Penny Press 12 NOVEMBER 28, 2019

Penny PressNevada, USA Volume 17 Number 12 NOVEMBER 28, 2019

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Credits:Publisher and Editor: Contributing Editors:Fred Weinberg Floyd Brown Al Thomas Doug French Robert Ringer John Getter Pat Choate Ron Knecht Byron Bergeron

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THE PENNY PRESS,NOVEMBER 28, 2019PAGE 2

By: JANE M. ORIENT, M.D.Special to the Penny Press

After a period of silence, Dr. Bandy Lee and her committee of mental-health “experts” have again burst onto the scene, angling to

participate in the impeachment of President Trump. They are defying the Goldwater Rule, which holds that it is unethical for physicians to diagnose patients they have not personally examined. They claim that President Trump is a such a serious threat to the nation that they are allowed to violate rules.

“We don’t believe there is the need for any further evaluation, and

we are making ourselves available for the impeachment hearing because we believe that mental health issues will become critical as pressures from the impeachment hearings mount,” Dr. Lee told the Washington Examiner. “In other words, the more successful the impeachment proceedings become, the more dangerous the psychological factors of the president will become.”

Obviously, the thing to do is to increase the psychological pressure on a person you declare to be unstable.

Dr. Lee’s “medical assessment” of the President’s “mental capacity to fulfill the duties of his office” includes the examination of tweets, public appearances, and the 448-page Mueller report. “There is very little that a personal examination

will add,” Lee said.She denies that she is actually

making a diagnosis. Indeed, “unfitness for office” is an opinion, a conclusion that is not in the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of currently defined psychiatric diagnoses.

Regardless of one’s opinion about President Trump, this self-appointed “Independent Expert Panel for Presidential Fitness” should concern all Americans. Where does a group of academic experts get the ability or the authority to determine whether the President is “capable of keeping the country safe”?

The U.S. Constitution provides several methods of “regime change,” which is what Congressional Democrats, the mainstream news media, and this Panel seem

determined to achieve. The first is elections. In 2016, Americans voted for a change from the policies of Obama and Clinton and the imbedded bureaucracy. Ever since then, the losers have been seeking to nullify this result. Attacks on the President by the press have been unrelenting. Unlike Abraham Lincoln or Woodrow Wilson, this President has not imprisoned any journalists or shut down any newspapers. But he does make sarcastic remarks—and his opponents would like to deny him the forum of social media.

Second is the 25th Amendment, which provides for the removal of a President for incapacity. This might have removed Woodrow Wilson after a devastating stroke had it been in existence at the time. It requires action by the Vice President and a

Penny PressNEVADA USA 16 PAGES VOLUME 17 NUMBER 12 NOVEMBER 28, 2019

Penny Wisdom

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. —Will Rogers

The Conservative Weekly Voice Of NevadaInsideClowns In Deep StateAllegedly Work For US

See Editorial Page 6

RON KNECHT PAGE 5FRED WEINBERG PAGE 6ROBERT RINGER PAGE 7BYRON BERGERON PAGE 9MATTHEW BAILEY PAGE 10ROBERT ROMANO PAGE 11CHUCK MUTH PAGE 14

Losers Trying To Use Loser Doctors

Commentary

Continued on page4


majority of executive officers or a body appointed by Congress—not a few activist academics. This has so far been a non-starter.

Finally, there is impeachment, for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” In American jurisprudence, proceedings are supposed to be triggered by a crime—not by the Soviet KGB method of “show me the man, and I will name his crime.” Or worse, “KGB Plus”—show me the man, and I will invent his crime.

In a world where there are so many ever-changing rules that everyone might be inadvertently committing “three felonies a day,” anyone could be prosecuted. But one is at least supposed to have certain rights: confronting the accuser, assistance of counsel, access to all the evidence, the right to call and cross-examine witnesses. And knowing exactly what the charges are.

Why should psychiatrists be intruding themselves into this legal process? Are there Thought Crimes that they have a special ability to discern?

Ordinary Americans should be very concerned. If this can happen to

the President, it can happen to them. And it does.One alarming example is the “fitness for duty” evaluations to which

physicians may be subjected by people who for some reason want to destroy them. There are virtually no due-process rights. The examiner has the status of a physician, but no obligation to act in the “patient’s” (target’s) best interest. Some psychiatrists may presume to have god-like power to judge a person’s emotions, intentions, and capacity—asserted in the name of safety or “security.” “Red flag” laws are another example.

President Trump may be right in saying: “They’re not coming for me. They are coming for you. I’m just in the way.”

Bandy Lee and associates are showing us a method to remove undesirables if legal process fails.

Jane M. Orient, M.D. obtained her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1974.

Ordinary Americans Should be Very ConcernedContinued from page 3

What We’re Still Thankful for This Year Editor’s note: This column originally appeared in 2016.

Thanksgiving dinner is always a big event at the Knecht home, but it will be delayed this year. Ron will be in the hospital recovering from major back surgery.

When folks have heard about this, they have given the normal and appreciated expressions of concern and support. Ron’s response has been to thank them and say that, really, it’s a great event, a source of joy and real thanksgiving.

For, if anyone had the conditions

that require this surgery 100 years ago, it was not then available. So, by this point in life or fairly soon the person would have been in a wheel chair or bed for the rest of his life.

Instead, while it is a major event today, it is something that can be scheduled for minimum time away from the job and when it’s convenient in a person’s life. Soon, Ron expects to be free of pain he has experienced for years, then fully recovered and restored to what he was able to do before the back problems began to seriously crimp his life.

We can all be thankful for the doctors, physical therapists and other medical professionals who do the remarkable things to provide such services and otherwise restore us to good health and function. And, of course, to the incredible people

and businesses that developed and commercialized these near miracles.

In the words of the Founding Fathers, we also thank Divine Providence.

But we also see something else that’s essential and for which we are thankful. None of this would be possible without rapid economic growth and the limited government, individual liberty and economic freedom that foster such growth.

What’s the connection between those three factors, rapid economic growth and modern medical wonders?

For almost all human history, people did not have limited government, individual liberty and economic freedom. So, for thousands of years, economic growth was glacially slow. Thus, it could truly be said that one’s lot in life for almost everyone was that of their parents. From this fact, philosophy, religion and people’s approach to life tended to be quite fatalistic. The modern American ideas of opportunity, self determination and Horatio Alger tales was unknown and would have seemed strange, or even heretical, to most people.

But about 350 years ago, Britain began to develop the political and economic institutions, practices and policies that flowered even further in its colonies and became the framework for American government and society, as well as that of Britain. So, in the 19th Century, the US and Britain came to dominate the world economically and otherwise. Other countries followed, and to the extent they adopted those institutions, etc. that economists have identified, they also prospered.

Economic growth means people’s lives are not wholly

consumed with providing the basics of food, shelter, warm clothing, etc. Instead, they have time and extra resources remaining after taking care of those needs to devote to other matters.

For example, they can gain education and indulge music and the arts. They can build the big businesses that make cities possible. And they can create institutions that take care of the poor, conduct research and ultimately create the medical, communications, transportation, industrial and other wonders that make modern life so rich.

Thus, today’s poor people enjoy goods and services that would have been unthinkable even for the richest nobles a century ago.

This is how rapid economic growth, fed by limited government, individual liberty and economic freedom produced the remarkable services and goods that will give Ron and millions of others a new lease on life instead of ending their productive times and joy of life. Without the rapid economic growth we have enjoyed the last 200 years, those things would not be possible for people even a millennium from now.

So, we invite you to join us this year in giving thanks for the limited government, individual liberty and economic freedom that produced rapid economic growth and these tangible blessings.

We’ve noted before that rapid growth has disintegrated in the last decade because those three factors have eroded over many decades and especially recently. Let’s work to restore all parts of this equation to yield even greater miracles for our children.


The Penny Press Tips Its Cap To:President Trump for hanging tough and reminding the Generals and Admirals in their air-conditioned Pentagon offices that military justice is often to justice and military music is to music. Our military is under civilian control and that civilian happens to be the President. If he wants to pardon or commute a Navy Seal who he thinks has been railroaded, he can. Ask our former Secretary of the Navy.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford who withdrew the state from a suit against T-Mobile’s and Sprint’s merger which he clearly had no understanding of. He had no chance of winning and was only upsetting two carriers and—despite what his press spokesperson says—he got nothing except some reality.

The Penny Press Sends A Bronx Cheer And A Bouquet of Weeds To:UNLV Athletic Director Desiree Reed-Francois for firing head football coach Tony Sanchez before the season ended. Granted, he had not produced a winning tenure, but then, neither had anyone else in 30 years. Is it possible that the AD should look at herself—or does Title IV prohibit firing a female AD for being incredibly incompetent? Here’s an idea, firx the who athletic department instead of firing coaches. www.pennypressnv.com

Tips Of Our Capand

Bronx Cheers

RON KNECHT GEOFFREY LAWRENCE

Commentary: Ron Knecht and Geoffrey Lawrence

If the Democrat jihad against President Donald Trump has shown us anything about the so-called Deep State it is that there is a class of professional bureaucrats—so called “experts”—who think they re accountable to…nobody.

Certainly not the President.

And they think of us as “the American People” in the pejorative. Not that they work for us. No, they work for some mythical country in which “the people” don’t get a vote because we’re far too stupid to have any actual say in things like foreign affairs, or military issues or trade or the law.

They populate the Departments of State, Justice, Defense and, even the White House itself.

And many of these people don’t have the common sense that God gave a goose.

That was all on display during the Schiff Show, the last two weeks. The question you need to answer, now that the arrogance of these people has been fully on display is where do we go from here?

There is still some question—not much—as to whether or not Nancy Pelosi is willing to endure the inevitable results of an impeachment. Assuming she is—or just cannot avoid it—Donald Trump will most likely be re-elected for the same reason he won in the first place. That is, to drain the swamp of the arrogance exhibited by the so-called deep state.

A swamp that the House Democrats put on full display through their patron saint Adam Schiff.

And, like the Kremlin, this group of governmental superstuds has their own newspaper. Only, instead of Pravda, theirs is the Washington Post. With headlines like “Trump’s GOP support hardens despite damning impeachment testimony”.

Seriously?

Had I written a headline like that DURING WATERGATE, I would have been hustled off to a public relations firm if I wanted to continue my career in the media. The writers and editors at the Post have become nothing but pimps and pimpettes (call them “presstitutes” like they do in the

Phillipines) for the group of deep staters and Democrats I have described above.

But, again, they all seem to have forgotten that this is a very large nation with a huge silent majority that has simply had enough.

You can take a map of the United States and find the WalMarts where you can “smell the Trump support” West of the Hudson River, South of the Cook County line and East of the Los Angeles County line. In the last election that produced 63,000,000 votes AFTER NBC leaked a private conversation with Billy Bush which would have certainly disqualified most candidates.

How bad a light does that cast the deep state?

The fact is that you, I and our neighbors have had enough. We are tired of being called stupid and not well educated. We are tired of a world where common sense is derided as “impeachable” by geniuses like Schiff and his little buddy Eric Swalwell.

And to put the cherry on top of the sundae, the President saw that the rules of engagement for the wars we are fighting in the Middle East were being used to ruin the lives of service members (but never those with stars on their shoulders) who actually killed the enemy. We wanted to have a war but make actually killing the enemy illegal.

So, he issued two complete pardons and a commutation.

Immediately upon those actions, some two star pissant admiral in the Navy told a Navy Seal who was pardoned that he would face a board to remove him from the Seals.

That board will convene shortly. What do you think will happen?

Can you say “military-industrial complex”? Well President Trump can say “civilian control” and did.

Want to try and remove him? As they used to say on a game show—which is what this really is—COME ON DOWN!

Indeed

FRED WEINBERG


OPINIONFrom The Publisher...

Deep State Clowns Work For US...You and I


The Real Enemy of the PeopleAs we prepared for another Democratic giveaway debate last week, it’s

interesting to observe the torment that surviving Radical Left candidates are experiencing. All of them (with the possible exception of Uncle Bernie) realize that a majority of Americans reject the silliness they’re peddling, but they’re fearful that the Radical Left base will abandon them if they dare to move toward the center.

This is precisely what brought Michael Bloomberg into the fray. Though not a moderate by any stretch of the imagination, the mainstream media is able to cast him as a middle-of-the-roader when compared to the other crazies in the Democratic field. Ditto with Deval Patrick and any other latecomers who might be tempted to take the plunge.

Depending upon what day of the week it is, all Democratic candidates refer to themselves either as liberals, progressives, socialists, or democratic socialists (always being careful not to mention the dreaded “C” word, communism). The truth be known, each of these words is a misnomer, because what all of the candidates really are is retrogressives. Based on their own words and actions, it’s clear that they harbor an enormous disdain for progress.

Progress means creating new products and services that make lives better, which in turn means more and higher paying jobs and a healthy economy. But the Founders never gave the federal government the authority to do things like “create jobs,” “get the economy moving,” or “strengthen the middle class.” These are nothing more than retrogressive euphemisms for increasing government power and crowding out the entrepreneurs who create real wealth, real jobs, and a fundamentally strong economy.

It is hard-working individuals, not government, who built America and made it the most prosperous country in the history of the world. And the only way the United States can continue its present-day prosperity is for government to get out of the way and allow those same individuals to continue moving the country forward. Of course, all this is anathema to the retrogressive, because it makes more and more people independent and thus not inclined to seek help from the government.

Retrogressives tend to be clueless idealists who do not understand, or do not want to understand, that man’s ability to invent has given him the capacity to improve his standard of living by exponential leaps and bounds. Retrogressives hated the invention of the light bulb. They hated the invention of the automobile. They hated the invention of the jetliner. Make no mistake about it, retrogressives are the mortal enemy of human progress and thus the real enemy of the people.

Anyone who doubts this need only ask himself what the proposals below — all of which are endorsed by most or all of the Democratic field — have in common.

• Abolish air travel.• Abolish fossil fuels.• Abolish fracking.• Abolish ICE.• Abolish air travel (private jets used by the elite class excepted).• Abolish beef.• Abolish the Constitutional right to own and carry a gun.• Abolish the Electoral College.• Set murderers free early.

• Shackle law enforcement.• Give felons the right to vote.• Decriminalize illegal entry into the country.• Legalize infanticide (aka “late-term abortions”).• Provide illegal aliens with taxpayer funded healthcare.And much, much more.In effect, what Democratic candidates are promising voters is misery,

poverty, and oppression. To say the least, it’s a hard sell, so hard that semi-normal Democrats are beginning to push back on these retrogressive ideas, including none other than the guy who openly embraced remaking America into a socialist paradise, Barack Obama. And since it will never be possible to get a majority of Americans to agree with most — or even any — of these ideas, the only way retrogressives can ever hope to get their way is to employ force against those who refuse to go along with them.

But let’s back up to the most important question underlying all this: Why would anyone want to stop human progress in the first place? I believe it’s a combination of naiveté, ignorance, arrogance, and, above all, a lust for power — pure, unadulterated power. But progress liberates people, which is why those who thirst for power work so hard to thwart it.

With all this in mind, it’s not difficult to understand why retrogressives are the most dangerous people on earth. For at least a hundred years they have been moving the United States away from the liberty the Founding Fathers so eloquently wrote about in the Declaration of Independence and toward servitude.

The divide between liberty and tyranny is, and always has been, irreconcilable, and it’s time for those who believe in liberty to come to grips with the reality that the agenda of the retrogressive is to transform the United States into a collectivist utopia where omnipotent government plans, controls, and owns everything. Our government is now saturated with retrogressive politicians and bureaucrats who view progress as the evil enemy because it stands in the way of their desire to control all aspects of every individual’s life.

Thus, the major question of our time is, which side will prevail? Will it be the retrogressive, who extols the virtues of a collectivist society in which men and women are living, breathing automatons? Or will it be people who believe in the right of the individual to determine his own destiny without having to answer to an all-mighty government?

No one can be sure of the answer to this question, but a good start would be to vote out of office all retrogressive members of Congress — both Democrats and Republicans — who stand in the way of progress. In that respect, November 3, 2020, promises to be a watershed day in America’s battle between liberty and tyranny. It won’t be a total victory, but it could be an important step in the right direction.

Let’s face it, retrogressives lie, steal, cheat, and, above all, believe in the use of force. You cannot change them. You cannot reason with them. You cannot quell their anger. The only solution is to defeat them — preferably at the ballot box, but, if not, by any means necessary. ROBERT RINGERRobert Ringer (© 2019)is a New York Times #1 bestselling author who has appeared on numerous national radio and television shows, including The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, ABC Nightline, The Charlie Rose Show, as well as Fox News and Fox Business. To sign up for a free subscription to his mind-expanding daily insights, visit www.robertringer.com.

Commentary: Robert Ringer


Let’s Speak LatinQuid Pro Quo is Latin for to give something and in order to get some-

thing. That is our right as Americans, we can contract. We contract to pay our power, we contract for our water, we contract for our trash to be picked up, and we contract for our ability to have someone to mow our lawns. We contract to purchase our gas; we contract for natural gas and our electricity. Quid Pro Quo is not a crime and is in fact our statutory right to contract. We all enjoy a right to contract outside of statutes. Even if our laws say if it is against the law we can contract around the law. If the government tells us we cannot contract around a statute it will be held unenforceable. We can contract even in marriage. It is called a prenuptial agreement.

The President is no different. He can contract to engage in foreign pol-icy. In fact, he must, so he engages foreign allies and foreign adversaries to contract in a behavior that dictates American values, primarily democ-racy, and even more specific a representative republic. He sometimes engages in trade agreements regarding tariffs, military aid, a lack military aid, financial aid and a lack of financial aid. It is by definition foreign policy. Democrat leadership thinks we are too stupid to understand this.

He did so when he asked if the Bidens should be investigated. Bad touch Joe said so while being he was taped. In point of fact, he bragged about it, “Stop Investigating my son or we will withhold foreign aid to the Ukraine just call Obama”. The problem is that is that is a personal interest. He is using United State’s aid to achieve a potential familial gain, a per-sonal gain. That is what the framers of the United States prohibited. That is what the framers meant when they used the term bribery.

Donald Trump wants to uncover that corruption. Yes, it is arguable

that he wants dirt on his political opponent. However, it is not arguable that it is in our national interest to uncover corruption. Of course we want to know if a politician who is running for president is corrupt. It is not personal gain. Biden is not a threat. Everyone can see he is not a threat to gain the presidency. His dentures are falling out, he cannot remember what he said last week. He is a gaffe a minute. He is embarrassing. He is not a threat to run against Trump. Trump only wants to uncover corrup-tion. It is in our national interest to do so.

These politicians are a sham. They are nothing but corrupt. They are the very definition of embarrassing. Trump is right, our leadership is fail-ing us. The Republicans are not so different. They mean well. They skip the issue of Quid Pro Quo. All foreign policy is Quid Pro Quo. A contract is not illegal. What is illegal is using the United States foreign policy for personal gain. Bad Touch Biden did so by withholding financial aid to protect his son who should never have had the financial contract that he obtained without being qualified, prima facia evidence of bribery, more Latin.

Let’s again use some Latin; “Res Ipsa Loquitor”, “the thing speaks for itself”. Biden stating while being recorded that he bullied the Ukraine, with the help of Obama, to fire the prosecutor that was investigating his son’s company speaks for itself. That is bribery, that is prima facia evi-dence. That is Res Ipas Loquitor. That is prohibited by the constitution. He has a personal interest and is using the United States for a personal gain that is prohibited. Obama giving millions to Iran speaks for itself. Obama saying on a hot mic to tell Vladimir he “will have more flexibility after the election,” is the very definition of bribery.

We are Americans and we are aware and educated. We know another Latin phrase. It is Caveat Emptor. It means buyer beware. BYRON BERGERON


Commentary: Byron Bergeron


Banning Animals in Toxicity Studies a Costly Mistake

The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to end certain kinds of animal research.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler just directed the agency to reduce requests and funding for studies with mammals in toxicity studies by 30 percent by 2025. The goal is to eliminate chemical safety tests in mammals by 2035.

In theory, that’s a noble goal. Everyone in the research community should be on board with reducing the usage of animals in toxicity tests where scientifically feasible.

But we also must be realistic about the limits of alternatives to animal research. In some cases, there’s no other way to evaluate the safety and efficacy of substances than to study their impact in animals. Nowhere is that truer than in biomedical research — science that yields treatments that save and enhance the lives of humans and animals alike.

Scientists are trying to develop computer models powerful enough to simulate research in animals. But the technology just isn’t there yet. And while cell cultures can indicate the impact of a substance or chemical at a very basic level, they can’t replicate the myriad ways compounds affect complex living beings.

For example, scientists cannot extrapolate the impact of a chemical on our immune system from research in cells or organs. It’s conceivable that a compound could cause an immunological condition like lupus — but not demonstrate as much in basic cell tests or organs-on-a-chip.

Similarly, animal models are the only way to determine whether chemicals will cause problems during different developmental stages like pregnancy, childhood, and adolescence.

“At present, we don’t have test systems that mimic all phases of human

development,” said Leigh Ann Burns Naas, past president of the U.S. Society of Toxicology. “Predicting effects on higher-order functions like cognition, learning and memory will also be a challenge . . . Toxicologists are working diligently on all these problems, but it isn’t possible to say with confidence that we will have solutions any time soon.”

Counter-intuitively, banning toxicity research in animals opens the door for more toxic chemicals to make their way into humans. Such research is the last step in determining whether a product is safe for humans. Eliminating that step could lead to toxic chemicals being cleared for human use — simply because scientists would be unable to conclusively demonstrate they were unsafe.

The EPA’s decision also risks opening the door to banning animal research in other contexts — most notably medical research. That would be disastrous for humans and animals alike.

Just look at the history of medical progress. It took decades of research in monkeys, rats, and mice to develop a polio vaccine. Research in chimpanzees was instrumental in developing a vaccine for hepatitis B. Animal research is the reason we’re able to perform organ transplants, heart bypass surgery, chemotherapy, and blood transfusions.

Animals have benefited from this research, too. The vaccines we administer to our pets for distemper, rabies, tetanus, and feline leukemia were all developed in animal models.

More breakthroughs are on the way. Scientists are currently using animals to develop new treatments for Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes, and countless other debilitating diseases.

All this progress could come to a halt if other agencies follow the EPA’s move — and look to restrict animal research. While the effort may be well-intentioned, it may also end up being a costly mistake by putting the long-term health, safety, and well-being of the public and their pets at risk. MATTHEW BAILEYMatthew R. Bailey is president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research. This piece originally ran in RealClearScience.

Commentary: Matthew Bailey

FISA Abuse Against the Trump Campaign Will Include criminal violations

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made big news on Nov. 20 when he announced on Fox News in an interview with Sean Hannity that the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz would be releasing his report on Dec. 9 on FBI and Justice Department surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), with Horowitz set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Dec. 11.

The Horowitz report should cover how false allegations made by the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department that President Donald Trump and his campaign were Russian agents managed to get approved four times by the nation’s most top secret federal court without the claims ever being verified.

On Sept. 25, Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec confirmed the investigation into the counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign, “A Department of Justice team led by U.S. Attorney John Durham is separately exploring the extent to which a number of countries, including Ukraine, played a role in the counterintelligence investigation directed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.”

The worst possible outcome of the FISA abuse scandal would be that no laws were broken, and thus there won’t be any criminal accountability. Because it would mean the law designed to prevent this sort of abuse is toothless.

But laws were broken. And now we know that in October that the investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham has been expanded into a criminal probe and a grand, and now CNN has reported on Nov. 21 that there is at least one criminal referral coming from the Horowitz report: “An FBI official is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN… The finding is expected to be part of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s review of the FBI’s effort to obtain warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide.”

This is not really a surprise, though.We already know from the Oct. 2016 application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

court that the government relied on the DNC and Clinton campaign-funded dossier from Fusion GPS and British spy Christopher Steele in order to spy on the Trump campaign. This gave the Obama administration, the incumbent party, unprecedented access to the Trump campaign and the GOP, the opposition party, in an election year, including access to emails, phone calls, text messages and other documents.

This was the same dossier that FBI Director James Comey had testified in Jan. 2017 as being “salacious and unverified.”

The last renewal, at least as we can see in the FOIA response, came in June 2017, after Special Counsel Robert Mueller had been appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

The Steele dossier pinned the alleged Russian intelligence hack of the DNC and John Podesta emails, which were published on Wikileaks, on the Trump campaign. Steele alleged his source had said “there was a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation” between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia.

Steele elaborated, stating in July 2016, “This was managed on the TRUMP side by the Republican candidate’s campaign manager, Paul MANAFORT, who was using foreign policy advisor, Carter PAGE, and others as intermediaries. The two sides had a mutual interest in defeating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary CLINTON, whom President PUTIN apparently both hated and feared… Inter alia, Source E, acknowledged that the Russian regime had been behind the recent leak of embarrassing e-mail messages, emanating from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), to the WikiLeaks platform. The reason for using WikiLeaks was ‘plausible deniability’ and the operation had been conducted with the full knowledge and support of TRUMP and senior members of his campaign team.”

But after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s exhaustive investigation and the publication of the Special Counsel’s final report to the Attorney General, the charges could not be proven. Per Mueller, “the Office did not find evidence likely to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Campaign officials such as Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, and Carter Page acted as agents of the Russian government — or at its direction, control or request — during the relevant time period.” As for Cohen, per Mueller, “Cohen had never traveled to Prague…”

To wit, Mueller stated, “the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.”

Meaning it was all made up by someone.Raising the stakes, Congress is presently considering reauthorizing FISA as a part of the omnibus

appropriations bill at the end of the year. Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning stated that FISA renewal should be pushed off until March: “A longer time window will also give Congress an opportunity to review the findings of the Justice Department on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses that occurred in the 2016 elections, when the Trump campaign, the opposition party, was placed under surveillance by the Obama administration in an election year, and give time to put in place real reforms so that political spying never happens again. We have to make sure we get this right, and rushing to reauthorize FISA would be foolish when we’re still waiting on these findings.”

Steele had his own doubts, including that the information he gathered might have been Russian disinformation. In court testimony, Steele said “all material contained this risk” of being disinformation. Further, Steele didn’t go to Russia himself, and was said to have relied on a network to relay information, stating that the allegations needed to be “further corroborated and verified.”

Steele said his sources were Russian, but they were not named: Source A was a “former top Russian intelligence officer”; Source B was a “senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure”; Source C was a “senior Russian financial official”; Source D was a “close associate of Trump” (golden showers source); Source E was an “ethnic Russian close associate” of Trump (golden showers source); Source F was a “female staffer of the hotel”; and source G was a “senior Kremlin official”.

The New York Times’ Scott Shane, Adam Goldman and Matthew Rosenberg reported on April 20 that in Jan. 2017 the FBI interviewed one of the main sources for the dossier and came away with “misgivings about its reliability [that] arose not long after the document became public” in Jan. 2017.

Per the Times report: “By January 2017, F.B.I. agents had tracked down and interviewed one of Mr. Steele’s main sources, a Russian speaker from a former Soviet republic who had spent time in the West, according to a Justice Department document and three people familiar with the events, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. After questioning him about where he’d gotten his information, they suspected he might have added his own interpretations to reports passed on by his sources, one of the people said. For the F.B.I., that made it harder to decide what to trust.”

The FBI appeared to discount the possibility of the dossier being Russian disinformation, per the Times report: “F.B.I. agents considered whether Russia had polluted the stream of intelligence, but did not give it much credence, according to the former official.”

So, if Steele’s sources were not senior Russian officials, as he alleged, then who were they? Also, who was the “Russian speaker from a former Soviet republic who had spent time in the West”? The FBI knew who it was. And the reliability of those sources should most certainly be covered by Horowitz.

Were there sources in Ukraine? That’s what U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes thinks. In questioning U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland on Oct. 17, Nunes asked, “Were you aware that the origins of the Steele dossier were from Ukraine, many of the origins in the original Steele dossier were from Ukraine, the politicians within Ukraine?”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff actually interrupted Nunes and would not allow that characterization: “I would posit that this is the ranking member’s view. We cannot accept that as an actual or factual representation.”

Nunes went on to note that “in the Steele dossier itself it does source information from Ukraine.” That included allegations against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and supposed “kickbacks”.

Another question the Horowitz report might cover is whether the Steele Dossier was used in the Jan. 6, 2017 intelligence assessment by then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that stated the DNC and John Podesta hacks had been perpetrated by Russia, and the emails put on Wikileaks, in order to help President Trump win the elections.

The intelligence assessment stated, “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump… We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.”

Critically, the version of the assessment that was given to former President Barack Obama and then-President-Elect Trump on Jan. 5, 2017 also reportedly included some of the allegations leveled by former British spy Christopher Steele in his infamous dossier, paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, that Trump was a Russian agent.

A Jan. 20, 2017 email that former National Security Advisor Susan Rice sent to herself on the day Trump was inaugurated about a Jan. 5, 2017 meeting in the Oval Office, detailed the White House’s interaction with that assessment, in which Rice wrote, “On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election, President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office. Vice President Biden and I were also present.”

According to Rice, former President Barack Obama wanted to make certain that the investigation, which was about to be carried over to the Trump administration, would be done “by the book.” Per Rice’s email to herself, “President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book’. The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book. From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.”

The email continued, “The President asked [then-FBI Director James] Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team. Comey said he would.”

The email was uncovered from the National Archives by then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and the current Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Feb. 12, 2018, who wrote a letter to Rice.

Note that it was Comey’s job to brief then-President-elect Trump on the assessment, and that it was Comey who lied to President Trump after he was inaugurated repeatedly about the extent of the investigation. Comey assured Trump he wasn’t under investigation, and that was a lie. That’s why Comey was fired.

As for the assessment, the publication of that report was arguably the original sin of the Obama administration, as it set the stage publicly for an investigation of the President of the United States, newly sworn in, on allegations he was really a Manchurian candidate. This put the American people through what would be another two-and-a-half years of a national nightmare that absolutely undermined President Trump’s ability to do his job — and probably future presidents who think they have their own ideas to implement, especially in areas of foreign policy.

Trump, with Flynn as his campaign advisor, ran on the idea of calming tensions between the U.S. and Russia. What the intelligence community did with that assessment, and the Justice Department with its investigations into false charges he and Flynn were Russian agents, was to undermine the pursuit of that policy even though under Article II of the Constitution, the executive power is vested in the President. He sets the foreign policy. Not alphabet soup intel agencies.

What this essentially undermined is the cornerstone of a republican government: the peaceful transfer of power after elections. It was arguably an act of war. How do we put the genie back in the bottle?

Sometimes revolutions are born out of necessity. Rome never had a republic until the first Brutus slayed the last Roman king, and it was the king’s tyrannical rule that gave cause to do so. Afterward, Brutus made the people of Rome swear an oath they would never again suffer a tyrant. More than two millennia later, it was the tyranny of the British Parliament and King George that gave rise to the American Revolution.

Eventually, the weak Articles of Confederation gave rise to the Federal Constitution with the separation of powers, including a strong executive, which was supposed to prevent or at least mitigate this sort of thing from happening, with essentially two or more executive branches seeking primacy. It was a coup.

And now, after this ordeal, the Constitution hangs by a thread. Attorney General William Barr can rescue it, but he must act skillfully and wisely. And quickly. We cannot assume President Trump will be reelected in 2020, meaning the window of opportunity is now to hold those who abused their spying powers accountable. Or else this will happen again. ROBERT ROMANORobert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.


Commentary: Robert Romano



The Trouble with Judges and Judging Them: Part I

After the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida – in which 14 students and three school staffers were killed - legislators passed a law which included a provision that anyone “who makes, posts, or transmits” a threat of a mass shooting “in any manner (my emphasis) that would allow another person to view the threat” has committed a crime.

Seems pretty clear-cut, right?Well, back in September a 15-year-old boy in Baker, Florida – a rural

county at the northern end of the state - shared his six-page “School Shooting Plan” with another student. From an Associated Press story over the weekend…

“The boy’s plan described killing teachers and fellow students in chilling detail. To maximize the carnage, he’d deploy an arsenal of knives and guns at a high-traffic venue.”

Within minutes of the manifesto being transmitted to the other student and then coming to the attention of school officials, law enforcement officers arrested the boy.

His case was heard last month by Judge Gloria R. Walker - who proceeded to dismiss the “second-degree felony charges against the boy and released him back into the community.”

Judge Walker, unbelievably, ruled that prosecutors couldn’t prove “the threat was transmitted as described in the law.”

What part of transmitting a threat “in any manner” so confused this judge?

Now, in Nevada we have a way to deal with judges such as Judge Walker. It’s called “elections.” We vote for the judges who judge us. It’s not a perfect system by any stretch. Like they say about democracy, it’s the worst system – except for all the others.

The problem with electing judges isn’t so much that we allow voters to vote on them but that there’s so little information about judges and their judicial philosophy that voters can reliably use to make an informed decision.

They don’t run by party – an historically reliable weather vane used by voters for other elected offices – and many don’t even register to vote by party.

But make no mistake. Different judges approach different cases based on different ideologies. Conservatives tend to take a strict constructionist view and apply the law as written while many liberal judges tend to try to legislate from the bench.

This is why conservatives are so thrilled with all the vacancies President Trump is filling on the federal bench with conservative judges and why liberals are having cows over it.

And it’s easier and more obvious today than ever before to see how these judicial appointments affect the country differently – thanks in large part to Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Indeed, our president has made all kinds of decisions over the past three years that liberals have taken to court – such as his travel ban, rolling

back regulations and efforts to secure our border.Indeed, as Forbes magazine noted in August: “President Trump and his

administration have been sued by state attorneys general more times than any president since Ronald Reagan.”

Now here’s the thing…Whenever a particular judge rules against Trump, many voters have

now gotten into the habit of looking up the judge on Wikipedia to see which president appointed him or her.

And lo and behold, as often as not, the judges who have ruled against Trump in many high-profile cases were appointed by either Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, the last two Democrat presidents.

It’s happened so often and so regularly over the past three years that conservatives now often short-circuit the discussion by simply referring to such judges as an “Obama judge” or a “Clinton judge.”

In fact, a year ago President Trump himself referred to U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco as an “Obama judge” after Tigar ruled against the administration’s efforts to restrict illegal immigrants from trying to enter the U.S. by claiming asylum.

That ruffled the royal robes of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

The “Bush judge” – who, by way, was the swing vote in the highly-controversial 2012 decision upholding ObamaCare’s individual mandate - issued the following statement in response…

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”

To which President Trump counter-punched…“Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama

judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country.”

Exactly.Different judges with different judicial philosophies rule differently.

Everybody knows it. That’s why Democrats and the Left went “scorched earth” in their efforts last year to keep Brett Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court.

He’s a “Trump judge.”For all their pretense of being unbiased and independent in their rulings,

many judges are strongly influenced by their ideology. The challenge for Nevada voters when it comes to assessing judicial candidates is to root out and uncover their judicial and philosophical beliefs.

Not a simple task.To its credit, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has recognized this dearth

of voter information on judicial candidates and is attempting to fill the void this week with a special “Judging the Judges” series taking a look at how incumbent judges are performing on the bench.

Unfortunately, the project has some very serious flaws. Which I’ll get into in Part II. Stay tuned, Batfans. CHUCK MUTH(Mr. Muth is president of CitizenOutreach.org and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com. He blogs at MuthsTruths.com. His views are his own.)


Commentary: Chuck Muth


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Penny Press 12 NOVEMBER 28, 2019