Here are my observations on the news of the day.
OBAMA FOR AMERICA PAC, former President Obama’s official campaign organization, funneled over $972,000 to Fusion GPS, the firm behind the infamous Steele dossier on Donald Trump, through the law firm Perkins Cole, Sean Davis reports in The Federalist.
The PAC, which managed Obama’s successful re-election campaign in 2012, reorganized in 2016 election and planned to use its staff and resources to oppose President Donald Trump, according to Davis. During the entire 2016 campaign cycle, the group spent $4.5 million, FEC filings show.
“The spouse of one of Fusion GPS’s key employees was working directly for Obama in the West Wing,” says Davis, “as a political operative while the administration was reportedly using information from the dossier to justify secret surveillance of the Trump campaign staff.”
Violations against federal campaign disclosure laws have been filed by the Campaign Legal Center in a complaint to the FEC.
Could Debbie Wasserman Schultz be related to Sergeant Schultz? (johnbanner.pioxgood.com)
‘I KNOW NUSSING” – Former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta would now have us believe that they know nothing about the $10 million provided for the funding of the Trump dossier. The DNC paid nearly $5.4 million to fund the dossier, while Hillary for America PAC paid just under $5.1 million, all funneled through the international law firm Perkins Cole. These are the same individuals who allowed a family of Pakistani’s to have full access to its data base while paying them six-figure salaries.
FINALLY! TEA PARTY GROUPS GET APOLOGY, PAYOUT – I began writing about Tea Party organizations in April 2009 when I was living in Texas. While attending a rally in a Boerne city park, an individual unknown to me, was at the microphone. “Thank God for all those speaking out like Eldon Kramer,” he said to my surprise. He didn’t even know that I was there. It was before I began this blog, when I was writing op-eds and letters to the editor for area newspapers in Texas.
Most readers don’t understand what Tea Party organizations endured while seeking tax exempt status. If you had the words “tea party,” “patriots,” or “liberty” in name there was extra scrutiny involving demands for names of members, names of speakers and their subject matter at meetings, prayer content at meetings, and audits, all over months and even years of consideration. All at considerable cost and time.
The Obama administration not only benefited from the inability of the conservative organizations to campaign, it has been said that the IRS revealed Tea Party organization information to the Democratic party.
Some 400 Tea Party organizations – remember, there is no single Tea Party – that filed a class-action lawsuit, are being receiving an undisclosed substantial payout from the IRS. Others still have individual lawsuits pending.
Lois Lerner engineered IRS targeting of conservative groups. (lernerworldmag.com)
As I reported earlier, Lois Lerner, who was at the head of the Tax-Exempt Division, took the Fifth Amendment at a Congressional hearing and walked away with a $129,000 annual pension. Commissioner John Koskinen, who lied to Congress, will finally be replaced next month.
CRUZ ON OFFENSE – “It’s like you’re back in junior high … we’ve got a job to do, dammit, and so all of this is nonsense … everyone shut up and do your job is my view,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) while appearing on the conservative Mark Davis Show on radio Wednesday.
Mika Brzezinski went silent. (articlefirm.com)
WHAT! NO INSULTS, NO CRITICISM? – Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, is never at a loss for an insult when a conservative is in the news for something he or she said or did. However, when it was learned that one of their frequent guests, Mark Halperin, was in the spotlight for sexual harassment, she simply said, “We are going to follow this story as it develops. I’m sure we are going to be talking about it again when we know more about it.“ I’m not holding my breath, Mika.
IGNORANCE MUST BE CATCHING at the DNC because the new Chair Tom Perez is proving “the Democrat Party is a total wreck,” Matt Vespa writes at Townhall, they have no message, no agenda, no leader, and are failing miserably in the fundraising game.
DNC Chair Perez (gettyimages)
Last week, we got a sense of the ignorance of Perez, when he appeared at the Indiana University Law School to lecture students, and said the Electoral College isn’t “a creation of the Constitution.”
It didn’t take lawyers long to comment, including Jonathan Turley, law professor at George Washington University. The Electoral College is a process the founding fathers established in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the president by a vote in Congress and election of the president by popular vote of qualified citizens.
AND FINALLY – A leaker to CNN told the network to expect an indictment and arrest today via the Robert Mueller investigation. While the names of Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn have naturally surfaced, I’ve been wondering if it could be someone who used information from the fabricated Trump dossier to obtain surveillance privileges against Donald Trump. Namely, James Comey. Not so far-fetched.
