The End is Nigh . . .

. . . Schiff is in a panic over the declassification of the Russia probe papers that will reveal his Lies.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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The Fix Is in Like Flynn

by Tony Perkins: It was a case that, as former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said, "stunk to high heaven." Now, three years into a bogus controversy that ruined General Michael Flynn's career, the DOJ is dropping the case against the former national security advisor. It wasn't a pardon -- but maybe, some say, it was better. It finally got prosecutors to admit what most people suspected all along: the case was a hoax.

In the end, Flynn was just another victim of the Democrats' ruthless do-anything-destroy-anyone mission to get at the president. He just happened to provide a scenario the Left could exploit. "The FBI and the Obama administration had recordings of these calls and knew Flynn had done nothing improper," McCarthy points out. But, "the fact that they occurred was used to stoke the claim that Flynn may have agreed on Trump's behalf to drop sanctions Obama had imposed on Russia. He had not, but the mere mention of sanctions was politically explosive. There was no basis to believe Flynn, a decorated former U.S. combat commander, would ever be Moscow's mole, much less that he had committed a crime."

But the Democrats never let the facts get in the way of a good smear campaign. They went to work almost immediately, hyping up "collusion." The reality, Attorney General William Barr pointed out, is that this was never a "bona fide counterintelligence investigation" to begin with. In fact, the FBI was ready to shut it down when they cleared Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador. But then, when every other avenue for launching an investigation against the president didn't work, they reconsidered. "They found out that they had not technically closed the earlier investigation. And they kept it open for the express purpose of trying to catch [and] lay a perjury trap for General Flynn."

The fix was in from the beginning. "It really is a startling revelation," Congressman Jody Hice (R-Ga.) said on "Washington Watch." To be honest, he went on, "it's something many of us were afraid of... and now it's becoming a reality [that] Michael Flynn was set up. He was targeted. He was put in a [no-win position] in an attempt ultimately to go after the president. And it was based on an absolutely false dossier. And the FBI knew that it was false. They knew that it was erroneous and fraudulent all along."

But, thanks to morally compromised agents, Flynn lost his job, his home, and his good name to a bunch of sore-loser extremists desperate to tarnish Trump -- and everyone in his circle. And while the general paid for it -- dearly -- Americans lost something too: trust in the basic functions of government. We're talking about the top law enforcement agency in the nation, using the government's own resources to eviscerate a three-star general. Not because he was guilty of a crime, but because he was guilty of working for this president.

That same abuse of power and authority continued for three and a half years. "The impeachment [was] built on it. And now, we learn... it was all fake," Hice shakes his head. "Now, quite frankly, we need to go after the crooks who set Michael Flynn up. This never should happen in America, especially at the top levels of our government. We need to ensure liberty and justice for all American citizens."

Nothing can ever make up for what Michael Flynn went through. But at least Americans are getting another glimpse behind the curtain -- where the only people truly caught in a lie are the Democratic Party
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Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . Article on Tony Perkins' Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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The Federal Reserve: More Lethal than Coronavirus

Dr. Ron Paul

by Dr. Ron Paul: Last week the Federal Reserve announced it will keep interest rates at or near zero until the economy recovers from the government-imposed shutdown. Following this announcement, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell urged Congress and the Trump administration to put aside any concerns about the deficit and spend whatever it takes to stimulate the economy and combat coronavirus.

The Federal Reserve previously announced it would make unlimited purchases of Treasury securities, thus encouraging Congress and the president to increase spending and debt. With some members of Congress talking about another multi-trillion-dollar stimulus bill, and with President Trump proposing a two trillion dollars infrastructure plan as a way to get Americans back to work, it is obvious, and not surprising, that Congress and President Trump gleefully agree with Powell’s advice.

Increasing the purchase of federal debt is not the only action the Fed has taken in a desperate attempt to keep the economy afloat. Since the coronavirus lockdowns began in early March, the Fed has greatly expanded its balance sheet. The Federal Reserve has also launched an unprecedented program to “loan” money directly to businesses.

While some states are beginning to end the lockdowns, it may be months or even another year before all the lockdowns are finally ended. It is unlikely that the economy will completely recover after the shutdown ends.

The economy was teetering on the brink of a recession months before anyone heard of coronavirus. Last September, a panicked Fed began emergency infusions of cash into the repurchasing market, which is where banks make short-term loans to each other. The Fed’s balance sheet expansion also began in September. The Fed was also pushing interest rates down before the coronavirus panic, and it will likely keep rates at or even below zero long after the crisis related to the shutdown subsides.

Economic stagnation combined with zero or negative interest rates remove incentive for people to save. This depletes the supply of private capital available to invest in businesses and jobs. The lack of private capital will put pressure on the Federal Reserve to maintain, and even expand, its new lending programs indefinitely.

Each of the Federal Reserve’s responses to the coronavirus shutdown increases the distortions of the market caused by the Federal Reserve’s meddling with the money supply and interest rates. These increased distortions guarantee the inevitable crash will be much more severe than the current downturn. The one upside is that the next meltdown will likely lead to the end of the fiat money system and thus the end of the welfare-warfare state.

The only way to minimize the coming crisis is to begin immediately unwinding the current system. The first step is to end the lockdown and let businesses reopen and people go back to work. Congress must then begin challenging monetary policy by passing the Audit the Fed bill. Congress should also cut spending, starting with ending our hyper-interventionist foreign policy and bringing the troops home. Ending the welfare-warfare state and the fiat money system may cause some short-term pain, but that pain will be dwarfed by the long-term gains in liberty, peace, and prosperity.
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Dr. Ron Paul (@ronpaul), Chairman of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, is a former U.S.Congressman (R-TX). He twice sought the Republican nomination for President. As a MD, he was an Air Force flight surgeon and has delivered over 4000 babies. Paul writes on numerous topics but focuses on monetary policies, the military-industrial complex,the Federal Reserve, and compliance with the U.S. Constitution.

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Will Another Second Amendment Case Be Heard By the U.S. Supreme Court Soon?

by Frank Miniter: Many are asking: Now what for the U.S. Supreme Court and the Second Amendment?

It has now been a decade since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), that the Second Amendment restricts state and local governments from infringing on our right to keep and bear arms. This followed the 2008 Heller decision, which confirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, independent of service in an organized militia. McDonald is the most recent case in which the high court has analyzed a firearm regulation under the Second Amendment.

By punting on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York on April 27—this after years of passing on other important Second Amendment cases that lower courts had disagreed on—the court is causing a lot of frustration and speculation.

First, as Amy Swearer writes at The Daily Signal, “This outcome is certainly disappointing to Second Amendment advocates, many of whom thought that if the court was going to dismiss the case as moot, it should have done so much earlier, allowing time to grant and hear another Second Amendment case this term.”

By waiting another six months to call this case “moot,” the court dashed any chance that it might hear another Second Amendment case in this term. Now, if the justices grant certiorari to another Second Amendment case, the earliest it could be heard would be October.

Still, there are a number of Second Amendment cases that the justices could opt to hear.

This week several other Second Amendment cases were actually moved to conference in the high court. This means that the justices should soon discuss whether to hear them.

Though New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York clearly asked important constitutional questions, the suit’s central complaint that residents of New York City who have “premises licenses” could not take their guns out of the city concerned a very unusual, if not totally unique, regulation. Even then, New York City and the state legislature gave the justices an off ramp by amending their laws, supposedly to grant the relief the plaintiffs requested. This gave the justices a potential way out a majority of them chose to take.

The cases currently being considered for possible hearing by the court, on the other hand, concern laws that more broadly affect the gun-owning population.

Cases like Wilson v. Cook County, Illinois and Worman v. Healey directly challenge bans on popular and commonly owned semi-automatic rifles and magazines — Heller specifically protects “commonly owned” firearms.

Another case, Rogers v. Grewal, challenges laws preventing law-abiding citizens from carrying a firearm outside their home for self-defense. This takes on the “special need” requirement that places like New Jersey and California use to deny citizens their basic Second Amendment rights.

And then there’s Pena v. Horan, which challenges California’s Unsafe Handgun Act, a law that implicates the Second Amendment by effectively banning commonly owned handguns.

The justices on the U.S. Supreme Court clearly have many solid options to step in and protect their precedents — Heller and McDonald.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh said they should do just that. In a concurring opinion to NYSRPA v. NYC, he stated, “I share JUSTICE ALITO’s concern that some federal and state courts may not be properly applying Heller and McDonald. The Court should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.”
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Frank Minter is Editor in Chief for NRA America's 1st Freedom.

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Supreme Court May Strike Down Mexico City Policy After Global Right to Free Speech Case

by Stefano Gennarini: The U.S. Supreme Court could pave the way for the judicial repeal of the Mexico City Policy if it recognizes a global right to free speech for foreign non-governmental organizations affiliated with U.S.-based organizations.

The Mexico City Policy, like other U.S. conditions on foreign assistance tied to fighting terrorism supporting women’s rights and opposing racism, could all be on the chopping block if the U.S. Supreme Court extends First Amendment free speech rights to foreign entities affiliated to U.S. based organizations, U.S. Solicitor General Christopher Michel said Tuesday during oral arguments in the case of United States Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc.

The case involves a pledge against prostitution that U.S. funded foreign entities who work on HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention abroad are required to make. Congress’ purpose in enacting the condition almost twenty years ago was to fight “coercive practices that spread HIV/AIDS and degrade women and girls,” Michel said during the hearing.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the anti-prostitution pledge was unconstitutional as applied to U.S.-based groups because it sought to compel speech, but it did not rule on its application to foreign organizations.

The same organizations who were involved in the 2013 decision are now asking the Court to extend their First Amendment free speech rights to foreign affiliates who share their name, logo, and mission. Among the leading organizations suing the government are Pathfinder International and CARE USA, both of which openly oppose the Mexico City Policy.

Michel characterized the case in terms of globalist versus U.S. government prerogatives in foreign affairs.

“Respondents’ position is that they and their foreign entities that they’ve chosen to keep separate should somehow be treated as some kind of single global unified entity,” he emphasized.

The U.S. Solicitor General described this as a “right to optimal message management,” which he argued “is simply not what the First Amendment protects.”

The organizations’ lawyer, David Bowker, complained that taking a position against prostitution was a form of “hypocrisy” for his clients. He argued that it harms their “integrity and their reputation and their brand when they’re forced to speak out of two sides of their mouths.”

For Associate Justice Sonya Sotomayor the case may seem like a dejavu. She ruled that foreign non-governmental organizations did not possess any right to free speech under the U.S. Constitution in a 2002 case, Center for Reproductive Rights v. Bush, when she was an appellate judge on the Second Circuit.

That case involved the Mexico City Policy, disparagingly called “global gag rule” by abortion activists. The policy prohibits U.S. funding for foreign organizations that promote abortion. Like the current case, the 2002 case involved a network of domestic organizations with foreign affiliates who argued their free speech rights extended to their affiliates abroad. Although, the Mexico City Policy does not require compelled speech.

Sotomayor’s 2002 decision was based on appellate precedent. As a Supreme Court Justice, she is not bound to her prior ruling. Indeed, during oral arguments she seemed eager to strike down the Mexico City Policy.

“The long and the short of this is that a domestic agency that does not want to adopt a policy of being opposed to abortion but who is willing to not support it in a program, they can’t receive funds…” she said at one point, letting the word “abortion” slip in instead of “prostitution.”
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Stefano Gennarini, J.D is the Vice President for Legal Studies at the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam).

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A Good Day, Confronting China, V-E Day

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer: A Good Day
Justice had a good day in America yesterday.

The Justice Department ended the prosecution (and persecution) of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn yesterday. Hopefully, Flynn can begin the process of restoring his life and the lives of his family members. Remember, FBI agents wanted to close the Flynn case without charges, but Peter Strzok intervened at the last minute.

Thanks to the courageous decision of acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell to declassify dozens of transcripts, we also know that Obama Deep State operatives knew all along that neither Flynn nor anyone else in the Trump campaign, let alone the president, was colluding with Russia. Yet they still pursued this false conspiracy theory.

More revelations are expected in the days ahead. (Here and here.)

Then there is the case of Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther. Luther faced economic ruin due to the Covid shutdown, and she and her employees were having trouble putting food on the table for their children.

An arrogant judge fined her for reopening her salon with just one customer at a time. He demanded that she apologize to government bureaucrats. Luther politely but firmly refused to bow.

In a country where violent criminals are being let out of jail due to concerns that they might contract the coronavirus, this mother and small businesswoman was sent to jail!

Thankfully, the Texas Supreme Court ordered her release. I believe the case has ramifications way beyond one salon owner in Dallas, Texas.

Finally, there was a more obscure case involving two top aides to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. They took the fall for something called "Bridgegate." This was a dispute over whether Gov. Christie had attempted to punish a mayor who crossed him by intentionally causing massive rush hour traffic jams in his city.

It was the kind of hardball politics New Jersey is well-known for, but it turned into a vicious vendetta to destroy Christie and prosecute his staff under federal laws normally reserved for organized crime.

The Supreme Court yesterday reversed the convictions of Christie's two aides. And here's the amazing part: The vote was 9-to-0.

Confronting Communist China
Yesterday, we learned that another 3 million Americans lost their jobs last week, bringing the total to more than 33 million since the pandemic began. The death toll in the United States now exceeds 76,000. And we learned this morning that last month's unemployment rate skyrocketed to 14.7% as a result of the mandated shutdown of our economy.

As the United States continues to grapple with the devastating toll of the coronavirus, China declared this week that it was refusing to allow international investigators into the country to discover the truth about the origins of the virus. Meanwhile, Beijing is ginning up a massive disinformation machine to sow confusion and discord in the U.S.

Incredibly, some in our media continue to suggest that we must bow to China. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked on CNBC whether it was smart strategy to "raise the tension and rhetoric" with Beijing while we are still so reliant on China. Pompeo shot back, saying:

"We have an obligation to be truthful to the American people. . . We're not raising the rhetoric. We're simply trying to protect the world from a global pandemic by sharing what we know and asking the Chinese Communist Party to do what they say they want to do.

"They say they want to be a nation that participates in the global economy. They say they want to be cooperative. . . Well, then do the right thing. Share the information you're required to under international health regulations."

Kudos to Sen. Rick Scott of Florida! Scott is leading a Senate investigation into China and he called out the Chinese Communist Party during an interview on Fox & Friends this week. Scott said:

"We have to remember . . . it's Communist China, run by the Communist Party of China. Don't ever forget who they are. . . The Communist Party runs the country. They make all these decisions and they're anti-American, they want world domination. They're not a competitor, they are an adversary now. . .

"They steal our jobs, they steal our technology and now they've intentionally caused a problem that's killing American jobs, killing Americans . . . and people all over the world.

"So I think the biggest thing we can do is make sure Americans stop buying their products. And it's a twofer because then we help build our own economy up again by bringing manufacturing back here."

Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) is introducing legislation tightening the financial screws on universities that permit communist-run Confucius Institutes on their campuses.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) is chairing a special taskforce to investigate the growing threats to America posed by Beijing. Incredibly, no House Democrats are willing to join this taskforce. They would rather investigate Donald Trump.

Speaking of President Trump, the administration is taking steps to block the $50 billion federal retirement fund from investing in Chinese companies, which are often controlled by the Communist Party.

And the Trump campaign unveiled yet another ad this week going after Joe Biden's record on China.

V-E Day
Today is the 75th anniversary of V-E Day, which stands for "Victory in Europe" Day. It's the day in 1945 when the German armed forces signed an unconditional surrender to the Allies, and the Second World War in Europe came to an end.

It is almost impossible to imagine the celebrations that took place that day. Americans poured into the streets of every city across the country to celebrate this great victory. It would take another four months to defeat the Japanese, but Europe had been liberated from the Nazis.

Sixteen million Americans wore the uniform during World War II. Fewer than 400,000 of them remain with us today.

If there is still somebody in your family who served in World War II, today would be a great day to visit with them — if not in person, then by phone or video chat. Write down and record their stories and recollections from that time.

It's also a good day to remind your family that without the U.S. and our British allies, who stood alone in the early days of the war, the world would've sunk into another Dark Age.

The last veterans of World War II are dying. But our memory of what they did must never fade away.
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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The End is Nigh . . .

. . . Schiff is in a panic over the declassification of the Russia probe papers that will reveal his Lies.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Tags: AF Branco, editorial cartoon, The End Is Nigh, Schiff is in a panic, over the declassification, of the Russia probe papers, that will reveal, his Lies To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Behind Trump’s Strategic Pivot

by Patrick Buchanan: Trump can make the case that while China was the origin of the Wuhan virus that killed scores of thousands of Americans, it was Donald J. Trump who led us through the tragedy, and he is leading us forward, once again, to a new prosperity. What will be Joe Biden’s argument to lead America, after having sat out the worst crisis since World War II in his basement?

After Pearl Harbor, FDR declared that his role of “Dr. New Deal” had been superseded, replaced by his new role, “Dr. Win the War.”

Tuesday, President Donald Trump signaled that, in the war on the coronavirus pandemic, he, too, is executing a strategic pivot.

Where the medical crisis had been the central front, pulling the U.S. economy out of its coma is now his principal objective.

Trump is not unaware of the consequences of this decision.

“Will some people be affected badly? Yes,” said the president, “but we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon.”

“Tremendous progress” has been made in dealing with the medical crisis, Vice President Mike Pence told reporters Tuesday, adding that the White House task force he chairs could be phased out in June.

Wednesday, Trump reversed that. From the public reaction, by popular demand, said Trump, the task force, whose primary medical voices are Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, will continue.

As the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is now 74,000 and still rising at a rate of 2,000 a day, what is behind Trump’s strategic pivot?

First, there is not a great deal more the White House can do to slow the inexorable momentum of the disease itself.

“Social distancing” and “sheltering” have been in place for weeks. So, too, are the programs for producing masks, gowns, gloves, tests and ventilators. Trump cannot create any more from a White House podium.

Invariably, while there, he is baited and thrown on the defensive by a hostile press demanding he explain why he did not act sooner.

The White House briefings on the medical crisis have reached a point of diminishing returns. These invariably return to statically grim news — the new hospitalizations, the latest death toll, the “hot spots” where the coronavirus has flared up and is now raging.

The medical crisis is essentially out of the president’s control; its future will be largely dictated by the coronavirus pandemic itself.

Moreover, the economy is familiar and friendly terrain for Trump. There, he has a three-year record of undeniable success. In this crisis, the president can decide, lead, act and produce visible results.

And in moving from the medical crisis to the economic crisis, Trump has weapons to wield like the veto power to shape policy and directives to issue from the Executive Branch.

With this pivot, Trump is wagering his presidency on a belief that, by mid-June, the first large wave of deaths from the pandemic will have passed, the numbers will be diminishing, and almost all of America will be ready to get back to work.

Trump is betting that it does not matter if the country does not agree with him to open up today. By July, the country will agree.

By summer’s end, he sees himself as having led us through the medical crisis that is then receding, and up and out of a Second Depression. That will be his best argument for reelection.

If this scenario unfolds, Trump can make the case that while China was the origin of the Wuhan virus that killed scores of thousands of Americans, it was Donald J. Trump who led us through the tragedy, and he is leading us forward, once again, to a new prosperity.

What will be Joe Biden’s argument to lead America, after having sat out the worst crisis since World War II in his basement?

A majority of Americans are today wary of unlocking the economy and opening up the nation. Yet, each week, more and more people are demanding that it be done. And each week, more and more governors, reflecting the views of their constituents, are moving up the dates for partial reopenings.

By midsummer, the country will have caught up with Trump. That is the idea that animates the pivot.

And it is not a bad wager. Does anyone believe it will be possible to keep hundreds of millions of Americans in their homes in June, July and August?

Wholesale civil disobedience may face governors still conducting a strict lockdown in July.

Europe is already ahead of us. Italy, which has now been passed by Britain as the nation in Europe with the most deaths, is already starting to open. So, too, is Germany, the largest European nation with the fewest deaths. And Austria is ahead of both.

Trump’s strategic pivot puts Biden in a box.

The mainstream media and left-wing of his Democratic Party want the governors to keep the states locked down as the only way to avert a second wave of infections. And they may be right.

But however many victims succumb to this pandemic, it is going to end, and America is going to be reopened. The closer we are to both goals by Nov. 3, the better Donald J. Trump’s chances of retaking the oath on Jan. 20, 2021.

That’s the way Trump is betting.
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Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) is currently a blogger, conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior adviser to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.

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Beyond Flynn: Indict Obama, Clinton, Comey, and Brennan

. . . Time to take down the key co-conspirators in the plan to take down Trump.
by Mark Alexander:
“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.” —John Adams (1797)

The Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss its case against LTG Michael Flynn (USA Ret.). He was set up by a small cabal of corrupt FBI agents on a perjury charge related to the 1799 Logan Act — under which nobody has ever been convicted. Flynn was Barack Obama’s former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (2012-2014). After 33 years of distinguished military service, he joined the then-new administration of President Donald Trump as his national security advisor from 23 January to 13 February 2017 — until Obama’s deep-state operators took him out.

LTG Flynn was the first victim of what we now know was, arguably, a coup d'état to take down Trump. As I noted two years ago, DoJ’s operation “Crossfire Hurricane” to ensnare Trump by entrapping those connected to his campaign, and then his administration, devolved into a “Backfire Tornado.” As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy noted this week, the conspiracy to entrap Flynn was key to keeping the corrupt Russia-collusion investigation moving forward. McCarthy notes, “If no way could be found to sideline Flynn, then Flynn was going to find out about Crossfire Hurricane.” On the charges being dropped, McCarthy also makes the case, “There was no basis to believe Flynn, a decorated former US combat commander, would ever be Moscow’s mole, much less that he had committed a crime.”

The key deep-state operatives in this coup attempt were Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — who colluded with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the current House Intelligence Committee chairman.

It was Schiff, with the help of his Leftmedia propagandists, who spent every waking hour of Trump’s first two years in office advancing the fake collusion delusion, which was determined by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller to be totally fabricated. As it turns out, the collusion lie was funded by then-Trump presidential opponent Hillary Clinton. (Schiff’s second coup attempt, the fake Ukraine-collusion impeachment charade, also failed.)

Recommending dismissal of the Flynn charges, U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen, who had oversight in the Flynn case, said: “Through the course of my review of General Flynn’s case, I concluded the proper and just course was to dismiss the case. I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed.”

Indeed, and AG William Barr had strong words for this extraordinarily corrupt chapter of abuse by the Department of Justice: “I think what happened to [Flynn] was one of the greatest travesties in American history. Without any basis [the FBI] started this investigation of his campaign, and even more concerning, actually, is what happened after the campaign … to sabotage the presidency. … Efforts to use the law-enforcement process to change leaders or to disable administrations are incendiary in this country and destroy our republic. I hope [this move] sends the message that there is one standard of justice in this country. And that’s the way it will be. It doesn’t matter what political party you’re in. … We will follow the same standard for everybody.”

There is always a lot of mainstream-media hyperbole about, well, everything, as pundits endeavor to keep their audiences engaged.

But AG Barr’s remarks are, if anything, understated. The Flynn case is a microcosm of the entire Russia-collusion setup, and it represents the most disgraceful episode of government abuse of power since J. Edgar Hoover was the FBI director. It reflects a far more dangerous chapter in American political history – a more egregious assault on our Constitution and Rule of Law than any aspect of the Watergate break-in during Richard Nixon’s administration. Any civil libertarian of any political stripe with an ounce of integrity should be denouncing this government corruption from the mountain tops.

Predictably, Schiff led the Demos’ Flynn spin, protesting: “This dismissal does not exonerate him. But it does incriminate Bill Barr in the worst politicization of the Justice Department in its history. … By dropping the case against Flynn, the Justice Department lost 50 years worth of ground in maintaining its independence post-Watergate. Once again, Bill Barr is doing Trump’s dirty work. And once again, Barr has undermined the legitimacy of our justice system and the rule of law.”

So Schiff and his leftist Democrats are insisting this is an example of an attorney general who has politicized the Justice Department to do the bidding of the Republican Party. But in fact, this exoneration is the result of an attorney general who is trying to correct the injustice of a Justice Department that brazenly did the bidding of the Democrat Party.

And this is long from over. There will be more to come once U.S. Attorney John Durham concludes his investigation into the criminal deep-state coup.

For the record, Obama’s operatives hated Flynn because he told the truth about Obama’s 2012 campaign lie that al-Qa'ida was “on the run” — a lie that was central to Obama’s reelection campaign. In fact, al-Qa'ida was on the rise, as clearly evident in the Benghazi attack and the subsequent cover-up just before that election. Obama’s foreign-policy malfeasance resulted in the rise of the Islamic State. Flynn also exposed the danger of Obama’s “nuke deal” with Iran.

For that reason, he was high on their hit list.

President Trump responded to the dismissal, scorching the deep-state operatives who entrapped Flynn: “The Obama administration Justice Department was a disgrace and they got caught. They got caught. Very dishonest people. It’s treason. … What they’ve done is a disgrace and I hope a big price is going to be paid. A big price should be paid. There’s never been anything like this in the history of our country. … What the Obama administration did is unprecedented. It’s never happened. … They’re scum and I say it a lot, they’re scum; they’re human scum. This should never have happened in this country. … [Flynn] was a great warrior and he still is a great warrior. … What happened to him should never happen again.”

The fact is, Obama, Clinton, Comey, and Brennan should all be indicted as co-conspirators based on clear evidence of their collusion, starting with the Trump wiretaps and the fake FISA warrants, to take down a U.S. president. None of this happened without Obama’s knowledge and complicity. It is past time for this quartet to be asked questions about what they knew about the Flynn and Russia charades and when they knew it.

Finally, a note about the shadow of corruption cast over the FBI…

Current FBI Director Christopher Wray issued a statement yesterday declaring that the FBI “remains firmly committed to addressing the failures under prior FBI leadership while maintaining the foundational principles of rigor, objectivity, accountability, and ownership in fulfilling the Bureau’s mission to protect the American people and defend the Constitution.” Clearly, there are serious question about how Wray could not have known about this conspiracy.

However, I should note that the vast majority of rank-and-file FBI line agents and investigators, who honorably abide by their oaths “to support and defend” our Constitution, should not be branded by the corruption of a few. That corruption has cast a long shadow on all of the 12,500 special agents and 2,950 intelligence analysts in the FBI. But the fact is, most men and women in the FBI live up to their agency’s motto: Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity. Indeed, most FBI agents, whose reputations and careers are being sullied by the actions of a few, are deeply offended both personally and professionally by that corruption.
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Mark Alexander is Executive Editor and Publisher of The Patriot Post.

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Biden Sold Out America to China While Working for Hollywood

. . . Biden: "There is no question that you've got the right guy with the right influence."

by Daniel Greenfield: Outside the JW Marriot in Los Angeles, Rev. Eddie Perez Romero was being handcuffed by the LAPD.

Rev. Romero was holding up a “Free China” sign outside a Chinese Ministry of Commerce conference. Inside was the LAPD's boss Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, along with Governor Jerry Brown, and Vice President Joe Biden, who were palling around with China’s future dictator, Xi Jinping.

“My hope is that Vice President Joseph Biden, Governor Jerry Brown and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will rise above any pandering spirit, but as true statesmen, intentionally blur the artificial line between the economy and human rights,” Rev. Romero said.

It was 2012 and Joe was thinking about his future. A year earlier his best friend, Senator Chris Dodd, had left the Senate to run the MPAA. The MPAA was Hollywood's trade association and the movie industry, reading its own writing on the wall, wanted into China, and was willing to sell its soul to make a deal.

Biden wanted Hollywood cash for a future presidential campaign.

Dodd had been one of the sleaziest figures in the Senate, even by the low standards of the era, eager to do favors for any well-heeled industry from finance to entertainment. His friendship with Biden gave him a direct pipeline into the Obama administration. And Dodd gave Biden a pipeline into Hollywood.

“Joe was our champion inside the White House,” Dodd later said.

Two years later, in 2014, Biden began an address to the MPAA by joking, "there have been the rumors all those years when Chris and I served in the Senate that although I was chairman, he controlled me."

"We've just given new life to those rumors," he continued, describing how he had left a meeting with Obama and Chancellor Merkel, telling Obama that he had to address the MPAA.

"There is no question that you've got the right guy with the right influence," Biden concluded.

And that’s exactly what Biden had been proving in Los Angeles as he surrounded Xi with Hollywood tycoons, especially Jeffrey Katzenberg, a major donor to his 2020 campaign, and cut a deal with the Chinese thug to increase the quota of Hollywood movies allowed in by the Chinese Communist regime.

"Some of you were there. Literally when by end of that lunch we had a handshake," Biden boasted to the MPAA. “The next year the number of blockbuster foreign films showing in China has increased by over half and our share of the box office revenue has doubled -- or your share of the box office revenue has doubled.”

“Keep me in mind for Chris' assistant later,” he joked.

Biden understandably lost track of the difference between “your share” and “our share” because Hollywood has been a reliable fundraising machine for Biden. What was good for Hollywood was also good for Biden. Katzenberg got Oriental Dream Works, a $330-million joint venture with the PRC, and eventually hosted Biden's first Southern California fundraiser which brought in $700K.

2012 was a big year for the adulterous nuptials of Hollywood and the Chinese Communist Party.

A few months after the meeting between Biden and Xi, China’s Wanda Group bought AMC Theaters for $2.6 billion. The Wanda Group, run by a billionaire Communist oligarch with close ties to regime officials, is working on a Communist theme park, and its investors allegedly include Xi’s sister. Beyond just owning the theaters, Wanda owns the Legendary Group which has a hand in a long list of movies from Spike Lee's BlacKKKlansman, to Pokemon, along with the King Kong and Jurassic Park sequels.

The only reason Hollywood movies can play in China is because the Communist leadership directly profits from them and controls what goes into them, either directly through ownership, or by forcing the industry to submit scripts for the approval of its Communist censors. HUAC would be superfluous today. The big studios who make up the MPAA are all working for the Communists. And they’re proud of it.

That’s why a Tibetan character vanished from Doctor Strange (Disney has been the worst offender when it comes to appeasing the Communist leadership), why Taiwanese and Japanese flag patches vanished from Tom Cruise’s jacket in the Top Gun sequel (the movie was backed by Tencent, the PRC social media monopoly whose social media controls allow the regime to censor dissent and which has its paws on Wonder Woman, Venom and many other blockbusters), and why World War Z erased references to China covering up the origin of the zombie outbreak. That act of censorship now appears prophetic.

Biden’s brokering of the relationship between Hollywood and the Communist elite was more than financial, it was also cultural. Hollywood traded access for control, not just over what Chinese people saw, but what Americans were likely to see. Biden’s donors got richer and American movies were reduced to a bunch of CG cartoons with limited dialogue that had to win Communist approval.

And it wasn’t just Hollywood.

In 2013, a year after the Xi event at the Marriot, Joe and Hunter Biden flew on Air Force Two to China. BHR Partners was founded that year and included Hunter Biden as a board member. Underneath all the rhetoric about the ennobling virtues of globalism was some very parochial and familial profiteering.

The big Chinese partner in the BHR arrangement was Harvest Fund Management which, coincidentally enough, in 2012 was targeting Hollywood with an $800 million investment fund. That same year, you could find Bruno Wu, who had been working with Harvest, and Chris Dodd, along with Harvey Weinstein, playing roles at the Asian Film Summit in Toronto. And the money didn’t just go one way.

The Delaware Board of Trade was incorporated in 2013. Despite its name, the DBOT was not a government agency, but a penny stock startup which received a $3 million loan from New Castle County.

New Castle County had approved the issue of $15 million in revenue bonds to fund the DBOT "stock exchange" by touting the "globally recognized leaders in the financial services industry" running it. DBOT’s founders included people with experience in stock exchanges and financial services, and Dennis Toner, who was described as a "top aide to Vice President Joe Biden."

Toner, Biden's deputy chief of staff, is in the news for denying that Tara Reade ever told him anything.

Reade’s decision to tell Toner and Ted Kaufman was a pretty poor one. Both are longtime Biden men and considered as close to the boss as family. And they’ve reaped the benefits of that closeness.

Emperor Caligula appointed his horse to the Roman Senate. After Obama won, Ted Kaufman was temporarily appointed to the Senate. If there was anything odd about appointing a Biden advisor to sit in the Senate, it became odder when Senator Kaufman delivered the opening statement in favor of Toner’s appointment as Post Office Governor, by vouching for his “loyalty” working for Joe Biden.

Reade might as well have taken her complaint to Biden, as to Toner and Kaufman.

The current New Castle County exec has since called DBOT’s founders criminals and threatened to sue after the company was disposed of as a "distressed asset" in exchange for shares of Ideanomics. Ideanomics is a Chinese crypto company trading as a penny stock and the software that served as collateral for the loan has been described as worthless. The chairman of Ideanomics is Wu.

The manager of DBOT-I LLC was listed as John Hynansky. The car dealer is a Biden pal with extensive Ukrainian ties who had lent Biden’s shady brother half a million dollars and had received $20 million in government loans to start a Porsche luxury car dealership in the Ukraine.

Biden’s vaunted foreign policy expertise has consisted of brokering deals between family members, donors, and foreign interests. These deals haven’t been good for America, but they’ve worked out very well for members of his crooked family, as well as assorted donors, camp followers, and local boys.

But his biggest deal was helping broker the Chinese takeover of the American entertainment industry.

Xi’s visit to Los Angeles hit on all the right cultural notes. He schmoozed Hollywood bigwigs and their errand boys, like Dodd and Biden, he watched a Lakers game, and cheered Obama’s 100,000 Strong China initiative to have a hundred thousand American students study in the Communist dictatorship.

"I can say with confidence my visit has been a full success," Xi declared.

In China, culture serves the agenda of the Communist government. Unlike the Russians, who struggled vainly to stem the impact of American culture, their Chinese counterparts decided to control it at the source. Biden was a key figure in negotiating the terms on which the PRC would control Hollywood.

In 1962, the Manchurian Candidate depicted an effort by Communists in China, Russia, and elsewhere to kidnap and brainwash American soldiers. The modern remake replaced the Communists with a corporation and the Chinese doctor with a South African geneticist. China could not be offended.

While Biden, Katzenberg, and Xi were partying at the Marriot, human rights protesters were calling for freedom, and being arrested by the henchmen of a one-party Democrat city and state for their trouble.

Even while Biden was falsely claiming that the Hollywood sellout would improve human rights in China, the rise of China was already violating human rights in America. Now, as Chinese drones fly over American cities, police stalk empty streets, social media monopolies monitor every single phone, and Democrat officials dismiss the Bill of Rights while locking up millions of people, our rights are gone.

And Joe Biden is the Manchurian Candidate who long ago sold out the country he now seeks to rule.
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Daniel Greenfield (@Sultanknish) is Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an investigative journalist and writer focusing on radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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Tags: Daniel Greenfield, FrontPage Mag, Biden, Sold Out America, China, While Working for Hollywood To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

This Is What Shooting Your Economy In The Head Looks Like

by Rick Manning: Almost 8.1 million people have left the workforce since February, another 17.3 million people have become unemployed in the same time period, totaling 25.4 million who had jobs but no longer do.

This is what it looks like when you shoot your economy in the head over a public health issue, and this is why reopening America is job one for our political leaders.

Additional bailouts for states, local governments, business and others do not replace the jobs that a free market economy creates.

Further delays in reopening state and local economies will only make the economic disaster worse. And more intractable. America can no longer allow this China originated virus to destroy our economic and societal future. It's time to get back to work and stop pretending that massive government bailouts can solve the problem.
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Rick Manning is President of Americans for Limited Government.

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Ashes, Ashes We All Fall Down . . .

. . . COVID-19 has revealed that Democrat’s quest for power overrides their oath to protect the Constitution.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Tags: AF Branco. editorial cartoon, Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down, COVID-19 has revealed, Democrat’s quest for power, overrides their oath, to protect the Constitution To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

General Flynn and Dan Eldad: Compare and Contrast

Caroline Glick

by Caroline Glick: Americans considering the contents of the documents that have been released over the past several days regarding the investigation and prosecution of President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor Gen. Michael Flynn are right to greet them with a mixture of anger and fear. But they should also feel lucky. To understand why, it is worth considering the parallels between the nature of the Flynn prosecution and the ouster of Israel’s acting State Prosecutor Dan Eldad last week.

General Flynn’s name is a dim memory for most people, certainly for non-Americans. The 33-year veteran intelligence officer who oversaw all intelligence operations of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and then served as the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency was a blip on the screen in the early, tumultuous days of the Trump administration. He served just three weeks in the White House before he was forced to resign under a pall of controversy over alleged misdeeds with Russian officials in mid-February 2017.

After ten months of an aggressive prosecution at the hands of Special Counsel Robert Mueller marked by an endless stream of derogatory media coverage accusing Flynn of everything from serving as an agent of the Turkish government, to bedding down with a Russian spy, to treason, Flynn pled guilty of one count of lying to FBI investigators during a conversation he participated in on his second day at the White House.

In January, after firing his lawyers and replacing them with new counsel, Flynn asked to the Federal District Court in Washington to withdraw his guilty plea. He explained that his plea had been extorted from him by the prosecutors who threatened to prosecute his son. His legal team, he explained had hidden conflicts of interests from him that should have caused them to end their relationship with Flynn well before he agreed to plead guilty.

Flynn’s supporters have long argued that Flynn was deliberately targeted for destruction by the Obama administration and the intelligence community’s leadership which had been politicized during Barack Obama’s presidency. Both during his tenure as the chief intelligence officer in Afghanistan and during his term as DIA chief, Flynn was a firsthand witness and outspoken critic of the politicization of intelligence by Obama and his advisors.

Among other things, Flynn rejected Obama’s claim that al Qaeda was in disarray. He foresaw and warned in granular detail of the rise of ISIS following the U.S. sudden withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 and its failure to adequately assist the forces fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad.

For his efforts, Obama fired Flynn from his position as DIA director in 2014.

During the 2016 election Flynn served as a close advisor to then candidate Trump and pledged to help Trump “drain the swamp” of Washington. The Obama intelligence chiefs were so concerned about Flynn returning as national security advisor that during his meeting with president-elect Trump immediately after the election, Obama himself explicitly urged Trump not to appoint Flynn.

The public campaign to demonize Flynn went into high gear in the final weeks before Trump’s inauguration. On January 12, 2017, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius published details of a phone conversation Flynn had with Kislyak during the presidential transition. The transcript, clearly gained through an NSA wiretap of Kislyak’s phone, was a top-secret document. The official who leaked it committed a felony.

The narrative was spawned that during the course of the conversation Flynn promised to withdraw sanctions against Russian diplomatic personnel that had been announced by Obama in the final weeks of his administration. Further damaging – and incorrect – reports were published alleging untoward ties between Flynn and the Kremlin and Flynn and Turkey.

On January 24, 2017, Flynn’s second day in the White House, he met with two FBI investigators. The investigators did not inform him that he was the subject of an investigation and went to great lengths to prevent him from having a lawyer present during the meeting. It was during that meeting that Flynn allegedly misinformed the agents about his conversation with Kislyak – a transcript of which they had.

In February, Flynn was forced to resign from the White House.

Throughout the prosecution of his former aide, Trump was constrained from defending him because Trump himself was under investigation by Mueller and his team. Had Trump defended Flynn, he would have been pilloried by the media for acting in an apparent conflict of interest. Moreover, to receive leniency from the prosecutors, Flynn agreed to work with the Mueller team, which was seeking information to use against Trump.

When, after nearly two years of a fruitless effort to dig up dirt against Trump that could form the basis of an indictment, Mueller finally declared defeat and ended his probe, Trump appointed William Barr to serve as Attorney General. Barr in turn appointed two U.S. attorneys from outside Washington to investigate the origins of the FBI probe and special counsel probe of Trump and his campaign advisors for alleged collusion with Russia and to investigate the handling of the Flynn prosecution.

Last week, Jeff Jensen, the U.S. Attorney in Missouri Barr charged with investigating the Flynn probe released FBI and Justice Department documents that indicate that as Flynn claimed in his request to vacate his guilty plea, Flynn was the victim of prosecutorial abuse. The FBI agents sent to the White House on January 24 knew that he had done nothing wrong because on January 4, the field agents investigating Flynn had already signed a document recommending the probe against him be closed due to lack of evidence that he acted improperly. But in a preparatory meeting with the FBI’s senior leadership, the investigators were instructed, as one agent put it in a handwritten note released by Jensen, “to get him to lie, so we can prosecute or get him fired.”

Again, the urgency of removing Flynn owed to his intimate familiarity with the corruption of U.S. intelligence agencies during the Obama presidency. But as former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy argued following the document release, it was likely also to prevent Trump from finding out that he himself was under investigation. McCarthy noted that of all the senior members of the new Trump administration, Flynn was the only one who was in a position to recognize that the leadership of the FBI under James Comey and the Obama holdovers in other agencies were carrying out an unjustified investigation of Trump. Were the new president to become aware of that fact, he would have ordered the investigation closed and fired all involved. Removing Flynn was a matter of utmost urgency for that reason, specifically.

This then brings us back to Israel, and the forced departure of acting state prosecutor Dan Eldad.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit went into paroxysms of rage when Justice Minister Amir Ohana appointed Eldad to serve as acting state prosecutor. Mandelblit far exceeded his powers to slander Eldad, a seasoned senior prosecutor who had served for decades without blemish to his record.

Since last November, when Mandelblit’s crony Shai Nitzan finished his tenure as state prosecutor, Mandelblit has ferociously attacked every attempt by Ohana to appoint a successor. He has repeatedly tried to force Ohana to appoint another Mandelblit crony to the position.

A week and a half ago, Mandelblit sent an hysterical letter to the government service ombundsman demanding that Eldad be immediately removed from office for what Mandelblit alleged was grossly unprofessional activity.

With few exceptions – all senior members of the state prosecution signed a letter supporting Mandelblit’s assault against Eldad and demanding Eldad’s removal. The letter was drafted by Nurit Litman, one of the prosecutors Mandelblit tried to force Ohana to appoint to the position.

In response to Mandelblit’s attacks, Eldad wrote a letter to the government service ombundsman denying Mandelblit’s charges and informing him that Mandelblit’s anger owed to Eldad’s efforts to investigate allegations of alleged criminal activities by Mandelblit.

Since he was appointed to serve as Attorney General in 2016, Mandelblit has been fighting claims that during his service as IDF Military Advocate General, he committed felony offenses in his handling of a criminal probe against then chief of general state and current nominee to serve as the next Defense Minister, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazy.

A group of pro-Mandelblit attorneys submitted a petition to the Supreme Court demanding that Eldad be required to leave his office when his initial three-month tenure ended at the beginning of May. The petitioners waited to file their petition until Mandelblit’s friend, former attorney general and current Supreme Court Justice Meni Mazuz was the on duty judge. Mazuz issued an order for Eldad to vacate his position and barring Ohana from reinstating him for an additional six months, as he was expected to do.

Without legal authority, Mandelblit then sent off a letter to the government service ombundsman announcing that he was appointing himself to serve as acting state prosecutor.

Ohana appealed Mazuz’s judgment to Supreme Court President Esther Hayut on Wednesday, but she is not expected to take any action on his petition. And in the meantime, Mandelblit has full access to all of the files in the State Prosecutor’s office.

As things stand now in the Flynn case, Trump has made clear that if the Federal District Court fails to dismiss the case against his former advisor, Trump will pardon him.

Attorney General Barr was able to turn the tables on the crooked investigators who abused their power to destroy Flynn because the federal prosecution in the United States is controlled by elected officials. For every member of the Obama-era governing clique in Washington, there is an equal if not larger number of independent prosecutors outside of Washington. So Barr had honest, unbiased prosecutors to whom he could turn to competently investigate the investigators.

Ohana is just as keen to clear out the stables of Israel’s state prosecution as Barr is to conduct housecleaning in Washington. But unlike Barr, he lacks the capacity to do so. Only four members of the state prosecution opted not to sign the letter attacking Eldad. Everyone else is loyal to Mandelblit.

In 2016, Nitzan forced retired District Judge Hila Gerstel to resign as comptroller of the State Prosecution after he subverted all of her efforts to enforce controls and discipline prosecutors for serial abuses. After her resignation, Nitzan and Mandelblit ensured that no successor would have any oversight power to discipline prosecutors.

The witch hunt and subsequent legal persecution of Flynn should terrify Americans. If it happened to a three-star general, obviously, it can happen to anyone. But Americans should also take heart. At least, at the end of the day, justice can prevail in the American criminal justice system. There is hope.

In Israel, as Mandelblit’s outrageous treatment of Eldad, and the prosecutors’ lockstep support for his scandalous actions make clear, the road to justice is much longer and uncertain, if it exists at all.
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Caroline Glick is the Senior Contributing Editor of Israel Hayom and the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.

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Tags: Caroline Glick, Israel Hayom, General Flynn, Dan Eldad, Compare and Contrast To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Trump’s Critics Can’t Have It Both Ways

David Limbaugh

by David Limbaugh: The left’s position on the nation’s proper response to the pandemic, though shrouded in the language of compassion, is incoherent and morally repugnant virtue signaling.

Since this calamity began, many national Democratic leaders, the left-wing media and various never-Trumpers have been more interested in smearing President Donald Trump — no change there — than helping to solve the myriad problems caused by the coronavirus.

They wanted it both ways. President Trump was doing too much, and he wasn’t doing enough. Before the outbreak, numerous Democrats were downplaying the virus and condemning Trump as a racist for his China and Europe travel bans. Later they blamed Trump for not taking the virus seriously, when in fact, they were taking it less seriously than he was. But being a progressive means never having to say you’re sorry — and that yesterday’s inconsistent positions are deemed wiped from our collective memory.

From the beginning, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, along with their medical team, were conducting daily press briefings to inform an anxious nation about the virus and the federal and state governments’ efforts to slow the spread, organizing the distribution of medical equipment to hotspots and pushing legislation to provide relief for individuals and businesses devastated by the outbreak.

The media used those briefings to humiliate Trump rather than illicit facts to inform viewers. For example, New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi asked Trump, “If an American President loses more Americans over the course of six weeks than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War, does he deserve to be reelected?”

Editorial after editorial excoriated Trump for every imaginable sin and certainly every death — while exempting Democratic governors from any accountability for wildly disproportionate cases and deaths in their states. They view everything through a partisan prism, and no crisis is too severe to be exploited for political gain.

Trump, they said, was only interested in manipulating the crisis to enhance his reelection efforts. He jumped the gun in expressing his hope to reopen our economy on Easter. He wasn’t listening to the medical experts. He didn’t care about Americans dying. He was practicing medicine without a license.

Unfortunately for these critics, President Trump was deferring to the medical experts, who repeatedly denied that he was ignoring them.

Considering themselves the sole exemplars of compassion, progressives insist that their views are the only morally acceptable ones, that all who oppose them are immoral and that so long as they have “good” intentions, neither their motives nor their policies can be questioned — even if they are inconsistent or cause major harm.

Democratic leaders get away with indefensible, one-dimensional thinking, free from scrutiny by an equally one-dimensional media. Their statements are often childishly shallow — and yet no one challenges them.

Take putative Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who tweeted Wednesday evening, “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: No one is expendable. No life is worth losing to add one more point to the Dow.”

While this may strike unthinking people as a compassionate declaration, it is a cheap shot at Trump, other leaders trying to facilitate the reopening of our economy and Americans yearning to be free again — and to return to work. Biden is simply expressing his party’s position: You must choose between those at risk from the virus and reopening the economy. There are no competing interests to balance. Your concern for those unemployed, devastated, isolated, depressed and with other medical problems that are ignored because of the virus is illegitimate.

What’s particularly offensive is Biden’s reducing our concern for those financially devastated to a class-warfare soundbite (“to add one more point to the Dow”) — as if having a heart for the unemployed is promoting the rich. That doesn’t even make sense, but it doesn’t have to as long as it serves the narrative that Republicans are heartless.

Similarly, the never-Trump group The Lincoln Project produced an ad called “Mourning in America” in which Trump is blamed not just for the Americans who died because he “ignored” the virus but for the economic devastation it caused. That’s convenient. These faux conservatives have absorbed the ideas and tactics of their progressive soulmates — virtue signaling, the shameless advocacy of mutually contradictory positions and consuming hatred for Donald J. Trump.

You know that Trump haters from both sides of the aisle have lost any semblance of fairness when their biases compel them to direct their energies toward destroying Trump rather than seeking solutions for our common problems.

We should all be working together to reopen the economy while trying to prevent new flare-ups, which happens to be precisely what President Trump and his task force are doing.

Talk is cheap, and finger-pointing is easy, but real-world problems sometimes don’t lend themselves to easy fixes. There are no perfect solutions here — there is no way to avoid death and financial destruction, only to mitigate both.

I trust that reasonable people — hopefully still a majority — will demand accountability from their leaders but not hold them to impossible standards. While people often look to government during times of crisis, we must understand that there’s only so much that government can do and sometimes it can also get in the way. It’s time that state governments show a little faith in the American people and respect their prerogative to return to their lives while still exercising responsible behavior to protect themselves and their neighbors. We will get through this.
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David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book is "Jesus is Risen: Paul and the Early Church." Follow him on Twitter& @davidlimbaugh and his website at davidlimbaugh.com.

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Tags: David Limbaugh, President Trump’s Critics, Can’t Have It, Both Ways To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!