Judge Accuses State Department of Making ‘False Statements’ on Clinton Emails

From the Daily Signal  by

Kevin Mooney 

State Department officials opposed to disclosing more of Hillary Clinton’s emails as secretary of state made “false statements” and filed “false affidavits” in a related lawsuit, a federal judge said during a court hearing in Washington earlier this month.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered the hearing after a legal watchdog asked the court to obtain testimony under oath from current and former State Department officials, including Clinton and former aide Cheryl Mills.

If Lamberth agrees with Judicial Watch, Clinton and others would have to testify under oath and answer questions about how the department processed the organization’s Freedom of Information Act requests, and how it conducted its search for emails Clinton sent and received over a private email server.

Mills was Clinton’s chief of staff and counselor when she was secretary of state from Jan. 21, 2009, to Jan. 31, 2013, and worked on her presidential campaigns.

The State Department had asked Lamberth to issue a summary judgment that would have closed the case and ended any more inquiries into Clinton emails that have not been disclosed.

The judge refused and explained during the Oct. 12 hearing why he had granted limited discovery of relevant facts in March 2016:

The case started with a motion for summary judgment here and which I denied and allowed limited discovery, because it was clear to me that at the time that I ruled initially that false statements were made to me by career State Department officials. And it became more clear through discovery that the information that I was provided was clearly false regarding the adequacy of the search and this–what we now know turned out to be the secretary’s email system.

I don’t know the details of what kind of IG [inspector general] inquiry there was into why these career officials at the State Department would have filed false affidavits with me. I don’t know the details of why the Justice Department lawyers did not know false affidavits were being filed with me. But I was very relieved that I did not accept them, and that I allowed limited discovery into what had happened.

The full transcript of the hearing is available here.

Judicial Watch, a Washington-based nonprofit that describes itself as promoting “integrity, transparency, and accountability in government,” filed its FOIA lawsuit in July 2014 after the State Department declined to respond to a May 2014 request in which Judicial Watch asked for:

Copies of any updates and/or talking points given to [U.N.] Ambassador [Susan] Rice by the White House or any federal agency concerning, regarding, or related to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Any and all records or communications concerning, regarding, or relating to talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency.

Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americansdied in the terrorist attacks on the consulate and a nearby CIA annex in Benghazi.

This same Judicial Watch lawsuit seeking information about the Benghazi attacks led to the discovery in 2015 of the private email server Clinton used while conducting official business as secretary of state.

The FBI uncovered 72,000 documents as part of its 2016 investigation into Clinton’s use of the private email server, which became an issue in the Democratic nominee’s presidential race with Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Judicial Watch obtained documents containing Clinton emails in response to a FOIA lawsuit it filed May 6, 2015, after the State Department did not respond to an earlier request.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg ordered the State Department to complete processing of the remaining Clinton documents by Sept. 28.

A State Department spokesperson told The Daily Signal that “all remaining” nonexempt records were posted to the department’s website Oct. 1 and 4 in compliance with court orders.

Related: Legal Watchdog, Citing Secret Material in Clinton Emails, Presses State Department in Court

But Judicial Watch continues to press for additional disclosure of Clinton emails, and State Department officials continue to resist that.

“President Trump should ask why his State Department is still refusing to answer basic questions about the Clinton email scandal,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in an Oct. 17 press release. “Hillary Clinton’s and the State Department’s email coverup abused the FOIA, the courts, and the American people’s right to know.”

During an earlier hearing Oct. 11 in U.S. District Court, the watchdog group reported on the estimated number of Clinton documents the State Department continues to withhold.

Lamberth engaged in a testy exchange with Robert Prince, the Department of Justice lawyer representing State Department officials. The judge accused State Department officials of “doublespeak” and told Prince that he was playing the same “word games” as Clinton:

Lamberth: The State Department told me that it had produced all the records when it moved for summary judgment and you filed that motion. That was not true when that motion was filed.

Prince: At that time, we had produced all—

Lamberth: It was not true.

Prince: Yes, it was—well, Your Honor, it might be that our search could be found to be inadequate, but that declaration was absolutely true.

Lamberth: It was not true. It was a lie.

Prince: It was not a lie, Your Honor.

Lamberth: What—that’s doublespeak …

Prince: There’s strong precedent saying that items not in State’s possession do not need to be searched.

Lamberth: And that’s because the secretary [of state] was doing this on a private server? So it wasn’t in State’s possession?

Prince: No—

Lamberth: So you’re playing the same word game she played?

Prince: Absolutely not, Your Honor. I am not playing that.

In the hearing, Lamberth also said he was “dumbfounded” to learn in a report from the Department of Justice’s inspector general that Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff, was granted immunity and permitted to accompany Clinton to an FBI interview about her using the private email server to conduct official business.

“I had myself found that Cheryl Mills had committed perjury and lied under oath in a published opinion I had issued in a Judicial Watch case where I found her unworthy of belief,” Lamberth said. “And I was quite shocked to find out she had been given immunity in—by the Justice Department in the Hillary Clinton email case.”

“So I did not know that until I read the IG report and learned that, and that she had accompanied the secretary to her interview,” the judge said.

The Daily Signal requested comment from the State Department and Justice Department about the Oct. 12 hearing and Lamberth’s accusations.

In an email message, a State Department spokesperson told The Daily signal on background that the agency can’t comment on ongoing litigation. The Justice Department also declined to comment.

In a related development, Judicial Watch obtained additional documents in response to a September 2018 Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The group said these documents show that “a significant number” of the 340,000 emails found on the laptop of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., were between Clinton and her longtime aide, Huma Abedin. Weiner is Abedin’s estranged husband.

They're bidding for what?!!!

They're bidding for what?! By Jason Stutman Less than a month from today, the world will witness a modern David versus Goliath story play out. On November 14th, David Beyerle, a communications engineer at Penn State University's IT department, will go toe to toe with a long list of major internet service providers (ISPs). The ticket includes some of the most powerful carriers on the planet, namely Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, and AT&T. If you’re hoping for blood, you won’t find any in this fight. The battle will be overseen by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in an orderly fashion. No fists will be thrown and no stones will be flung. Nonetheless, it will be a fierce and hard-fought bout. The prize won’t be anything you can touch or hold in your hands, yet it will be incredibly valuable to those who wish to wield it. Largely ignored by the mainstream media, the battle for something known as "millimeter waves" is one where investors will want a front-row seat. Millimeter Waves: What Are They, and Why Are They So Valuable? Millimeter waves, I have to admit, aren’t exactly a sexy topic. Most people have probably never even heard of millimeter waves before, but there’s a reason multibillion-dollar conglomerates are lining up to bid for them in a series of highly anticipated government auctions. There’s a reason even underdogs like David Beyerle are hoping for a moonshot to get their hands on them... Occupying the spectrum of frequencies between 24 GHz and 28 GHz, millimeter waves are much like any other form of wireless communication we’re already familiar with. Radio, cellular, and satellite all operate within specific ranges of wavelengths and frequencies. Sending information through thin air may seem like magic to some, but the technology is based entirely in physics. Imperceptible to the human eye, electromagnetic waves of all shapes and sizes are constantly flowing through (or bouncing off) you at any given moment. These waves all carry a set of physical properties that determine how they can be used for human benefit (or even harm). Frequency, wavelength, and photon energy ultimately determine what are known as propagation characteristics, or the way waves move through the atmosphere. Again, this isn’t exactly enthralling information, but it absolutely matters. The point is that data doesn’t just travel through empty air; it rides physical waves, which are ultimately finite in supply. This is why local television and radio broadcasters have unique “channel” assignments. Designating channels to specific broadcasters allows for multiple routes of communication without interference. If we didn’t divvy up these channels, wireless communication would be as effective as a two-way highway with no lanes and no median. Hence the upcoming FCC auction for millimeter wave, a spectrum that will be crucial in the next generation of mobile communication, or 5G. The Very Foundation of 5G Without digging too deep into the details, millimeter waves operate within a range of relatively short wavelengths and high frequencies. This combination makes them incredibly effective at sending large amounts of data (high bandwidth) through the air to many different devices at once. Now, high bandwidth on its own, of course, isn’t anything new. Infrared and optical wavelengths, in fact, can support higher data rates than millimeter waves can. These shorter wavelengths, however, are easily disrupted by the atmosphere. All it takes is a little bit of rain or fog to disrupt the signal, hence the use of optical fiber to prevent any interference. Millimeter waves, though, are much more durable in the air. Not quite as durable as radio waves, mind you, but enough to get the job done. In short, millimeter waves exist at the perfect intersection between distance and bandwidth. In the balancing act of the electromagnetic spectrum, they are essential to increasing the capacity of wireless communication as far as we need it today. Needless to say, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile have incredible incentive to control parts of the millimeter spectrum. Barring an act of God on behalf of David Beyerle, they’ll easily outbid the remaining competition when the FCC auctions kick off on November 14th.Why This All Matters to You The millimeter wave spectrum may hold incredible value for ISPs, but it isn’t enough on its own. At the end of the day, these ISPs need access points to send and receive those signals. Because millimeter waves can only travel so far, mobile carriers and their infrastructure partners have to tighten the net, so to speak. Instead of enormous cell towers every 20 miles or so, “small cell” towers are being deployed across the U.S. (and soon the entire world) in order to make full use of that millimeter spectrum. In 2019 you’re going to start seeing these small cells popping up all over the place, if you haven’t already. They’ll be deployed on city sidewalks (perhaps disguised as lamp posts to conform to specific regulations), atop parking garages, and elsewhere. All told, North American enterprises are expected to deploy a total of 400,000 small cells by the end of 2018, up from 292,000 in 2017. By 2020, that number is forecast to reach 552,000 small cells per year. By 2025, the number is expected to reach 849,000. Needless to say this is going to be an explosive trend for the next half-decade and then some. For investors, it’s a potential gold mine, as the companies behind these small cell deployments have yet to reach the attention of the masses. Frankly, we don’t expect that to last much longer, as 5G is less than a year away from becoming truly mainstream, so there’s a sense of urgency here I cannot stress enough. My best is advice is to locate the top 5G stocks ASAP. You don't want to wait on this opportunity.

The Fed has gone crazy

By Briton Ryle Written Oct. 15, 2018 In this age of machines and ETFs, there just aren't slow grinds to the downside. Instead, we get gut-wrenching plunges that push indicators from extremely bullish to extremely bearish in a matter of two or three days... Remember that VIX crash back in February, when the S&P 500 corrected by 13%? It actually started during the last couple days of January. The high for the S&P 500 came on January 26. And it didn't really get back to rally mode until May 3. But the bulk came during just three sessions between February 2 and February 8. If you blinked, you missed it.   The machines make sure selling is relentless. And ETFs make sure that when the selling starts, it's everything.   It's a pretty wicked combination. It looks very much like panic selling. Though we really don't how it will look if/when some real panic selling hits. If we can get 800–1,000-point drops on the Dow for no good reason, does that mean we'll see 3,000-point drops if we get another 2008–9 financial crisis?  The best thing any of us can do to navigate these types of sell-offs is know what's causing investors to suddenly hit the sell button. Knowledge is the best antidote for fear. So that's where we're going today: to take a look at what crushed the Dow 1,400 points in two days last week. Interest Rates or Trade War? I've seen a lot of commentary that investors are really worried about interest rates going higher. You've probably heard the supposed cause-and-effect relationship between the Fed hiking rates and the economy hitting recession. But let me tell you: Rising interest rates do not cause recessions. It's the bad decisions that get made when rates are low that eventually cause recessions.  Did Greenspan's rate hikes cause the financial crisis? Of course not. A 500-point rate hike might've popped the internet bubble, but it was 9/11 that really hit the economy.  So now the Fed has hiked interest rates to 2.25%... and people are worried that's going to bring it all crashing down? Please, just stop. Rates were 5.25% before the financial crisis. And the hike that broke the internet bubble took rates to 6.5%.   Of course, it's a relative thing, how much rates have gone up and how fast. You'd be hard-pressed to say rates have risen a lot, or fast. But still, today's first-time homebuyers might've only been in middle school the last time rates were "high." All they know is a mortgage is more expensive today than it was a year ago. Same with a new car payment. And that's kind of the point: Make money more expensive, and people tend to borrow and spend less.  On the corporate front, it is likely that higher rates will affect stock buybacks. Companies have been buying back about $1 trillion of their own stock for the past six years. And that's been a solid source of upside for prices. Problem is, they've borrowed to do it. Not because they don't have the cash — they do. But when rates are so low, it makes sense to borrow at the low rate and keep the cash on the books and invested.  Companies aren't likely to start spending their cash, either. The most obvious response to higher rates is simply to borrow less. Which means fewer buybacks. But of course, fewer corporate buybacks aren't going to make the U.S. economy slow down... When it comes to a slowing economy and the potential for recession, we have to look to what could kick off the vicious cycle. Less spending → lower profits → corporate layoffs → less spending.   The answer is tariffs. The Ford Problem Last week was not great for Ford. The carmaker had to admit that China sales were down over 40%, that its annual profit would be $1 billion lower than last year, and that it was going to restructure its workforce and layoff thousands. Hello, vicious cycle! Now, Ford has some issues of its own that are contributing. But pretty much all automakers saw their sales decline in China for the last three months. It's the tariffs and trade tensions.  China's stock market has been selling off since February, when the first tariffs were announced. The Chinese economy is weakening. You could say this proves that the tariffs are working, that China will be forced to negotiate. But tariffs will hurt the U.S., too. And Europe. Because the bottom line is that China is now an end market for Ford, for Apple, for Harley-Davidson, for Nike, for Starbucks... And it's also the most important end market in the world due to the combination of size and growth. Now, like with Ford, major corporations are at risk of joining the vicious cycle that starts with slowing sales in China.  I think the risk of recession in the next months is high. And it's a virtual certainty if there's no trade deal with China.  You know the financial media will run around like headless chickens, shrieking, "Trade war! Trade war!" And given the elevated valuations, the downside for stocks could be pretty decent. But ultimately, any tariff-related recession ought to be pretty mild. So here's the game plan... Check through your stocks, pinpoint the ones that aren't great, and get rid of them. Keep the great ones. And start putting some cash aside to buy more great stocks when they get cheap. That's it. Pretty simple. But as Buffett said, the most important trait for an investor is patience.

The myth of the eternal market bubble and why it is dead wrong

By Brandon Smith

Economic collapse is not an event — it is a process. I've been saying this since the 2008 crash, and I suppose I will keep saying until it burns into people's minds because I don't think that it is a widely understood concept. When alternative analysts talk about financial collapse, we are not talking about something that suddenly happens out of the blue, we are talking about an ongoing decline that occurs in stages. This decline is happening today in the U.S. and around the world, and it has been accelerating since the chaos of 2008. When we bring up the reality of collapse, we are referring to something that is happening now, not something waiting on the distant horizon. The reason why some analysts can see it and others cannot is most likely due to the delusions surrounding market bubbles. These fiscal fantasy worlds are artificially created by central bank intervention and represent and attempt to mislead the populace on the true health of the system — for a limited time. Analysts with foresight see beyond the false data of the bubble to the core economic reality; other people see only the bubble and nothing else. When it comes to stock markets, bond markets, forex markets and the general casino economy, much of the public has a terrible inability to look beyond the next month let alone the next year. If the markets look good now, the assumption is that they will always be good. If the central banks have intervened for the past 10 years, the assumption is they will intervene for the next 10 years. There is no accounting for why the bubble exists in the first place. That is to say, most people including most economists do not consider that these bubbles serve a particular purpose for the banking elites and that this purpose has an expiration date. All bubbles collapse, and the reasons why they collapse are observable and predictable. Still, the delusion persists that all this talk of "collapse" is simply "doom and gloom," an event that might happen many years or decades from now, but it's certainly not a threat taking place right in front of our faces. I attribute this fallacy to several popular misconceptions and propaganda arguments, and here they are in no particular order... Fallacy #1: Central banks will continue to prop up markets indefinitely The newest generation of market traders and economists were still in high school and college when the 2008 crash hit equities. For the entirety of their careers, they have seen nothing but an artificial economy supported by ongoing stimulus from central banks. They know nothing else and know little of history and thus they cannot fathom the possibility that central banks will one day pull the plug on their fiat life support. The problem is that 10 years of stimulus is nothing more than a mild pause in the process of fiscal collapse of a civilization. In fact, the economic decline of nations could be represented as a series of imploding bubbles; each one lasting perhaps a decade, leading to more power and control for central banks and less prosperity for everyone else. Anyone examining the history of recessions and depressions in the U.S. since the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913 can easily see a steady pattern of artificially inflated asset values followed by pervasive downturns that siphon wealth from the middle class. This wealth never returns in full. Each new downturn cripples the financial independence of the citizenry a little more, while international banks absorb more and more hard assets. What mainstream economists don't seem to grasp is that central banks and international banks are always positioned to benefit from the crash of the bubbles they create. It is the reason why they inflated the bubbles from the very beginning. Central banks are not afraid to allow markets to plummet, they want markets to plummet. The banks simply want to be sure they are set up for optimum benefit when they do crash. Fallacy #2: Central banks will never stop stimulus measures I'm not sure why this fantasy persists despite all evidence to the contrary, but it does. Even today, I still receive letters from people arguing that the Fed will "never" end stimulus, never raise interest rates and never cut their balance sheet. Yet, this is exactly what is happening. I heard the same arguments years ago in 2013 when I predicted that the Fed would in fact taper QE. I heard them in 2015 when I predicted that the Fed would raise interest rates. And I have heard them for the past year after I predicted the Fed would continue cutting assets from their balance sheet. There are some people that might claim that there is no way for us to know if the Fed is actually cutting off stimulus to the economy because we have no way to audit their activities. While it is true that we do not have access to their legitimate records, only those they release to the public, we can see the affects that their policies produce. Meaning, it is obvious that the Fed is in fact cutting support to the markets given the behavior of those markets the past year. Emerging market stocks are crashing as the Fed announces continuing balance sheet cuts. Treasury yields are spiking at historic rates and interest costs are rising on everything from car loans to mortgage loans as the Fed increases interest rates. Foreign investment in U.S. Treasurys (or lack of investment) has become a major point of concern because QE support for T-bonds is gone. Massive corporate debt loads not seen since 2007/2008 are becoming more expensive as interest rates expand. This month Fed Chairman Jerome Powell ended all speculation on the matter when he indicated that the Fed would not only continue raising rates up to the neutral rate (where interest meets inflation), but that they could continue raising rates well beyond that. The blind faith based market is truly over. All evidence suggests that fiscal tightening is indeed happening. Some people refuse to see it because their biases prevent them from doing so. Perhaps they are heavily invested in U.S. stocks and don't want to believe that the party is over. Perhaps they are incapable of admitting when they are wrong. It is hard to say. They argued for years that the Fed would never take the punch bowl away and they have been proven incorrect, but until they suffer direct consequences to their pocketbooks, they will not accept reality. Fallacy #3: The Fed will return to stimulus Japanese-style This is a very common claim designed to build false hope in markets. Bull rally hucksters and their followers has become so used to the easy life of "BTFD!" (Buy The F#$&ing Dip!) that they will apply any rationalization no matter how absurd in order to keep the fantasy going. The claim is that because Japan's stimulus measures have been "successful" in keeping their markets afloat for at least two decades, this is the most likely strategy for the Fed and other central banks as well. What these people have not considered, though, is the speed at which Japan's central bank bought up assets versus the speed that the Fed bought up assets. The Bank of Japan's balance sheet reached around $4.7 trillion (U.S.) at its peak, and as mentioned, this took decades of accumulation. The Fed's balance sheet hit $4.5 trillion in the span of only eight-10 years. There is a point at which asset purchases and stimulus simply do not have the same effect on markets as they did when those purchases began. Debt starts to weigh heavily on further market gains over time. There is a reason why the Fed is choosing to implode the bubble now — time is running out and they want a controlled demolition rather that a crash with a mind of its own. The printing press is not magical; the basic rules of economics and mathematics still apply. I've also heard the argument that because US GDP is so much larger than Japan's, comparing their central bank balance sheets is "not practical." Meaning, the U.S. has a larger GDP, therefore the Fed should be able to increase its balance sheet much further than Japan has. This claim obviously relies on the notion that "GDP" as it is calculated today is an accurate measure of how much debt burden a nation can carry. If you consider Japan's manufacturing capability alone, the U.S. with all it's outsourcing pales in comparison in terms of economic resiliency. If you also consider that every time the government spends tax dollars these programs are often added to GDP as a form of "production" (this includes Obamacare), then the idea of GDP becomes a joke. The point being, it does not matter how healthy a nation's GDP appears to be, their central bank can only create so much debt before it begins to drag down the core economy. The Fed has reached that limit. Fallacy #4: The Fed Can Hyperinflate Markets Perpetually This is the last-ditch delusion used by stock market addicts and disinformation peddlers to assert that the current bubble can and will be propped up for many years to come, even after the rest of the economy is in dire regression. It is based partially on historic examples of fiscal collapses that led to inflation. Sometimes this inflation flows directly into stock markets while the rest of the system sinks, due to investors looking for a safe haven and also due to central banks manipulating asset prices. This occurred in Weimar Germany during the hyperinflationary route of the 1920s, however, people who make this argument do not know the actual history of that collapse. Germany did indeed see a considerable stock market rally just at the peak of the hyperinflationary crisis, but this period only lasted from 1924 to 1927. In 1927, the Federal Reserve, France and the German central bank intervened to deliberately crash the bubble. While central bankers today still assert the lie that the cause of this downturn was the gold standard, the truth is that it was central bank tightening of monetary policy into an already unstable economic environment that caused the crash. An interesting article on this issue for those that would like a better historical reference is 'With a Bang, Not a Whimper: Pricking Germany's "Stock Market Bubble" in 1927 and the Slide into Depression' by Hans-Joachim Voth. Does any of this sound familiar? It should. This is exactly what the Fed is doing today. In the U.S. for the past decade we have already witnessed our period of inflation in stock prices. Now, the central bank is collapsing the bubble, just as they did in Weimar Germany, just as they did here in the U.S. during the Great Depression as Ben Bernanke admitted in 2002, just as they have done in every market bubble for the past century. There is no eternal market bubble. There never will be. If not for the reason that economic fundamentals make it impossible, then for the reason that crashing these bubbles benefits globalists and banking elitists. The goal? I believe the goal is to consolidate total power over production and labor using the deliberate institution of a poverty-based civilization. Beyond that, the goal is to make the populace perpetually desperate to the point that they are socially malleable. In order for the bankers to establish what they call their "New World Order," they need chaos to tenderize the masses, but they also have to be seen as saviors that deserve to be in a position of authority over the global economy. The need to create disasters so they can then ride in on their white horse and save us from those disasters. Why would central banks continue to perpetuate market bubbles when the destruction of those bubbles gives them opportunities for greater power?

Every adult in the state owes $4,000 for teacher health care costs; pensions not included

·         By Cole Lauterbach | Illinois News NetworkTop of Form

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Every adult in Illinois is on the hook for $4,000 in retired teacher health care costs, according to a new study showing the state has no money saved to pay for the growing cost of its promises.

The report released Tuesday by Bellwether Education Partners estimates that Illinois owes $54 billion in future health care costs that have been promised to teachers after retirement. That’s the sixth-most of any state when divvied up by each state’s adult population. This is not included in the estimated $130 billion in unfunded teacher pension liabilities.

Thirty-five states offer post-employment health coverage to teachers, of which Illinois is one, according to the report.

“For too long, employers were able to promote the benefits without recognizing their long-term costs,” the report said. “That reckoning is coming, and there are better and worse ways to tackle it.”

Chad Aldeman, principal at Bellwether, said the growing bills from health care could edge out dollars intended for the classroom.  

“Less money is going to current services like schools or teachers that are in the classroom right now,” he said, adding that the costs are bound to grow as retirees live longer and health care costs increase.

The growing cost will have to be paid for by either cuts to retiree benefits, tax hikes, or a combination of both, Aldeman said.

Health care benefits, like pension payments, are a promise made by the state and local school districts but, unlike pensions, the benefits aren’t protected from diminishment by Illinois’ constitution.

States should put qualified retirees into health care exchanges, the report said, and rescind coverage of retirees making more than a certain amount.

“The state is providing retiree benefits even to a retired superintendent who’s making $150,000 or $200,000 a year in a pension and they get free healthcare on top of that,” Aldeman said. “That may not be a good use of public dollars.”

Giving the Douglas Award for Ethics in Government to Obama is more like a participation trophy

By Ben Crystal

Former President Barack Obama, who made waves with a speech in South Africa in which he turned the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture into a thinly veiled rant against President Donald Trump, is making a(nother) comeback. Obama, who used the July speech to caution "strongman politics are ascending suddenly," and that "those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning," is continuing his roadshow next week when he accepts the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government. In an event which will be closed to the general public, Obama is expected to "echo his call to reject the rising strain of authoritarian politics and policies..."

Pardon me while I pull the handbrake on the hypocrisy highway, but when did the University of Illinois turn into a Monty Python sketch? I get that President Pen'n'Phone is an Illinois homeboy, hailing from the "gun-free" paradise of Chicago and that putting a president's face on the flyer certainly helps draw the big-money donors. But giving the Douglas Award for Ethics in Government to a guy like Obama means the Douglas Award for Ethics in Government is really just a participation trophy. The plaque might as well read "To Barack Obama. At least you tried." When it comes to people who embody "ethics in government," Obama ranks right up there with Boss Tweed and Warren Harding. 

It's almost worth asking the prize committee if they have the right Barack Obama. The same Barack Obama who: 

• Turned the Internal Revenue Service into his own personal brute squad. Ethics Obama, aided by minions like Jon Koskinen and Lois Lerner, used what is arguably the most powerful agency in the federal government to systematically target and harass conservative-leaning groups. The settlement between 400 of them and the Feds was finally settled last year, in favor of the good guys. Obama's morally-upstanding objection to tyranny cost the U.S. taxpayers what has been described as a "substantial" amount of money.
• Turned the NSA into his personal dirt collection agency. During the Obama regime, the excesses of our digital spies got so out of hand, no one was safe from their prying; no matter how insignificant they might be. But nothing says "opposition to authoritarian government" like keeping tabs on what kind of ceramic cats your Gam-Gam buys from the Home Shopping Channel.
• Spied on — and even jailed — journalists. Wanna know how deep Obama's affinity for openness and transparency is? Ask James Risen and Dinesh D'Souza. Be forewarned, a copy of your message will likely be stored on a bathroom server somewhere.
• Left us to clean up the moldering corpse of Obamacare, a fraud-riddled and deliberately opaque bureaucratic power grab which threw the nation's health care system into chaos. The man selected by the Douglas Prize committee for his steadfast manning of the barricades against statism literally forced the entire country to buy what he commanded or face the full might of the aforementioned goons at the IRS.

This cat even went after Gibson Guitars over a minor-league violation involving imported wood that was so obviously a thank-you card to Big Labor, even Stalin would have admired the move. In what world, I ask you, does hating rock'n'roll earn you an award for being cool?

Personal Liberty^® doesn't have the bandwidth for me to list the arrogant hypocrisies which have come to define the Party of Jefferson (speaking of hypocrites — Ms. Hemmings says "hi," Mr. Jefferson). We could do this all day. They needed a lot more than a three-point turn to reverse course from Hillary Clinton's admonishment to accept the results of the election. The #MeToo movement counterpoints as well with the party's lengthy roster of powerful men who have to figure out that "no means no." For Pete's sake, the Clintons were back at Harvey Weinstein's Long Island Sound palace just two weeks ago as special guests at a party which included — if I'm lyin', I'm dyin' — circus performers and a big-top tent. Their chairhole, Tom Perez, says that "socialism is their future," and is proving it by backing bubble-headed Alexandria "Chiquita Khrushchev" Ocasio-Cortez and the policies that made Venezuela such a party. But dragging Obama out of retirement to throw them an electoral life preserver, especially considering the wreck he left of his party, is silly. To try and burnish his legacy as a champion of ethics is hilarious.

Obama is gonna be around a lot this fall. As the polling gap between the two parties has narrowed, the Democrats are waking up to the reality that "Trump sux!" isn't exactly a steamroller of a platform. The obvious ploy is to trot out the man in the great tan suit. It strikes me that counting on a 2012 all-pro to lead a 2018 party to the end zone suggests that "Trump Sux!" might be the better game plan. But it makes the opposition's job a little easier. Granted, the GOP will probably pay consultants millions to come up with "nuh-UH!," but that's not far from a winner. The Democrats are becoming a parody of themselves. Let them send in the clown(s). 

Trump cancels pay raise for government workers, citing the ‘nation’s fiscal situation’

Posted on August 30, 2018 by Personal Liberty News Desk

President Donald Trump ruined the Labor Day holiday for some 1.87 million federal civilian union workers today when he announced that their scheduled pay increases will be rescinded.

“We must maintain efforts to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course,” the President wrote in a letter to the House and Senate. “I view the increases that would otherwise take effect as inappropriate.”

“In light of our Nation’s fiscal situation, Federal employee pay must be performance-based, and aligned strategically toward recruiting, retaining, and rewarding high-performing Federal employees and those with critical skill sets,” the President wrote.

The move was quickly condemned by federal workers unions and leftist politicians who view the federal treasury as their own personal piggy bank. As reported by AJC.com:

“This is a deeply disappointing action and one more indication that this administration, in this economic environment, simply does not respect its own workforce,” said Tony Reardon, President of the National Treasury Employees Union.

“It is simply obscene that the same person who gave away massive amounts of money to corporations and billionaires in a tax scam now is crying that we don’t have enough money for pay raises for the Federal workforce,” said Will Fischer of the veterans group VoteVets.

“Trump sent the deficit skyrocketing to give massive tax breaks to big corporations and the wealthiest Americans, while working families got nothing,” the Democratic National Committee declared in a statement.

“Republicans gave corporations a trillion dollar tax cut and are now cutting pay raises for social workers, janitors, painters, clerical workers, and more,” said Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA). “It’s outrageous.”

But what’s missing from the conversation is that many if not most of the federal workers actually got a “pay increase” as a result of last year’s Trump tax cut. It’s an increase that many folks, ourselves included, are seeing in our pay checks each week.

But it’s not surprising that the political class — which has no concerns for plight of the millions of middle class Americans who have been suffering under their policies and have been without significant raises for years and have seen their wages drop because of inflation — prefer average Americans pay higher taxes just so government workers can get fatter paydays.

It shows you whose side they’re on.