Lock him up: John Kerry should be prosecuted under the Logan Act for his chats with Iran, says Trump

Shhhhhh. You had me at “John Kerry should be prosecuted.”

The news cycle moves so quickly in the Trump era that not only is my attention span down to six seconds but in the rush to keep up with major stories I’m apt to miss things like the president calling on Twitter for a former Secretary of State to be prosecuted for undermining his foreign policy. That happened a few weeks ago, in late April. Trump doubled down on it today during a media availability:

I wrote three separate posts about this last September, when Kerry admitted that he’d met with Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, “three or four times” since after leaving office. There’s nothing inherently suspicious about ex-diplomats meeting with current diplomats but Kerry/Zarif meetings are noteworthy since they were the two main brokers of Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. And although Trump was still abiding by the nuclear deal at the time Kerry met with Zarif, it was common knowledge that that status quo wouldn’t last forever. Kerry was asked on Fox News in September whether he had told Zarif to wait Trump out. His answer: “I think everybody in the world is talking about waiting out President Trump.”

Here’s the Logan Act:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

The point of tearing up the nuclear deal and reinstating sanctions on Iran is to pressure Khamenei into agreeing to terms more favorable to the United States. Total denuclearization, ideally. Lefties would tell you Trump’s goal is war war war but as you can see in the clip, he’s basically dangling North-Korea-style rapprochement at them. Call me, he says. Let’s work something out. If Kerry’s whispering in Zarif’s ear that he should wait Trump out and hold on for a Democratic successor in 2021, at which point the Obama nuclear deal might be reinstated and sanctions lifted, then why shouldn’t Zarif continue to resist Trump’s pressure tactics?

He’s undermining Trump’s leverage. Working to “defeat the measures of the United States,” to borrow a phrase. And this isn’t the first time he’s been accused of doing that since “retiring.”

He won’t be prosecuted, though, partly because no one gets prosecuted under the Logan Act. It gets tossed around whenever a political enemy gets caught talking to foreign diplomats — some lefties wanted Mike Flynn charged under it for his phone chats with the Russian ambassador before becoming NSA — but literally no one has been convicted of the offense, which is why even some conservatives think it’s time to repeal it. Certainly Dan McLaughlin is right that the statute could be abused potentially by prosecuting political opponents whose behavior was less dubious than Kerry’s. Pay close attention to Trump’s answer in the clip, though, and you’ll hear him say that his “people” don’t want to charge Kerry — implying that the subject *has* come up, presumably at the president’s urging. Is this what Bill Barr had in mind last week when Kamala Harris asked him if the president had ever “suggested” that the DOJ open an investigation on someone and Barr suddenly turned evasive? How many other people has POTUS proposed prosecuting?

The post Lock him up: John Kerry should be prosecuted under the Logan Act for his chats with Iran, says Trump appeared first on Hot Air.

via Hot Air

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://hotair.com

Facebook Co-Founder: It’s Dangerous. Break It Up.

Mark Zuckerberg has become too powerful and must be stopped, according to Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes.

Writing in The New York Times on Thursday, Chris Hughes referred to Facebook as “dangerous” and said that it must be subjected to government regulation.

“We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well intentioned the leaders of these companies may be,” Hughes wrote, according to HuffPost. “Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American. It is time to break up Facebook.”

Hughes does not necessarily hit Facebook for cracking down on speech, such as the recent deplatforming of Alex Jones and Louis Farrakhan, and instead hits at the company’s seemingly monopolistic empire. He takes serious issue with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) allowing Facebook to acquire Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, thereby sealing the company’s hegemony in the social media sphere.

“Mark is a good, kind person,” Hughes wrote. “But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks.”

“I’m worried that Mark has surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challenging them,” he added. “Facebook’s board works more like an advisory committee than an overseer.”

Hughes also accuses Facebook of quashing competition by copying innovations, such as Snapchat — thus creating an echo chamber where almost no major social media company can emerge to compete. The solution, according to Hughes, is to have the government break up Facebook into multiple companies by enforcing antitrust laws and dismantling the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp.

“Because Facebook so dominates social networking, it faces no market-based accountability,” Hughes wrote. “This means that every time Facebook messes up, we repeat an exhausting pattern: first outrage, then disappointment and, finally, resignation.”

Following that, Hughes says that a new regulatory agency must be created to focus on other companies with an emphasis on protecting people’s privacy. He also urges Congress to pass a new privacy bill that would “specify exactly what control Americans have over their digital information, require clearer disclosure to users and provide enough flexibility to the agency to exercise effective oversight over time.”

“This idea may seem un-American — we would never stand for a government agency censoring speech,” Hughes wrote. “But there is no constitutional right to harass others or live-stream violence.”

Hughes finishes on a more philosophical note, focusing less on Facebook’s business practices and more on how the company has completely changed social communication — for the worse, in his view. He notes how the site is designed to keep people scrolling, constantly searching for an image more beautiful than the next.

“Some days, lying on the floor next to my 1-year-old son as he plays with his dinosaurs, I catch myself scrolling through Instagram, waiting to see if the next image will be more beautiful than the last,” he wrote. “What am I doing? I know it’s not good for me, or for my son, and yet I do it anyway.”

“We pay for Facebook with our data and our attention, and by either measure it doesn’t come cheap,” he said.

via Daily Wire

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.dailywire.com/rss.xml

For Second Month, More Than 100,000 Apprehended Illegally Crossing the Border

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents apprehended more than 109,000 individuals attempting to illegally cross the southwestern border in April, the agency announced Wednesday.

This figure makes for another increase over March’s record-busting 103,000 apprehensions, and thereby another month of what even Obama-administration officials now acknowledge is a crisis at the Mexican border. CBP noted on Twitter that as of this past Sunday, seven months into the fiscal year, 2019 apprehensions have exceeded the annual total for all years since 2009.

"We continue to face a humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border," Acting Executive Associate Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Nathalie Asher told a Congressional hearing Wednesday.

"This dramatic increase of arrests by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has placed a strain on our entire immigration system, stretched resources thin across the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and has ICE balancing its public safety mission in the interior of the United States with the influx of aliens at the border," she said.

Apprehension rates have grown continually since January, fueled primarily by rising migration from three central American countries: El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Whereas once illegal immigrants were primarily single men from Mexico, the thousands apprehended over the past several months have been primarily unaccompanied children and members of families ("family units").

The U.S. Border Patrol reported that it had apprehended more families and unaccompanied minors attempting to enter illegally than at any point since it began keeping track in 2012.

Caring for and housing these families and children, many of whom arrive sick or in need of other attention, has taxed border authorities’ resources to the breaking point, the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council said in a recent report. By the council’s estimate, some 40 percent of CBP officials are committed on any given day to dealing with the influx, leaving them unable to cope with drug smuggling and potential national security threats.

"The unabated 600 percent surge of family units from Central America to our borders and properly caring for this population have overwhelmed the entire government and brought our border security and immigration management systems to the point of collapse," the report claims.

The DHS Advisory Council called for more funding for CBP, as well as the closure of legal loopholes that enable mass abuse of the asylum system. In the former call, they were joined earlier this week by the Editorial Board of the New York Times, which called on Congress to "give Trump his border money," and grant a $4.5 billion funding request from the White House to help shore up CBP resources.

"But as record numbers of Central American families flee violence and poverty in their homelands, they are overwhelming United States border systems, fueling a humanitarian crisis of overcrowding, disease and chaos," the board wrote. "As resources are strained and the system buckles, the misery grows."

The White House is expected to work with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) on a proposal to fix issues with the U.S. asylum system. This proposal will come separately from the new immigration reform first floated earlier this week by presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The post For Second Month, More Than 100,000 Apprehended Illegally Crossing the Border appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

via Washington Free Beacon

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://freebeacon.com

Facebook Co-Founder Speaks Out: ‘The Government Must Hold Mark Accountable’

Commentary Culture

Facebook Co-Founder Speaks Out: ‘The Government Must Hold Mark Accountable’

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pauses while testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on April 11, 2018.Andrew Harnik / APFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pauses while testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on April 11, 2018. (Andrew Harnik / AP)

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes spoke out against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and called for the government to regulate the social media giant.

“The government must hold Mark accountable,” Hughes wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times published Thursday.

Hughes pointed out that Zuckerberg has immense power and influence, “far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government.”

“He controls three core communications platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — that billions of people use every day. Facebook’s board works more like an advisory committee than an overseer, because Mark controls around 60 percent of voting shares,” Hughes said.

“Mark alone can decide how to configure Facebook’s algorithms to determine what people see in their News Feeds, what privacy settings they can use and even which messages get delivered.”

TRENDING: Dems Quickly Delete Ginsburg vs. Kavanaugh Poll When It Goes Terribly Wrong

As Hughes explained, Zuckerberg is able to freely censor any content he wants by defining what’s “violent and incendiary speech.”

“He sets the rules for how to distinguish violent and incendiary speech from the merely offensive, and he can choose to shut down a competitor by acquiring, blocking or copying it.”

Should the government stop Facebook’s censorship?

0% (0 Votes)

0% (0 Votes)

Hughes’ biggest concern about Facebook’s immense power is Zuckerberg’s control over speech.

“The most problematic aspect of Facebook’s power is Mark’s unilateral control over speech. There is no precedent for his ability to monitor, organize and even censor the conversations of two billion people,” Hughes wrote.

Hughes suggested a new government agency to address Zuckerberg’s control over speech. “We need a new agency, empowered by Congress to regulate tech companies,” Hughes said. “Its first mandate should be to protect privacy.”

Hughes also suggested that the new agency should set clear guidelines for what is “acceptable” speech on social media platforms.

The Facebook co-founder explained that “we already have limits on yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, child pornography, speech intended to provoke violence and false statements to manipulate stock prices.”

RELATED: Facebook Admits To Uploading Contacts of 1.5 Million Users Without Permission

“We will have to create similar standards that tech companies can use. These standards should of course be subject to the review of the courts, just as any other limits on speech are,” Hughes wrote.

Obviously, there is reason is to be skeptical of the government setting the standards for speech, but some type of government agency might be a better alternative to big tech’s rampant censorship.

Instead of creating a government agency to set standards for “acceptable” speech, the government could ensure that constitutionally protected speech isn’t censored on social media platforms.

Either way, everyone should be able to recognize that Facebook has a censorship problem — even the company’s co-founder is speaking out against the platform.

Facebook has massive control over speech, and it’s time for the government to do something about it.

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

via Conservative Tribune

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct

BREAKING: Former Intelligence Analyst Arrested For Leaking Classified Information to News Outlet

Former Intel analyst Daniel Everette Hale, 31, of Nashville, Tennessee was arrested Thursday morning and charged with leaking classified information to a news outlet.

Hale, who was enlisted in the US Air Force from July ’09 to July ’13, has been charged with leaking classified documents about a military campaign against al-Qaeda to a reporter for The Intercept back in 2013 to 2014.

According to the indictment, Daniel Hale, who held a Top Secret//Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS//SCI) security clearance, gave 11 Top Secret documents to a reporter which were later published either in part, or whole online.

Via the Department of Justice:

According to allegations in the indictment, beginning in April 2013, while enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and assigned to the NSA, Hale began communicating with a reporter. Hale met with the reporter in person on multiple occasions, and, at times, communicated with the reporter via an encrypted messaging platform.  Then, in February 2014, while working as a cleared defense contractor at NGA, Hale printed six classified documents unrelated to his work at NGA and soon after exchanged a series of messages with the reporter.  Each of the six documents printed were later published by the reporter’s news outlet.

According to allegations in the indictment, while employed as a cleared defense contractor for NGA, Hale printed from his Top Secret computer 36 documents, including 23 documents unrelated to his work at NGA.  Of the 23 documents unrelated to his work at NGA, Hale provided at least 17 to the reporter and/or the reporter’s online news outlet, which published the documents in whole or in part. Eleven of the published documents were classified as Top Secret or Secret and marked as such.

According to allegations in the indictment, in August 2014, Hale’s cell phone contact list included contact information for the reporter, and he possessed two thumb drives.  One thumb drive contained a page marked “SECRET” from a classified document that Hale had printed in February 2014 and had attempted to delete from the thumb drive.  The other thumb drive contained Tor software and the Tails operating system, which were recommended by the reporter’s online news outlet in an article published on its website regarding how to anonymously “leak” documents.

“Daniel Hale is charged with obtaining national defense information, retention and transmission of national defense information, causing the communication of national defense information, disclosure of classified communications intelligence information, and theft of government property,” the government said.

Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Recall, former NSA contractor Reality Leigh Winner was arrested and sentenced to more than 5 years in prison for leaking classified documents to The Intercept.

The post BREAKING: Former Intelligence Analyst Arrested For Leaking Classified Information to News Outlet appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

via The Gateway Pundit

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com

Students Walk Out When School Shooting Vigil Turns into Gun Control Rally

Hundreds of Colorado’s STEM School Highlands Ranch walked out of the vigil for Tuesday’s shooting victims citing gun control politicization.

USA Today reporter Trevor Hughes tweeted:

The Federalist reported:

Colorado students walked out of an event billed as a vigil for Kendrick Castillo, an 18-year-old killed in a shooting at his school on Tuesday, when prominent speakers attempted to turn it into a rally for gun control. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado) each took a turn calling for gun control at the Douglas County event before students streamed out in protest.

Although the event was advertised as a vigil for Castillo, it was “sponsored by the gun control groups Brady’s Team Enough and March for Our Lives.” USA Today reported that “hundreds of students from the STEM School stormed out.” And while leaving they yelled, “This is not for us,” “Political stunt,” and “We are people, not a statement.”

Breitbart News spoke to Andrew Pollack, father of Parkland school victim Meadow Pollack. We asked what he thought of the students’ decision to march out once the vigil turned into a gun control rally. He said, “I praise good parenting.”

Pollack added, “Kids are looking at the real issues, which center on things like mental health.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com

Feds Release 168,000 Illegal Immigrants Into U.S. Amid Record-Breaking Month For Border Crossings

United States Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have released around 168,000 illegal immigrants — mostly members of family groups — into United States border communities to await asylum hearings, The Washington Times reports.

Although the Trump administration had officially declared an end to the “catch and release” policies of the Obama administration, the record number of illegal immigrants arriving at the border in the first quarter of 2019 has forced desperate immigration officials to find ways to alleviate the strain on their resources.

“Family units are not appearing in great numbers,” acting ICE chief Nathalie Asher told Congress on Wednesday, challenging the country’s immigration systems. ICE and CBP cannot hold full families in custody for more than 21 days, per a 2005 court decision, and the Trump administration walked back a policy separating families last summer.

Asher and other immigration officials testified before Congress on Wednesday, begging legislators to free up more funds for immigration enforcement along the southern border. In conjunction with the hearing, border patrol also released the number of illegal immigrants intercepted during the month of April, which was, again, a record-breaking month.

According to a press release from CBP, 109,144 individuals were apprehended at the southern border in the month of April. Ten thousand additional illegal immigrants were arrested and detained at legal border crossings.

“The 58,474 individuals in family units set another record,” CBP noted, “but an increasing number of people are also coming as single adults, 31,606. The overwhelming number of single adults are from Mexico, while most of the family units and unaccompanied teens are from Central America.”

The most astounding statistic in the report, though, may be that the Department of Homeland Security estimates that “1% of the populations of Guatemala and Honduras have made the journey north to the U.S. and jumped the border in just the past seven months,” according to statement made earlier this week by acting DHS secretary Kevin McAleenan.

The Washington Times reports that, if the record-breaking trend continues (and it has shown no sign of slowing in the first two weeks of May), by the end of this year, 2% of the populations of Guatemala and Honduras may have immigrated to the United States.

Democrats questioning DHS and CBP officials refused to believe that the border crisis has anything to do with a sudden rise in “migrant caravans” made up of immigrants from Central America looking for jobs in the United States, armed with the knowledge that the U.S. cannot keep family units in custody and must eventually release them to family members already living in-country.

Instead, Democrats, including Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), blamed the crisis on President Donald Trump’s threat to close the border to both immigration and trade. Durbin claims Trump’s rhetoric created an artificial emergency for asylum seekers who just want to get into the U.S. before more aggressive action is taken.

Officials responded to Durbin by noting that they frequently interview migrants and asylum seekers, and almost all interviewees tell authorities that they are looking for jobs and understand that the U.S. cannot immediately deport family units or adults who bring children.

“From interviews that we have done with the families we are apprehending, they are hearing that message loud and clear. They are hearing that from the smugglers, they are hearing that from the media down in the Northern Triangle,” one official told the panel.

Democrats say they’ll try to address the crisis, but not by freeing up funds for immigration control. Rather, Durbin said, according to The Washington Times, that Democrats are considering a one-time bill authorizing aid to Guatemala and Honduras.

via Daily Wire

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.dailywire.com/rss.xml

Joe Biden Claims U.S. ‘Obligation’ to Give Illegal Aliens Free Health Care

Former vice president and current Democrat candidate for president, Joe Biden, feels the United States has an “obligation” to give free health care to illegal aliens.

The leading Democrat candidate made his pronouncement at a campaign stop in Los Angeles, California, on Wednesday.

Replying to a reporter who asked if illegals who are “law abiding” deserve federal benefits, Biden eagerly agreed.

“I think that anyone who is in a situation where they’re in need of health care, regardless of whether they are documented or undocumented, we have an obligation to see that they are cared for,” Biden said. “That’s why I think we need more clinics around the country.”

The former vice president added that we need to “tone down the rhetoric” against illegals and that worries over illegal immigration are meant to “create fear and concern” about “that other, the immigrant.”

Biden has thus far been rather closed-mouth about health care. While he certainly supports Obamacare and an expansion of his former boss’s signature achievement, Biden has not spoken to what sort of plan he prefers as he gears up his campaign for the Democrat nomination for 2020.

Unlike other Democrat candidates, Biden has not endorsed Medicare-for-all but neither has he denounced the idea.

As to illegal aliens, Biden has previously exclaimed that they are “already Americans.”

In a 2014 speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. the then-vice president declared that the millions of illegals in the U.S. are already American citizens.

You know, the 11 million people living in the shadows, I believe they’re already American citizens. Teddy Roosevelt said it better, he said Americanism is not a question of birthplace or creed or a line of dissent. It’s a question of principles, idealism, and character. [Emphasis added]

These people are just waiting, waiting for a chance to be able to contribute fully. And by that standard, 11 million undocumented aliens are already American

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com

Facebook Co-Founder: Zuckerberg Wants Domination, So Break It Up

A former Facebook executive is interested in seeing Facebook get chopped into pieces. An op-ed written by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes in the New York Times expressed a resolve to “break up Facebook.” In the lengthy article , Hughes addressed many of the company’s ills, including Facebook’s privacy scandals and the concept that Facebook helped Donald Trump become president.
 

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.newsbusters.org/

Universities Nationwide Removing Artwork Deemed ‘Offensive’

Via College Fix: Censorship on university campuses targets historic figures A major nationwide trend on campuses is the removal of historic artwork depicting prominent figures or scenes that are deemed offensive or racist by today’s standards. The censorship is getting wider in scope. Controversial historical figures like Christopher Columbus and Woodrow Wilson have consistently drawn […]

via Weasel Zippers

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.weaselzippers.us