Release Comey's Emails, Podesta Case Ramping Up, Life Must Have Meaning

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Release Comey's Emails
 
Investigative journalist John Solomon has dropped another bombshell about the Obama FBI and Justice Department. 
 
Writing in The Hill, Solomon states that top FBI and Justice officials expressed serious concerns about the validity of the Steele dossier weeks BEFORE it was used as evidence to obtain a secret FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. 
 
According to Solomon, then-FBI Director James Comey was among those included in a series of email exchanges questioning the dossier's validity.  As you may know, Comey has been subpoenaed to testify before a closed-door hearing of the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow.
 
And, as we know, the FBI not only had problems with the dossier, it also had problems with Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer hired by Fusion GPS to produce the dossier.  Just days after obtaining the FISA warrant against Page, the FBI terminated Steele's contract for leaking to the media and lying to the Bureau. 
 
Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and other members of Congress have been calling on President Trump to declassify these email exchanges so that the American people can see for themselves just how weak the evidence against Trump was.  Sadly, that did not stop the Deep State from spying on his campaign.
 
Solomon writes that Comey's emails "may provide the most damning evidence to date of potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), evidence that has been kept from the majority of members of Congress for more than two years."
 
Somehow I doubt Robert Mueller is investigating that.
 
Speaking of the FBI, Bill Priestap, one of the last top Obama officials remaining at the Bureau and a key player in the Trump/Russia investigation, announced his retirement this week. 
 
 
 
Podesta Case Ramping Up
 
Big Media doesn't want you to know this, but Robert Mueller's investigation isn't taking down just Trump associates.  Mueller's case against Paul Manafort spun-off another investigation against several left-wing denizens of the Washington Swamp.
 
Tony Podesta, lobbyist extraordinaire and brother of long-time Clinton confidante John Podesta, and Greg Craig, Barack Obama's White House counsel, were referred for prosecution by Mueller's team several months ago
 
Now the Associated Press is reporting that "prosecutors are ramping up their investigation" into Podesta and Craig.
 
 
 
Left-wing Lunacy
 
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is thinking about running for president, but she's got a problem.  Before her appointment to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, Gillibrand served in the House, representing a conservative district in upstate New York. 
 
While liberal on most issues, she supported the Second Amendment and held conservative views on immigration.  But now that she's courting the progressive movement for a possible national campaign, she's "embarrassed" and "ashamed" of her past positions.
 
Gillibrand is also viewed skeptically by some on the left for her role in forcing Al Franken out of the Senate.
 
So in order to buttress her progressive bona fides, Gillibrand has started taking extreme positions.  For example, she was the first U.S. senator to call for abolishing ICE.
 
And yesterday she tweeted this gem:  "Our future is female, intersectional, and powered by our belief in one another. And we're just getting started."
 
"Intersectionality" is one of the left's favorite buzzwords guaranteed to set progressive hearts aflutter in almost any context.  But it's basically another word the left has invented to divide people -- especially when it comes to Israel
 
Because of "intersectionality," pro-Israel progressives are being pushed out of the progressive movement.  In fact, Linda Sarsour has gone so far as to suggest that pro-Israel women cannot be considered feminists.
 
But I wonder how Gillibrand's roughly 10 million male constituents feel about their senator announcing that they're not part of her vision for the future.  
 
And it's not just men who are excluded from Gillibrand's vision. It's also the millions of women who believe abortion is a betrayal of what it means to be a woman.
 
The future of America should not be just one gender or race. Our future should be based on the same thing it's always been based on -- the founding values of America.
 
As Senator Marco Rubio noted:
 
"Our future is: AMERICAN.  An identity based not on gender, race, ethnicity or religion. But on the powerful truth that all people are created equal with a God-given right to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness."
 
 
 
Paul Targets Israel
 
According to a recent Politico report, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is now the target of bi-partisan anger because he is trying to torpedo two pro-Israel bills in the Senate. 
 
Specifically, Paul has placed holds on legislation to cement America's military alliance with Israel and he is also blocking a bill to counter the growing anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
 
The first bill, authorizing $38 billion in military support to Israel, was actually drafted during the Obama Administration, and has passed the House and the Senate in various forms.  Paul's excuse for holding up the final version is that he opposes all foreign aid, but the bill only addresses military aid for Israel. 
 
Moreover, Israel spends the great bulk of that money on U.S. defense firms.  So it's not charity.  It supports American jobs as well.  In addition, Israel is able to effectively act in areas of the Middle East that we can't or would prefer not to. 
 
Neither of these bills is controversial.  The military aid legislation has 72 co-sponsors in the Senate.  The anti-BDS bill, which is similar to an executive order that Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin recently signed, has 58 co-sponsors.
 
It is unconscionable that Paul is going to the mat against these pro-Israel bills now.
 
 
 
Life Must Have Meaning
 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an alarming series of reports last week, finding that America is going through its longest sustained decline in life expectancy in a century. 
 
But this time the decline isn't due to war and famine as it was in 1918.  Instead, the causes are suicides and drug overdoses. 
 
To combat these "diseases of despair," it is essential that we rediscover the meaning in life that is found in the timeless values of faith and family.
 
Read more in my latest opinion piece at The Washington Examiner