Friday, March 31, 2017

Resist: Post-Trump Victory, Dems Finally Flip a State Legislature Seat...to Republicans

Resist: Post-Trump Victory, Dems Finally Flip a State Legislature Seat...to Republicans

Resist: Post-Trump Victory, Dems Finally Flip a State Legislature Seat...to Republicans
If you're unfamiliar with the partisan landscape of state legislatures across the country in recent years, here's a quick primer: With precious few, deep blue exceptions, Republicans have dominated. During the Obama era, the GOP gained hundreds upon hundreds of seats in state-level governing bodies; they currently control 68 of 99 chambers nationwide. The popular backlash to Obamaism was swift, deep, and now complete: The Republican Party now rules DC, too -- even if they seem incapable of taking advantage of this rare opportunity at unified governance.

But now that Trump is president, the roles could well reverse.  Much like the GOP in 2009, Democrats find themselves staggering about in the wilderness; leaderless, and with a base fanatically committed to maximum "resistance" against the new administration. They've aired their intense opposition through the (largely sympathetic, if not outright allied) mainstream media, staged mass demonstrations, and leveraged every social media platform under the sun to fight Trump and the Republicans. The political momentum, and the gravitational pull toward an ideological pendulum swing, appears to be on the Left's side. And yet, here's what we relayed a few weeks ago regarding some early electoral outcomes that have occurred since Trump's November victory:
The Democrat resistance may be generating a lot of noise in Washington, D.C., but so far in 2017, it has shown little impact on elections in the states. Even with hefty financial investments and high profile Democrats lending star power to state-level candidates, Republicans won control of every district they previously held across multiple states that Democrats have won in the last three or more presidential elections, including as recently as yesterday in Connecticut.
Democrats sought to flip partisan control of four Republican-held seats in a quartet of blue state legislatures -- with liberal advocates showering national attention and money upon several of the races. The result?  Zero pick-ups. In spite of major intensity and financial gaps fueled by The Resistance, the GOP held serve in all four contests. But now there's an update to this story. A seat in Louisiana has finally flipped. From blue to red. Via the Republican State Leadership Committee:
For months, Democrats have bragged about state-level, special election strength and victories, while conveniently glossing over one very important detail: they weren’t actually winning any new seats. But on Saturday, the seat count finally changed… and not in their direction.Republican John Stefanski this weekend flipped Louisiana House District 42 – a seat held by Democrats since at least 1972 – after Democrats failed to even file a candidate in the race. Additionally, Republicans retained House District 92 on Saturday with a win by Joe Stagni. So for those of you keeping score, Democrats in state legislatures – despite massive interest and spending – have still flipped zero seats and hold even less than they did at the beginning of 2017. So much for refocused and rebuilding. ICYMI earlier this month, RSLC Political Director Justin Richards released a 2017 special elections update memo noting that despite major investments and major party surrogates’ engagement, Democrats hadn’t actually netted any new seats in state legislative chambers.

The RSLC surveys the state of play since Trump's resistance-sparking win last fall:
- Republicans in January retained a seat in the Virginia House and Virginia Senate by very comfortable margins, despite big investments by Democrats led by Governor Terry McAuliffe. 

- Republicans in February retained a Minnesota House seat which gave them their largest House majority ever post-presidential election, despite major Democrat Party surrogates campaigning for their candidate.

- Also in February, Republicans by 12 points retained a critical Senate seat in Connecticut to maintain a chamber tie first secured on Election Day 2016, despite Democrats investing heavily to flip the seat and win back an outright majority.
Now add a red state GOP gain to the roster, following a race in which Democrats couldn't even get a candidate on the ballot to replace their outgoing member.  As I emphasized in my previous post, this is not cause for conservatives to adopt a posture of smugness or complacency.  Yes, regaining the US Senate is going to be a very tough task for Democrats due to the nature of the 2018 map, but they will have a great many opportunities to make other significant gains at the state legislative, gubernatorial and federal level next year.  Keep an eye on this upcoming special Congressional election in Georgia in a Trump-wary district, too.  Overall, Republicans have won so much lately that it will be a target-rich environment for the 'out' party.  And if President Trump's job approval rating is still suffering by next fall (absent mitigating factors), GOP losses could be substantial.  But these very early campaign results prove is that the Democratic/media narrative about a resurgent Left is at least premature, given the choices voters have made in five states.
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LEAKED DHS DOCUMENT IS ANOTHER DEMOCRATIC PARTY SCANDAL

LEAKED DHS DOCUMENT IS ANOTHER DEMOCRATIC PARTY SCANDAL

At Breitbart.com, Michael Patrick Leahy has what strikes me as an explosive story: “Mystery Surrounds Leaked Leaked Draft DHS Document at Center of Controversial Travel Ban Decisions by Two Federal Judges.” Actually, though, it doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery.
On February 24, AP reporters Vivian Salama and Alicia Caldwell published an AP “exclusive”: “DHS report disputes threat from banned nations.” The story was based on an anonymous draft Department of Homeland Services document that was leaked to the Associated Press, presumably by someone at DHS. The document seemed to have been created for the express purpose of undermining President Trump’s travel order. Indeed, it likely was created for that purpose.
The document is here. It says:
DHS I&A assesses that country of citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity.
The two judges who issued orders blocking implementation of the president’s travel ban relied explicitly on the AP story and the leaked DHS document. Judge Chuang, the federal district court judge in Maryland, wrote:
Among other points, they note that the Second Executive Order does not identify examples of foreign nationals from Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen who engaged in terrorist activity in the United States. They also note that a report from the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Intelligence and Analysis, concluded that “country of citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity” and that “few of the impacted countries have terrorist groups that threaten the West.” l.R. 158.
Emphasis added. The Hawaii judge, Derrick Watson, wrote:
The February 24, 2017 draft report states that citizenship is an “unlikely indicator” of terrorism threats against the United States and that very few individuals from the seven countries included in Executive Order No. 13,769 had carried out or attempted to carry out terrorism activities in the United States. …
According to Plaintiffs, this and other evidence demonstrates the Administration’s pretextual justification for the Executive Order.
Judge Watson was in error: the draft report, which was never approved or finalized by DHS, is neither dated nor signed. February 24 was the date of the AP story based on the leaked document. No one at DHS has taken responsibility for writing it.
The judges were wrong to base their decisions in part on the leaked document. President Trump had clear constitutional and statutory authority to issue the travel order, and whether the judges, or some anonymous person at DHS, agreed with his judgment is irrelevant.
But Leahy skillfully unpacks what happened here. The draft report came from DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which was headed by David Grannis, an Obama holdover bureaucrat. Grannis is a partisan Democrat who previously worked as a staffer for Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Jane Harman. A DHS spokesman “would neither confirm nor deny that Grannis was the author of, or had reviewed, the leaked document….”
How about the reporters? It pretty much goes without saying that AP reporters are Democrats. But Leahy also points out that Vivian Salama formerly worked for Rolling Stone, where she wrote that Yemen–one of the countries covered by the travel order–“holds a special place in my heart.” She has bitterly denounced U.S. drone strikes in Yemen.
So it appears that what happened here is that Democratic Party activists in the Department of Homeland Security either created a bogus document or dug up a poorly-researched draft document that had never been issued, and fed it to Democratic Party activists at the Associated Press. The Democratic Party activists at the AP published a story based on the anonymous document, which two Democratic Party activists on the bench used as a pretext for orders enjoining the president’s travel order.
Those orders should be viewed as purely political acts that have no basis in any valid judicial reasoning or authority.
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IS OBAMACARE AN ENTITLEMENT PROGRAM?

IS OBAMACARE AN ENTITLEMENT PROGRAM?

I guess so. Medicaid is considered an entitlement program, so Obamacare should be too.
However, Obamacare (and Medicaid) differs materially from Social Security and Medicare, the classic entitlement programs. Everyone can get Social Security and Medicare if they reach a certain age. Moreover, because we pay into these programs, there’s a strong case that we are entitled to receive benefits.
Obamacare is a welfare program. It provides free health insurance to people who are slightly above the poverty line and subsidized health insurance to a group somewhat further up the income scale. The money comes, in effect, from people who are better off, for example from those who must purchase more insurance than they need and receive no subsidies.
Social security is said to have been designed to provide benefits to everyone in part to avoid the stigma of being a welfare program. The idea was that if everyone gets benefits, the program will never be eliminated or substantially curbed.
Nowadays, it is nearly axiomatic that true entitlement programs will never be eliminated. For example, Charles Krauthammer cites the axiom in the context of Obamacare replacement. Welfare programs aren’t easily eliminated either but they can be, and sometimes they are cut back substantially.
Thus, in thinking about the possibility of eliminating Obamacare or curbing the benefits its provides, it makes sense to ask whether it is more like a classic entitlement or more like welfare.
Along these lines, let’s note that more than one-third of the states did not adopt the Medicaid expansion. Have the state officials and legislators responsible for this decision paid a political price? If so, I’m not aware of it, at least on a widespread scale.
I doubt that state politicians could get away with opting out of Medicare or Social Security, if such an option were legally available.
Let’s return to Obamacare and conduct this thought experiment: Instead of a Medicaid expansion, the class of people who benefit from the expansion receive partial subsidies and the people who receive subsidies get only tax credits or a tax deduction.
This approach obviously would produce losers. Thus, to be politically viable, such a reform would have to produce winners to roughly the same degree. (Note that this is possible to do in ways that don’t apply to Social Security and Medicare, which provide benefits to everyone who reaches a certain age).
Winners might include people in the individual market who don’t receive subsidies. They would win if their premiums and/or deductibles went down. They would also win if they had more choice when it came to selecting insurance plans and doctors.
Premiums would go down for people who want, or are willing to accept, less coverage than Obamacare mandates. Premiums would also go down to the extent that reform legislation brings about increased competition and malpractice reform.
Lower premiums would also offset, at least partially, the loss of subsidized coverage for those who now receive it. Savings from the reduction in the cost of insurance would partially replace the subsidy.
The practical problem is that Republicans lack the votes to implement the full range of reforms likely to produce a major reduction in the cost of health insurance. Thus, it’s far from clear that they can pass replacement legislation that produces more winners than losers and/or greater net benefit than lose.
Still, practical legislative obstacles to rolling back a welfare-type benefit are one thing; the barriers to substantially reducing a true entitlement benefit are another. For purposes of this distinction, I think it makes more sense to view Obamacare as welfare than as a classic entitlement.
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Thursday, March 30, 2017

'60 Minutes' Whitewashes Massive FBI Failure in 2015 ISIS Texas Terror Attack

'60 Minutes' Whitewashes Massive FBI Failure in 2015 ISIS Texas Terror Attack

 
BY PATRICK POOLE 
"Complexities."
That's the excuse invoked at the end of a 60 Minutes segment that aired Sunday evening to explain why the FBI failed to stop two ISIS-inspired terrorists in direct contact with two ISIS terror recruiters. The attackers rolled up in a car loaded with guns and ammunition to the "Draw Mohammad" cartoon contest event in Garland, Texas, on May 3, 2015:
What 60 Minutes, fronted by Anderson Cooper and echoed in an interview with Seamus Hughes of George Washington University's Program on Extremism, explains is that FBI sources are stretched so thin that there's no possible way to devote resources to every single potential threat.
I'll grant that FBI counter-terrorism resources are overloaded WAY BEYOND capacity. That's an appropriate and warranted discussion for policymakers to address. Also, in the real world of law enforcement, there are indeed many "complexities" during a case that lead to some very important investigative clues being missed -- especially when FBI resources are overstretched beyond capacity.
But these "complexities" don't even remotely begin to explain the massive failure by the FBI in this particular case. Like a blanket that's too short that you can never turn the right way to cover everything, invoking "complexities" to explain the FBI failure in the attempted Garland attack doesn't cover the very issues raised by 60 Minutes in their own report. Yet "complexities" is all that 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper, and Seamus Hughes give viewers.
So here's the real clarity in this story: at the time of the Garland attack, as the two terrorists, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, were traveling in their car loaded with guns and ammo, they were being closely tailed by an undercover FBI agent (not an informant -- an actual FBI agent) whom they had previously been in contact with on social media.
The undercover agent even snapped pictures of the attack site just seconds before Simpson and Soofi jumped out of their car with guns blazing:
60 Minutes helpfully provides the undercover FBI agent's picture taken seconds before the attack showing two individuals, including a police officer, who were shot at by the pair:
And they provide a helpful graphic of how close the undercover FBI agent was tailing Simpson and Soofi (see the terrorists' car turning into the Curtis Culwell Center, and the FBI undercover agent following immediately behind):
And yet, according to a statement provided to 60 Minutes, the FBI claims they had no advanced knowledge of the attack:
We wanted to ask the FBI those same questions. But the bureau would not agree to an interview. All the FBI would give us was this email statement. It reads: “There was no advance knowledge of a plot to attack the cartoon drawing contest in Garland, Texas.”
This is not even remotely believable.
The information about the undercover FBI agent being at the scene was already known before the 60 Minutes broadcast, given some details were included in court documents for a related terrorism case in Ohio this past August:
I noted that here at PJ Media, while mentioning the (at that point) dozen "Known Wolf" terror cases during the Obama administration:
But the FBI undercover agent being at the Garland attack site was more than coincidence. In fact, the FBI agent had been in contact with Simpson on social media in the three weeks prior to the attack, and at one point had even told Simpson to "tear up Texas," as the attorney in the Ohio case explained to 60 Minutes:
Anderson Cooper: After the trial, you discovered that the government knew a lot more about the Garland attack than they had let on?
Dan Maynard: That’s right. Yeah. After the trial we found out that they had had an undercover agent who had been texting with Simpson, less than three weeks before the attack, to him “Tear up Texas.” Which to me was an encouragement to Simpson.
The man he’s talking about was a special agent of the FBI, working undercover posing as an Islamic radical.  The government sent attorney Dan Maynard 60 pages of declassified encrypted messages between the agent and Elton Simpson -- and argued “Tear up Texas” was not an incitement. But Simpson’s response was incriminating, referring to the attack against cartoonists at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo: “bro, you don’t have to say that ... ” He wrote “you know what happened in Paris … so that goes without saying. No need to be direct.”
Again, this is information that was reported months ago:
The FBI isn't too interested in answering questions about their undercover agent's encrypted communications with would-be Garland killer Elton Simpon, as Daily Beast reporter Katie Zavadski found out when she asked them directly:
Press officers for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio, the Cleveland FBI Office, and the Department of Justice declined to comment beyond the affidavit. FBI spokeswoman Carol Cratty hung up on The Daily Beast after being asked about the “tear up Texas” text.
Complexities. But as the late Billy Mays would say: "But wait! There's more!"
Unmentioned in the 60 Minutes report: the FBI sent a bulletin to Garland police hours before the event warning that Simpson -- whom the Justice Department had already unsuccessfully prosecuted previously for his role in a terror cell -- might be on his way to the Garland event, even including his photo and his license plate number:
FBI Director James Comey even admitted they had information, saying:
We developed information just hours before the event that Simpson might be interested in going to Garland.
Garland police claim they never saw the FBI's bulletin. But 60 Minutes never bothers to mention it at all.
Also unmentioned was the considerable online chatter in ISIS circles about the event, and in some cases directly threatening it.
As I reported exclusively here at PJ Media at the time, what initiated most of the chatter was the attempt by the only two Muslim members of Congress -- Keith Ellison and Andre Carson -- to prevent Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders from attending the event:
The chatter began when news broke that two Muslim congressmen, Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, had appealed to Secretary of State John Kerry to deny entry into the U.S. for Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders.
Wilders was scheduled to be the featured speaker at Sunday's cartoon contest.
One law enforcement source who was monitoring potential threats to the event told PJ Media the following:
[Ellison and Carson] clearly set things off. Nothing was being said until that news story came out, and then the usual suspects began to talk about it. By the time the weekend rolled around, there were clear and identifiable incitements calling for an attack on the event.
So there was considerable ISIS chatter about the event, even incitement calling for an attack on the event. That concerned the Texas Department of Public Safety so much they committed considerable resources, including creating what one Texas DPS described to me as "a death trap" for anyone who attempted to attack the event.
The online chatter caused no concern for the FBI or any other federal agency. Again, as I reported exclusively, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security sent out a "Joint Intelligence Bulletin" to law enforcement four days before the Garland event dismissing any threat:
Their reasoning was astounding:
Although past events involving the alleged defamation of Islam and the prophet, Muhammad, have resulted in threats or overt acts of violence overseas, we have not yet seen such violence in the United States. The most frequent reaction among US-based homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) is discussion and verbal disapproval via online communication platforms, including websites with violent extremist content and social media sites.† We assess it is unlikely that any one event perceived to defame Islam would alone mobilize HVEs to violence.
Because such an attack had not happened here yet, as it had just four months prior in the attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, it was unlikely to happen here, the FBI and DHS said.
The FBI and virtually all federal agencies were following a narrative enforced by the Obama White House that ISIS was the "JV team" and posed no domestic terror threat to the United States. That's not where the facts led, but it was the narrative blinders that the FBI and Director James Comey were willing to assume.
How much of that narrative enforcement is still in place? No one really knows, and 60 Minutes doesn't bother to ask.
So at this point we have:
  • An undercover FBI agent tailing the Garland terror attackers to the Draw Muhammed event
  • The FBI agent in direct communication with Elton Simpson telling him to "Tear up Texas"
  • The FBI sending Garland police a bulletin with Simpson's picture and license plate warning he may show up hours before the attack
  • Considerable online chatter by ISIS operatives, including direct incitement calling for an attack on the event
For those outside the political/media establishment bubble, these might seem to be really important investigative clues that raise serous concerns about the FBI's claims they had no prior warning to the Garland attack. But for 60 Minutesand Seamus Hughes of GWU's Program on Extremism, all their viewers are left with in conclusion are ... "complexities":

(READ THE REST AT LINK): 
https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2017/03/26/60-minutes-whitewashes-massive-fbi-failure-in-2015-isis-texas-terror-attack/
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