Democrat Rep uses art display photo to accuse Donald Trump of stealing personal items from immigrants
Two things are en vogue with the Democrats and the mainstream media right now: the first is calling Donald Trump Hitler and his supporters Nazis, and the second one is using either manipulated or old pictures to prove the point.
I am of course referring to the way the immigration crisis is being covered and I believe the deception I am referring to started at the end of May when a picture was making the rounds which showed two children laying on the floor in cages. We were told this was an example of how children are being treated under Donald Trump’s immigration policy only to learn the picture was taken during Barack Obama’s Presidency. This is the picture I am referring to:
And it has continued since that time; over and over we have seen pictures on social media purporting to show the horrible conditions the children are being kept in only to learn the photos are from the Obama era.
Here are two more recent examples of the deception: first there is this infamous picture of the crying boy in blue:
But then you see the other pictures taken at the same time and you find out this was a staged protest and the other people in the picture (whose feet you can only see here) are holding signs, and then there is the picture with this boy outside the cage:
The second recent example is probably the most egregious to date and it is the Time magazine cover which showed a child who was supposedly separated from her family at the border but it turns out this did not happen, she was never separated from her mother. Time issued the following correction:
“The original version of this story misstated what happened to the girl in the photo after she (was) taken from the scene. The girl was not carried away screaming by U.S. Border Patrol agents; her mother picked her up and the two were taken away together.”
Time “misstated” what happened to the girl? That is an understatement! The correction was issued but the damage was done…
But not to be outdone by Time, Representative Jackie Speier from California decided to post a picture she claimed showed proof Donald Trump was stealing the personal items of illegal immigrants and compared it to what the Nazis did at Auschwitz. Here is more:
The one problem with the photos? They were taken in 2014 and were part of an art display. Not only were these not current pictures but she totally misrepresented what the pictures meant. Let that sink in…
She used an art display to compare Donald Trump to Hitler. Did she know what she was doing or was she just ignorant of the truth? It really does not matter because this is what the left has been doing all along since this crisis at the border became mainstream news.
The problem with this is that while these stories reaffirm what the left already believes about Donald Trump, it does nothing to help the problem at the border because it pushes the rest of America away. When mainstream America learns of the deceptions they begin to discount everything they hear and that just makes it harder to solve a legitimate problem.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Shortly before Halloween last year the IRS and the Department of Justice settled the Tea Party targeting scandal and as part of that settlement the IRS admitted to, and apologized for, illegally targeting conservative groups.
Of course it did not take a lawsuit to understand the IRS was illegally targeting certain groups based on political ideology because the whole scandal came to light when for some unknown reason Lois Lerner admitted to wrongdoing before anybody even heard this was going on.
You may think that with the lawsuit being settled this would be the end of the story–I know I did–but it is not because Judicial Watch is still on the case and they are now in possession of some new emails which are very interesting to say the least.
Here is more:
Judicial Watch today released newly obtained internal IRS documents, including material revealing that Sen. John McCain’s former staff director and chief counsel on the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee, Henry Kerner, urged top IRS officials, including then-director of exempt organizations Lois Lerner, to “audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.” Kerner was appointed by President Trump as Special Counsel for the United States Office of Special Counsel.
The explosive exchange was contained in notes taken by IRS employees at an April 30, 2013, meeting between Kerner, Lerner, and other high-ranking IRS officials. Just ten days following the meeting, former IRS director of exempt organizations Lois Lerner admitted that the IRS had a policy of improperly and deliberately delaying applications for tax-exempt status from conservative non-profit groups.
Lerner and other IRS officials met with select top staffers from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a “marathon” meeting to discuss concerns raised by both Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that the IRS was not reining in political advocacy groups in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Senator McCain had been the chief sponsor of the McCain-Feingold Act and called the Citizens United decision, which overturned portions of the Act, one of the “worst decisions I have ever seen.”
So John McCain was upset that the Supreme Court threw out a law that helped to write so he sent a staffer to a meeting with Lois Lerner and the IRS in which targeting Tea Party groups until “it becomes financially ruinous” was discussed.
This must be a coincidence because John McCain would never do anything to undermine the Republicans’ chances of winning an election, would he? Well maybe not if it did not include the Russians at least…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Earlier today while ABC was covering Donald Trump the network ran an interesting graphic, check it out below:
Of course not only has Paul Manafort not pleaded guilty to manslaughter, he has not been charged with manslaughter. ABC has since apologized via Twitter but is it really any wonder while people no longer trust the mainstream media when they see something like this?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Donald Trump signs Executive Order ending the practice of separating families at the border
After decades of having no concern for the plight of the children of illegal immigrants being separated from their parents at the border the Democrats and the mainstream media found their conscience coincidentally just in time to distract the American people from the Inspector General report which showed just how sleazy and corrupt the FBI was under Barack Obama.
It also provided the perfect opportunity to attack the President and the media even stooped so low as to publish pictures which were taken, and ignored, while Barack Obama was President and claim they were the result of Donald Trump’s policy. But it became clear the Democrats really did not care about the plight of these children when Chuck Schumer stated the Democrats would oppose any legislation which would end this program. As if we needed more proof the Democrats would rather keep the crisis in motion in order to attack Donald Trump than help the children they claim to care so much about this was it.
Donald Trump had been defending this policy by reaffirming that he was simply following Federal law and that the Congress needed to change the law if they did not agree with it. As mentioned above, Chuck Schumer said no to actually doing his job and instead called on the President to do it himself.
Today Donald Trump did just that today by signing an Executive Order ending the practice of separating families at the border. It will be interesting to see where the Democrats go with this now but the one thing we do know is it is not going to be enough in their eyes.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
We are learning more and more each day about what is in the Inspector General report on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and today we learned another interesting little tidbit: The FBI did not bother to look into the contents of Huma Abedin’s emails or personal devices.
Here is more:
In its extensive report on the Hillary Clinton email probe, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog raised significant questions about why the FBI did not examine the contents of Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s private email accounts and did not seek to obtain Abedin’s personal devices to determine whether classified information was exchanged.
The report noted Abedin should have been a point of interest since the FBI obtained from other sources classified email exchanges between Clinton and Abedin that were missing from the 30,490 emails turned over to the State Department by Clinton’s attorneys. Clinton had claimed the remaining emails were not work-related.
Also, the report documented that the FBI did not go after Abedin’s emails or devices even though she was “the only State Department employee, besides Clinton, with an account on the clintonemail.com domain on Clinton’s server.”
Let’s get this straight: Huma Abedin was Hillary Clinton’s closest confidant and aide; missing emails between she and Hillary Clinton were found from other sources; classified information was found on the laptop of her estranged husband Anthony Weiner; and she was the only other State Department employee with a personal email account on Hillary Clinton’s private server, and the FBI did not think it was warranted to confiscate and search her personal devices?!
But this was all on the level…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
According to this story Inspector General Horowitz confirmed to the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier today that James Comey is under investigation for his handling of classified information. The information in question is the now infamous memos he kept from meetings he had with Donald Trump, and you might remember these are the same memos he leaked in the hopes of jump starting an investigation into Donald Trump’s dealing with Russia during the 2016 election. With any luck this will come back to bite him in the end.
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1008782337373548544
There are now two spin-off investigations in the wake of the original Inspector General report: there is this one and there is also a separate investigation into the report’s finding that several FBI employees took “inappropriate” gifts from reporters.
With any luck this will just be the beginning.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
James Comey and Loretta Lynch refuse to testify before the Congress, Andrew McCabe pleads the Fifth
The Senate Judiciary Committee is looking into the Inspector General report into the handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation which was finally released last Thursday and as part of this investigation they would like to speak to James Comey, Loretta Lynch, and Andrew McCabe. However these three do not want to talk to the Congress. Here is more:
Fired FBI Director James Comey refused to appear before Congress on Monday to talk about his handling of the Clinton email investigation, and his fired deputy, Andrew McCabe, asserted his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, Sen. Charles E. Grassley said.
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch also declined to show up for a major hearing where the Senate Judiciary Committee was looking into the inspector general’s report detailing major bungles in Mr. Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation.
The next logical step would be to issue subpoenas but apparently that is not and option:
He said he had sought to compel the three to show up to testify, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, blocked him. Under committee rules, the ranking Democrat must agree with the chairman in order to issue a subpoena.
Dianne Feinstein single-handedly stopped these three from being compelled to testify even after the damning Inspector General report came out, showing us once again just how corrupt the system is and just how deep the swamp is.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Some version of the headline I wrote above about a meeting which took place between Roger Stone and a Russian operative during the 2016 campaign has been splashed all over the internet today, and while technically the headline is accurate, it fails to tell the whole story. This is a good example of what you will likely get in the first couple of paragraphs:
One day in late May 2016, Roger Stone — the political dark sorcerer and longtime confidant of Donald Trump — slipped into his Jaguar and headed out to meet a man with a “Make America Great Again” hat and a viscous Russian accent.
The man, who called himself Henry Greenberg, offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton, Trump’s presumptive Democratic opponent in the upcoming presidential election, according to Stone, who spoke about the previously unreported incident in interviews with The Washington Post. Greenberg, who did not reveal the information he claimed to possess, wanted Trump to pay $2 million for the political dirt, Stone said.
Well that looks pretty damning and how many people will jump to conclusions and stop reading at this point because it confirms what they want to believe? But the story continues:
“You don’t understand Donald Trump,” Stone recalled saying before rejecting the offer at a restaurant in the Russian-expat magnet of Sunny Isles, Fla. “He doesn’t pay for anything.”
Later, Stone got a text message from Michael Caputo, a Trump campaign communications official who’d arranged the meeting after Greenberg had approached Caputo’s Russian-immigrant business partner.
“How crazy is the Russian?” Caputo wrote, according to a text message reviewed by The Post. Noting that Greenberg wanted “big” money, Stone replied, “waste of time.”
The offer was turned down and later on Caputo and Stone talked about what a waste of time the meeting was. But here is another interesting tidbit: it turns out the man going by the name Henry Greenberg has been an FBI informant for 17 years, although it is unknown if he was working with the FBI at the time of this meeting but this is what Michael Caputo and Roger Stone had to say:
“If you believe that [Greenberg] took time off from his long career as an FBI informant to reach out to us in his spare time, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I want to sell you,” Caputo said in an interview.
In a separate interview, Stone said, “I didn’t realize it was an FBI sting operation at the time, but it sure looks like one now.”
I agree…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, June 17th open thread: ‘I Feel You’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, June 17th. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
Last week we discussed 6 stories, did you miss any of them? If so there is an easy way to make sure it does not happen again. You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates. You can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right. The Twitter widget in the sidebar is fully interactive. This widget updates my tweets in real time and allows you to respond or retweet my tweets right from the blog.
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there and especially to my dad. It is hard to find songs about dads so I do not have one to share today but if you have one I would love to hear it.
Here is Depeche Mode performing “I Feel You” live in 1998.
frui diem
Inspector General report finds FBI employees received ‘inappropriate’ gifts from reporters
In addition to James Comey’s insubordination and his breaking of FBI protocols, and in addition to the anti-Trump bias found in the FBI by the Inspector General report which was released yesterday, the report also found that FBI employees were receiving “inappropriate” gifts from reporters while leaking information to the press.
Here is more:
Numerous FBI employees accepted inappropriate gifts from reporters and routinely spoke to media outlets without authorization during the Hillary Clinton email probe, the Justice Department’s watchdog revealed in Thursday’s long-awaited accountability report.
“We identified instances where FBI employees improperly received benefits from reporters, including tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events,” reads the report by the inspector general, Michael Horowitz.
Along with the FBI’s cozy relationship with the media, Horowitz’s report charges that officials in the bureau at “all levels of the organization” leaked information to reporters without authorization.
The article and the report use words like improperly and inappropriate but I would argue a better word might be illegal. It certainly seems as if this is akin to taking bribes for information and it looks as if there is going to be a separate investigation into this matter.
But because the inappropriate gifts were outside the scope of the IG’s look at the Clinton email investigation, Horowitz added that the DOJ watchdog “will separately report on those investigations as they are concluded.”
Stay tuned…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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