one of the most recognizable figures in the anti-gun movement post-Parkland. The story was about a few colleges that had rejected Hogg. Many people found the tweet distasteful.

Ingraham published her tweet on a Wednesday. By the following day, Media Matters, a far-left media watchdog also funded in part by George Soros, published a list of companies that had advertised on Ingraham’s show in the preceding week. Other liberal activists circulated lists online, while Hogg himself pointed people to Media Matters’ list and encouraged them to apply pressure.

Image source: screenshot
Image source: screenshot

And just that quickly, companies whose ads had appeared during Ingraham’s show were either distancing themselves from the Fox News host or severing ties with her altogether.

Ingraham apologized, but it was too late — the left’s grassroots coalition had already applied enough pressure to force more than a dozen companies to drop Ingraham or distance themselves from her, including Liberty Mutual and Bayer, Ingraham’s two leading sponsors.

But a counterboycott quickly arose, just as it had during the NRA boycott. Loyal Fox News views, conservatives, Ingraham’s fans and those disgusted with the left’s tactics began tweeting their support for Ingraham and pledged to stop doing business with companies who cowered to the liberal outrage mob.

Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.

What you should do about it

Boycotts have become the left’s most useful tool to bully people into complying with its agenda. It’s a powerful tactic driven by emotion and outrage, yet always short on fact.

However, make no mistake: the boycotts are designed in such a way to stifle any idea counter to the left’s agenda of more government and less freedom. Those who organize them believe they know better than mainstream Americans who want lower taxes, less government intrusion and more freedom.

So when the far-left orchestrates the next boycott against the Second Amendment or Fox News, take their lists and initiate a counterboycott. But not with the same tactics the left employs; let those companies know you support them and are thankful for supporting causes you believe are important.

This pulls the rug right out from under the left’s boycott — and sets it up for that “backfire” moment that every far-left boycott ends with.

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NY Times Shamelessly Links Gun Control to MLK, ’60s Violence

The New York Times shamelessly shoehorned gun control into Martin Luther King’s civil rights legacy by way of Richard Oppel Jr.’s tilted history lesson of the 1960s on Wednesday, “Killing Led, at Last, To Gun Restrictions,” part of the series “King’s Legacy: A Fight for Social Change.” Oppel lamented that if only America had been wise enough to pass gun restrictions generations ago, we wouldn’t have a violence problem today.

The 1960s were known for their turmoil, but the degree to which guns were a factor is sometimes overlooked. Not only was a president assassinated, but an ex-Marine opened fire from an observation deck in Austin and the homicide rate leaped by more than 50 percent, driven by fatal shootings. Gun sales soared, prompted by fears of violence and rioting.

….

The political calculus began to change on April 4, 1968. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in Memphis. Nine weeks later, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot in Los Angeles.

Finally, gun control became a possibility….

….

Today, it’s not clear that any shooting could be awful enough to embolden Congress to thwart the National Rifle Association. But even back then, the N.R.A. throttled much of what Mr. Johnson intended to do.

….

But it wasn’t until June 5, when Senator Kennedy was assassinated, that the logjam looked like it would break. A day later, a modest gun-control proposal that had languished passed Congress, raising the age to buy handguns to 21.

Still, Mr. Johnson wanted something far more sweeping. He proposed to treat guns like cars: They would be registered and their owners would be licensed.

Had something like this passed, gun-control proponents say, the United States today might look more like Britain or Australia, countries where guns are tracked and gun violence is a fraction of what it is here.

….

This time, there has been no similar urgency in Washington, even as hundreds of thousands of protesters in the capital and elsewhere have demanded changes after the killing of 17 students and staff at a high school in Parkland, Fla.

Oppel cited the drop in the murder rate, cited the fact that there are more guns now than ever, but somehow failed to put them together, which allowed him to still blame access to guns for violence.

Crime is less a concern, as the murder rate has fallen sharply since the sixties. But mass shootings have become frighteningly common. Anyone — or anyone’s child — could be a victim, at a school, a concert, a church, a movie theater or a nightclub.

And while a smaller percent of households own guns, the country has more of them, and they are deadlier: Semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 have become the weapon of choice in the largest recent mass killings, leading to death tolls in the dozens.

To the Times, only interest groups on the right have “disproportionate” and unfair influence (skip labor unions and environmental groups).

In 1968, the organization was not yet as uncompromising as it is today. But it used tactics that would feel familiar now.

It flooded its members with sky-is-falling warnings about the government taking away gun rights, and urged them to hound lawmakers….

Frustrated gun-control backers called it “calculated hysteria and distortion.” But it was profoundly effective.

That hardly sounds like “hysteria” today, given that the NYT itself two weeks ago published an op-ed from retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens calling for the Second Amendment’s repeal.

Fifty years ago, the death of great leaders prodded Congress to act on gun control. Now, at a similar juncture, it is the death of schoolchildren that has stirred the makings of a movement. It remains uncertain whether the current movement for gun restrictions will result in meaningful reform.

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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A Moment of Hate During Ellen’s Lovefest With Kamala Harris

Senator Harris has become a folk hero on the left since long before her election to the United States Senate last year. She prosecuted the Center for Medical Progress over their undercover videos showing officials at Planned Parenthood callously discussing the sale of aborted baby body parts during her tenure as California Attorney General. During the confirmation hearings for CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Harris obsessively focused on climate change, another cause important to the progressive left.

DeGeneres introduced the Junior California Senator as “California’s first African-American senator” and “the first Indian-American to ever be elected to the Senate”, adding “there are many who would like to see her become the first female President of the United States.” In spite of this flowery introduction of a liberal Democrat, DeGeneres still tried to convince people that she’s not political. Keep in mind that she told Megyn Kelly that she would not have President Trump on her show, calling him “dangerous for the country and for me personally as a gay woman.” 

Toward the beginning of the interview, Harris did a PR campaign for the group of illegal immigrants known as “Dreamers”, referring to the Trump administration’s decision to “arbitrarily” rescind protection to the Dreamers as “one of the lowest lights in terms of what had happened.” DeGeneres echoed Harris’s sense of urgency when it comes to the Dreamers: “It makes me so sad and we need to fight for them to be protected.” The left didn’t seem to mind when President Obama “arbitrarily” protected them from deportation just months before his re-election.  

Harris expressed optimism about the future of the Dreamers, mentioning that “I see them like I see so many of these other kids as being our future and so I see our future as bright.” By “our future”, she means the future of the Democratic Party. 

It did not take long for DeGeneres to ask Harris about her plans on running for President in 2020. Not surprisingly, Harris refused to answer the question directly. That didn’t stop DeGeneres from asking her “who would be your vice president?” Harris then asked DeGeneres “you got any plans?” 

DeGeneres then proceeded to ask Harris a series of questions, effectively “vetting” her should she decide to run for President in 2020. She prefaced the exchange by saying “People are going to want to know more about Kamala Harris because we know what you stand for and I love all the things you stand for.” Should Harris decide to launch a Presidential bid, one can safely assume she has the desperate housewife vote locked down.

One of the questions asked Harris if she had to pick either President Trump, Vice President Pence or Attorney General Sessions to be stuck in an elevator with, which man she would choose. Harris answered by asking “does one of us have to come out alive” as Harris, DeGeneres and the audience laughed and clapped. The fact that Harris would say something like that comes as quite ironic especially since she talked about the importance of “joyful warriors” at the very beginning of the interview in addition to rejecting “anxiety and depression and anger.” So much for “when they go low, we go high.” 

Harris’s macabre fantasy about one of the top three members of the executive branch dying comes just one day after director Joss Whedon, tweeted out “Die, Don. Just quietly die.” Maybe he’ll make an appearance on Ellen one of these days. 

As the segment drew to a close, Ellen DeGeneres once again referred to Harris “as possibly your next President of the United States!” as the crowd cheered enthusiastically. The segment concluded with DeGeneres hugging Harris.

For all the talk about how President Trump has divided the country, the statements by Senator Harris and Whedon make it perfectly clear that the left has absolutely no interest in uniting the country. 

03:43:40 PM

DEGENERES: You get elected as Senator, Trump is elected as President, and in all that time of everything that’s going, especially with parents who are immigrants, what is the most surprising thing that has happened to you?

HARRIS: Well, I mean, there’s a lot and there are those moments like when this Administration arbitrarily made a decision to rescind protection to those Dreamers that are protected by DACA. That was one of the lowest lights in terms of what had happened. You know, these kids who are serving in our military, they are in colleges and universities, they are working in Fortune 100 companies, and they are playing by the rules. They were vetted to see if they’ve committed any crimes, if they’ve, if they’re living a productive live, and if they were living life the way that we want them to, we said we’ll give them protection and then arbitrarily, we took that protection away.

DEGENERES: Yeah, that is appalling to me.

HARRIS: It is. 

DEGENERES: It really, it makes me so sad and we need to fight for them to be protected.

HARRIS: But and so on the topic of those Dreamers, I’ll tell you then, a highlight of the experience that I’ve had as a United States Senator. Walking the halls of the United States Congress and seeing thousands of Dreamers who have been traveling to our Nation’s Capital by train, by bus, by car, God only knows how they’re affording to get there. I am certain that they are sleeping ten-deep on someone’s living room floor while they’re there. And they are there every day walking the halls truly believing that if the members of the United States Congress see them and hear their stories, that we’ll do the right thing. These kids believe in our democracy. That’s a beautiful thing. It’s a beautiful thing.

DEGENERES: So we have to do right by it.

HARRIS: Yeah. That’s right. That’s right. But I see them like I see so many of these other kids as being our future and so I see our future as bright because they do believe in our democracy. They do believe if they are heard and seen, that it will matter and that people will listen.

DEGENERES: Yeah. And I think that these kids that are, you know, the march that just happened in Washington, they will make a difference, don’t you? I mean first of all, they’re going to be eligible to vote soon and they can make changes if they’re not happy with what’s going on. 

03:50:13 PM

DEGENERES: It’s been happening for a while where people have put it out there that you might be running for President or that they want you to run for President. You’re probably not going to answer me but I’m going to ask you anyway.

HARRIS: You’re right. On both counts.

DEGENERES: You won’t answer?

HARRIS: I’m not going to answer.

DEGENERES: No. What, then…

DEGENERES: Will you run for President?

HARRIS: Okay, let me tell you…

DEGENERES: What’s your answer?

HARRIS: So here’s my answer. Right now, we are in the early months of 2018 and at this very moment in time, there are people across America who have priorities around their healthcare, have priorities around can they get through the end of the month and pay the bills, pay off their student loans, can they afford to pay for gas, housing, critical issues. These DACA kids, when we talk about where they are in terms of immigration. There are so many pressing issues right, guns, we have got to pass an assault weapons ban, we need to have universal background checks. These are immediate needs and these are the things I’m focused on right now. I’ve seen so many people, Ellen, focus on that thing out there, and then trip over this thing here.

DEGENERES: Right.

HARRIS: I don’t want to trip.

DEGENERES: Okay.

HARRIS: There’s so much that’s important right now.

DEGENERES: Who would be your Vice President?

HARRIS: You got any plans?

DEGENERES: I’m, I’m busy. All right. All right, we’re going to vet you right now just in case. We need to know lots about you. 

HARRIS: Okay.

DEGENERES: Because people are going to want to know more about Kamala Harris because we know what you stand for and I love all the things you stand for.

HARRIS: Thank you.

DEGENERES: But who was your first celebrity crush?

HARRIS: Okay. I’m going to tell you and I’m going to date myself. Honestly. Tito Jackson.

DEGENERES: Tito! 

HARRIS: Because. Okay, the Jackson Five. Okay so, I have a sister and I have lots of cousins and everyone picked a Jackson Five and all that was left was Tito. 

DEGENERES: Wow!

HARRIS: So like, they got Michael, they got Marlon, I got Tito.

DEGENERES: Well. All right. Poor Tito. He’s…

HARRIS: I love Tito. 

DEGENERES: Yeah, obviously.

HARRIS: He truly ended up being my first celebrity crush. 

DEGENERES: All right. All right. I’ve been a Senator, complete this. I’ve been a Senator for over a year now and I still don’t understand blank.

HARRIS: I still don’t understand how in Washington, D.C, there’s one inch of snow and the whole town shuts down. I don’t understand that.

DEGENERES: Yes. That’s, that’s a good thing to not understand. What’s the most rebellious thing you did as a teenager?

HARRIS: Oh. You are going to vet me. 

DEGENERES: Yeah. It’s going to come out so you might as well tell it here.

HARRIS: Let’s see. I, I broke curfew, I, I was a loiterer. I actually had a loitering problem when I was in high school. I really did.

DEGENERES: Where did you loiter?

HARRIS: I would loiter the halls and the principal would say, Kamala, you’re out here again and I’d say “Yes, Mr. Clem. I’m out again.” And he’d say “Come on, let’s sit down and talk. How’s it going?” And I’d say “I’m bored.” He’d say “Why don’t you go back to class?” and then I’d go back to class.

DEGENERES: God, you were bad.

HARRIS: I was awful.

DEGENERES: You were really bad. If you had to be stuck in an elevator with either President Trump, Mike Pence, or Jeff Sessions, who would it be?

HARRIS: Does one of us have to come out alive?

(Laughter, clapping)

DEGENERES: You can’t sleep in the middle of the night. What do you do?

HARRIS: Oh. I get up. I, I will read cookbooks. I actually, this happened recently. Yeah, I love, I love cooking. 

DEGENERES: You just read cookbooks?

HARRIS: I read recipes, I like recipes. 

DEGENERES: All right.

HARRIS: If I’m not cooking.

DEGENERES: Especially if you’re not cooking. 

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEGENERES: What’s a nickname, what’s a nickname that your husband calls you?

HARRIS: Honey, babe.

DEGENERES: The regular?

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEGENERES: What’s a nickname your Republican colleagues call you?

HARRIS: I have no idea.

DEGENERES: All right. All right. Let’s see. Do you have any tattoos?

HARRIS: No.

DEGENERES: If you were going to get a tattoo, what would it be and where would it go?

HARRIS: If I were to get a tattoo, maybe, I don’t know, if I were going to be self-indulgent, it would be a lotus flower because that’s what my name means. And maybe on my wrist.

DEGENERES: Okay. And are you running for President, yes or no?

HARRIS: Next question.

DEGENERES: All right. Tito, come on out! All right, Kamala Harris. Senator Kamala Harris, everybody, possibly your next President of the United States! 

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Conservative writer fired from The Atlantic for his comments on abortion — here’s what he said

The Atlantic fired conservative writer Kevin Williamson on Thursday after a 2014 podcast surfaced Wednesday. In the podcast, Williamson said women who get abortions should be subject to hanging, The Hill reports.

What happened?

The Atlantic hired Williamson last month after he previously worked for the National Review.

On Wednesday, Media Matters dug up a 2014 episode of Williamson’s podcast, where he made some inflammatory comments about punishing women who get abortions.

What did he say?

“And someone challenged me on my views on abortion, saying, ‘If you really thought it was a crime you would support things like life in prison, no parole, for treating it as a homicide.’ And I do support that, in fact, as I wrote, what I had in mind was hanging,” Williamson said in 2014.

“But yeah, so when I was talking about, I would totally go with treating it like any other crime up to and including hanging — which kind of, as I said, I’m kind of squishy about capital punishment in general, but I’ve got a soft spot for hanging as a form of capital punishment,” Williamson said. “I tend to think that things like lethal injection are a little too antiseptic … quasi-medical — yeah, if the state is going to do violence, let’s make it violence. Let’s not pretend like we’re doing something else.”

This viewpoint from Williamson was not new information; Williamson had tweeted (and since deleted) before that “the law should treat abortion like any other homicide,” saying, “I have hanging more in mind.” Those comments circulated through the media when Williamson was hired in March.

Atlantic editor Jeff Goldberg told the staff in a memo when Williamson was hired that he wanted to “give people second chances and the opportunity to change.”

What did The Atlantic say in its statement?

The Atlantic issued a statement to the staff Thursday about Williamson’s firing. Some excerpts:

“Late yesterday afternoon, information came to our attention that has caused us to reconsider this relationship,” the statement read. “Specifically, the subject of one of Kevin’s most controversial tweets was also the centerpiece of a podcast discussion in which Kevin explained his views on the subject of the death penalty and abortion. The language he used in this podcast — and in my conversations with him in recent days — made it clear that the original tweet did, in fact, represent his carefully considered views.”

“We remain committed to grappling with complex moral issues in our journalism. Some of our colleagues are pro-life, and some are pro-choice; we have pro-death-penalty and anti-death-penalty writers; we have liberals and conservatives. We obviously understood that Kevin himself is pro-life when we asked him to write for us. This is not about Kevin’s views on abortion.”

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Spread the word: China’s war on Christianity now blocking access to Bibles

If you’re in China and in need of a “baby-food bible,” or a “bible” on autoimmune disease, no problem. If you’re in need of God’s word … tough luck. China escalated its war on Christians by removing access to bibles in online stores, CNN reports today, as China’s leaders try claiming that they respect religious belief — as long as it comes under state control:

The Bible appears to have been removed from online marketplaces in China, as Beijing clamps down on how its citizens practice religion.

China has always controlled sales of the Bible, only allowing it to be distributed and printed by state-sanctioned churches, but in recent years it had been available to buy online.

That loophole now appears to be firmly closed. Searches for “Holy Bible” did not return results on JD.com, and results on Amazon.cn did not include the main text, but did include study guides and the Koran.

This move comes at a very awkward moment for the Vatican, which had been working on a rapprochement with Beijing on operations within China. Despite efforts to find concessions on both sides, China hardened its position earlier this week. Having the state select religious leaders doesn’t interfere at all with religious beliefs, including Catholicism, the chief of religious affairs declared:

Restricting the Vatican’s control over the appointment of bishops in China does not infringe on believers’ religious freedom, a Chinese official said Tuesday, amid historic negotiations between Beijing and the Holy See aimed at healing divisions.

Chen Zongrong, an official overseeing religious affairs, said Beijing would not allow “foreign forces” to govern the country’s faith groups.

“The Chinese constitution clearly states that China’s religious groups and religious affairs cannot be controlled by foreign forces, and (the foreign forces) should not interfere in Chinese religious affairs in any way.”

“I disagree with the view that preventing Rome from having full control over the selection of bishops hinders religious freedom,” Chen said.

Chen wasn’t just waxing philosophical, either. Beijing issued a policy paper that  demands that the Catholic Church and other religions adapt their doctrine to support the sovereignty of the state, and the Communist Party:

Speaking at a State Council briefing, the former vice administrator for the recently dissolved State Administration for Religious Affairs emphasized a need for faiths in China to “adapt to socialist society” and “develop religions in the Chinese context.”

“Actively guiding religions in adapting to the socialist society means guiding religious believers to … be subordinate to and serve the overall interests of the nation and the Chinese people,” said a white paper released Tuesday.

“It also means guiding religious groups to support the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system,” the document said.

Chen added another thought in support of this argument:

“I believe there is no religion in human society that transcends nations.”

Any religion that doesn’t transcend nations isn’t a religion at all. It’s a political club. Or worse yet — and in this case, all too true — the kind of oppression where all thought must be either approved or punished by the state.

Basically, China wants its subjects to worship something, but they insist on it being socialism and the leadership caste. That would explain why Beijing has begun its crackdown on access to Bibles. The scriptures tell the stories of man-made kingdoms that worshiped themselves more than God, and what happened to them when they refused to mend their ways. That lesson is inescapable in the Bible, which is what makes it subversive enough for totalitarians to ban.

This puts a great deal of pressure on the Vatican. Do they continue negotiations with China and attempt to alleviate some suffering by Christians in the underground church on terms that are almost explicitly antithetical to the faith? Or do they walk away and continue testifying to the cruel nature of a regime that cannot abide even a hint that the State is not the end-all, be-all of human existence? And, for that matter, will we hear from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom on this new crackdown in China?

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Buzzfeed Publishes Insane WikiLeaks-Guccifer Conspiracy Theory, Inadvertently Proves the Opposite

Buzzfeed is continuing to push the bizarre conspiracy theory that Guccifer 2.0 was behind WikiLeaks’ email leak from the Democratic National Committee — but instead they just proved, yet again, that the shadowy figure was not the original source.

The author was reporting on alleged leaked direct messages between an activist named Emma Best, who had been angling for Guccifer 2.0 to provide her with leaked documents, and someone using the WikiLeaks Twitter account.

“[I] gonna send a large trove to wikileaks,” Guccifer 2.0 allegedly told Best in August, 2016. Best then messaged WikiLeaks and conveyed what the anonymous account had told her.

“I told them that Guccifer 2.0 was considering giving me at least part of the cache, which is when they asked me to be their ‘agent,’ which they said I would get ‘credit’ for,” Best claimed to BuzzFeed. She said that at this point she stopped messaging Guccifer 2.0 and she did not act as an intermediary.

If WikiLeaks had already received documents from Guccifer, why would they have needed a go-between for new ones? WikiLeaks had already published the bulk of their leak on July 22. 

On August 12, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 also tweeted that they would be sending a large trove of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee documents to WikiLeaks. 

Again, this is nearly a month after the initial DNC leaks were published by WikiLeaks. They never published anything from the DCCC.

Documents shared by Guccifer 2.0 appeared to have Russian fingerprints deliberately placed on them, according to experts, but the establishment who seeks to discredit WikiLeaks have ran with the story claiming that that the “hacker” was a Russian military officer and behind all of it.

Last year, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) — a 30 member group made up of well respected former experts from the National Security Administration, tech companies, and other intelligence agencies, released a letter detailing their analysis of what the Guccifer 2.0 account was all about.

The report from VIPS states that “forensic studies of “Russian hacking” into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computer. After examining metadata from the “Guccifer 2.0” July 5, 2016 intrusion into the DNC server, independent cyber investigators have concluded that an insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device.”

Additionally, the former intelligence operatives detail how the FBI neglected to perform any independent forensics on the original “Guccifer 2.0,” and assert that “the reason the U.S. government lacks conclusive evidence of a transfer of a ‘Russian hack’ to WikiLeaks is because there was no such transfer.”

Among those who signed on to the report is William Binney, former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center, Larry C Johnson, who is retired from the CIA & State Department, Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst at SIGINT Automation Research Center of the NSA, and many more.

“There was no hack of the Democratic National Committee’s system on July 5 last year—not by the Russians, not by anyone else. Hard science now demonstrates it was a leak—a download executed locally with a memory key or a similarly portable data-storage device. In short, it was an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system. This casts serious doubt on the initial ‘hack,’ as alleged, that led to the very consequential publication of a large store of documents on WikiLeaks last summer,” Patrick Lawrence wrote for the Nation.

Lawrence went on to detail the findings in a report by a cyber expert who goes by the moniker “the Forensicator.”

The analyst found that the transfer took place at speeds of 23 MB/s, which means that a remote data transfer over the internet would be extremely unlikely. Instead, the report states that a more likely scenario would be “that the individual who was collecting the data either had physical access to the computer where the data was stored, or the data was copied over a local high speed network (LAN).”

“This initial copying activity was done on a system where Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) settings were in force. Most likely, the computer used to initially copy the data was located somewhere on the East Coast,” Forensicator reported.

In their conclusion, they asserted that they believe the files were obtained by plugging a USB drive directly into a DNC computer.

Buried at the end of his lengthy conspiracy theory in BuzzFeed, Kevin Collier admitted that “files that Guccifer 2.0 published on its WordPress account don’t appear in Assange’s first release in 2016 of hacked Democratic files, which WikiLeaks calls the DNC Email Archive on its website.” He also acknowledged that the conversation between Best and WikiLeaks occured after DNC emails had already been published by WikiLeaks.

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