Here are my observations and opinions on my selected news of the day.
LIFE IN PRISON FOR MANAFORT? They’ve gotta be kidding. Every time the name of Paul Manafort surfaces in the news, they mention he faces life in prison. For what? He didn’t kill anyone or do anything that warrants a life term. I decided to look into it.
The 31-page indictment brought forward by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team contains 12 counts’ conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.
Terms such as “conspiracy against the United States” and “unregistered agent of a foreign principal” sound ominous,” wrote CNBC’s Michael Sheetz, “but, according to a 30-year veteran of corporate litigation, it is important that people should not read too much into the wording.”
“All federal charges are written to sound serious,” says Ira Matetsky, lawyer and partner in the law firm Ganfer & Shore.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW, however, is that Mueller has a familiar special prosecutor, Andrew Weissman, serving as his “pit bull.” You may recall that it was Weissmann who congratulated former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for her decision not to support President Trump’s travel ban. “I am so proud,” he e-mailed, “and in awe.”
Andrew Weissmann (AP)
You may not be aware of Weissmann’s egregious past as a member of the 2002 task force that dealt the death penalty to the venerable accounting firm Arthur Anderson LLP, which employed 85,000 people world-wide and represented some 2500 publicly-traded companies.
Three years later, the Supreme Court overturned the verdict, but it was too late for Arthur Anderson. Sidney Powell, who worked 10 years in the Justice Department, in three federal districts under nine U.S. attorneys, writes about the case in her new book, “Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice.
Weissmann is not a member of the President Trump fan club and it isn’t difficult to image that if he cannot nail the president, he will do his utmost to “hang” those close to him, like Manafort.
Ask yourself, why is Manafort being held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day while he awaits sentencing?
IF YOU DOUBTED THE DEEP STATE’S EXISTENCE, the resurfacing of former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe to peddle his book should convince you. In a tease news clip from CBS’s 60 Minutes show, he unabashedly talks about meetings at the Justice Department where there were discussions on whether the vice president and a majority of cabinet members could be convinced to remove the president under the 25th Amendment.
I’d call that a coup, and it smacks of what goes on in a Third World country.
By now you are familiar with the bias against the Trump presidency in the FBI and Justice Department dating back before his election as evidenced by e-mails and text messages. The Deep State wanted Hillary to win and took steps, including the use of a phony dossier, paid for by the Clinton machine.
Even the title of McCabe’s book points to the disdain for Trump, “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.” How disrespectful and disgraceful.
MSNBC’S ‘MORNING JOE” took a respite from criticizing President Trump long enough to slam Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez for her role in Amazon’s decision to back out of its plan to set up a facility in New York, according to Jessica Chasmar in the Washington Times.
AOC (Kathy Willens/AP)
Joe Scarborough fumed as he said AOC demonstrated a “basic ignorance of Economics 101. Panelist Donny Deutsch remarked that “We are in a dangerous place if people don’t start to speak up against people like (her).”
“I watch AOC with a lot of hope,” said Mika Brzezinksi, “but I’m also cringing because I’d love to give her some advice.”
I cringed when Brzezinski suggested “(AOC) needs to follow some of the more successful, more mature members,” like Nancy Pelosi.
MEANWHILE, AOC was overjoyed with her role in the decision by Amazon, noting that it shows that “every day people defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation and the power of the world’s richest man (Jeff Bezos).”
AOC is so caught up in herself and socialism that she is clueless to the good things that happen when a company decides to expand in your city. “It’s not like you have this pile of money going to Amazon, said Susan Del Percio, “This is a tax incentive.”
In addition to the 25,000 lost Amazon jobs, thousands of local ancillary jobs that normally flow out of such a move are also lost.
SHADES OF THE SNAIL DARTER – The non-profit National Butterfly Center has asked a federal judge to stop border wall activity on its property as the Trump administration gears up to build new walls and fences in South Texas.
The motion claims the heavy machinery has been driving through their property for a week; a road grader and U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicles. CBP has announced that the first of 33 miles of new barriers will soon be started.
May God bless the United States of America.
