HALF-FULL REPORT 06/28/19

In a “nuanced” – some might say “convoluted” — decision yesterday (6/27), the Supreme Court ruled the Commerce Department didn’t provide an adequate explanation for including a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

The vote was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberals.

This probably – but not necessarily – means the citizenship question won’t be asked on this census.

The key part of the decision is the 5-4 ruling (with Roberts joining the conservatives) that the citizenship question does NOT violate the Enumeration clause of the Constitution, the Fifth Amendment, or the Census Act. These were the chief contentions of the leftists who sued to prevent the question from being asked.

The Supremes overturned the ruling of a district court judge in New York that asking the citizenship question was “substantially invalid,” voted to send it back to him for a rehearing.

The citizenship question may be asked if the Commerce Department demonstrates it followed the Administrative Procedure Act in developing it, Roberts said.

The Census Bureau says it has a July 1^st deadline for printing the census questionnaires, which may preclude the citizenship question from being asked this time.

But maybe not. The actual deadline may be October 31^st. Zen Master predicts here how things may play out.

He’s considering delaying the census to make sure the citizenship question is asked, the president said.

Trump may not have to to get what he wants, said Michael McDonald of the Elections Project.

“The Census Bureau plans to release counts of the citizen population by matching responses with administrative records,” McDonald said. “Demographers testified this will produce more accurate info than asking the question on the census questionnaire.”

“It looks like the citizenship question is going to end up on the census,” gloomily predicts CNN legal analyst Jeremy Toobin.

If seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned on the basis of the population of citizens, rather than residents, California would lose at least six seats.

 

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In another 5-4 decision Thursday, The Supreme Court ruled political gerrymandering is not subject to judicial review.

“The left has spent million$ to get judges to disassemble GOP legislative maps,” said J. Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. “Today they lost forever at SCOTUS.”

 “Republicans currently have the power to draw far more congressional districts than Democrats do,” wailed Natasha Bertrand, national security correspondent for Politico. “If that continues after the 2020 election, the Supreme Court’s decision will effectively entrench GOP rule.”

* * * *

In what the New York Times described as a “stinging defeat” for Democrats, the House passed Thursday (6/27) the Senate version of a bill to address the emergency at the border.

Here’s a pic of Speaker Pelosi just before she folded like a cardboard suitcase:

The Senate bill provides $4.59 billion to the Department of Homeland Security, and to the O&M (operations and maintenance) accounts of the National Guard, Marine Corps, Army and Air Force to defray expenses incurred in guarding the border and to care for the flood of illegal immigrants in detention centers.

The Senate passed the bill, 84-8, Wednesday (6/26), after handily rejecting a poison-pill laden measure the House had passed the day before.

Pelosi gave up efforts to amend the Senate bill after blowback from moderate Dems. She may have thrown in the towel in part because Members wanted to get away for the 4^th of July recess.

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Progressives, led by the Airhead Of Congress, were mightily peeved.

Progs first denied there is a crisis, then blamed President Trump for it, while trying to deny him the resources he’s repeatedly asked for to care for illegal immigrant children.

Here are photos (taken last year) of AOC sobbing at a fence near the border separating her… from an empty parking lot.

Though she complained loudly about illegal immigrant children having to sleep on the floor, AOC opposed efforts to obtain bedding for them. She voted against both the House and Senate versions of the aid bill.

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Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller will testify during an open session of the House Judiciary Committee July 17, Chairman Jerrold Nadler announced Tuesday (6/25).

He’s testifying in response to a “friendly” subpoena.

Odds are Mueller will stick close to what was said in the Special Counsel’s final report.

Democrats will regret calling Mueller to testify, predicted Sen. Lindsey Graham and Alan Dershowitz, because Mueller won’t tell them what they want to hear, and Republicans will ask him about errors, discrepancies and omissions in his report.

Here are 25 questions Julie Kelly thinks Republicans ought to ask Mueller. And five Trey Gowdy thinks they should ask.

The Mueller report is as phony as the Steele dossier, said Rep. Devin Nunes, ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. Will evidence proving that be declassified before Mueller testifies?

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Jeff Carlson has a must read analysis of the Democrats’ obstruction strategy. It’ll make your blood boil.

 

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LtGen. Michael Flynn and his new lawyer, Sidney Powell, were in court Monday (6/24) to ask for another 90 day in his sentencing.

Ms. Powell, a former federal prosecutor who is a savage critic of prosecutorial misconduct in general and Mueller deputy Andrew Weismann in particular, said she needs time to review evidence collected by Flynn’s former lawyers.

She’ll need a security clearance to review all of it, Ms. Powell told Judge Emmet Sullivan, which led to this fascinating conversation.

None of the info the government turned over to the defense was classified, sputtered DOJ lawyer Brandon Van Grack.

Did Team Mueller withhold from the defense potentially exculpatory classified evidence? Oops.

Flynn had a right to see the transcript of his telephone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that was the basis for the FBI investigation of him, and the 302s (report of interview) of FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joseph Pientka that was the basis for the charge of perjury against him.

Evidence has surfaced recently that a FISA warrant was issued to surveil Flynn. If so, he has a right to see that, too.

If there were a FISA on Flynn, why was there no mention of it in the Mueller report?

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Flynn will be a “cooperating witness” next month in the trial of former business partner Bijan Kian, who is accused of acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Turkey.

If there’d been a FISA on Flynn, it likely was about this case.

The Flynn Intel Group was hired by allies of Turkish President Reycep Erdogan to dish dirt on Fetullah Gulen (who lives in a heavily guarded compound in Pennsylvania), try to get him extradited to Turkey.

A big wheel in the Muslim Brotherhood, Gulen was Erdogan’s mentor, but evidently was behind a 2016 coup attempt against his former protégé.

Erdogan and Gulen are bad and worse – much worse. Flynn wrote about Gulen’s subversive activities in this op-ed in November 2016.

“Gulen’s vast global network has all the right markings to fit the description of a dangerous sleeper terror network,” Flynn wrote.

Gulen has ties to longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. He and his network are major donors to the Clinton Foundation, were big givers to Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“Flynn was running a government-sanctioned sting against the Clinton Foundation,” Neon Revolt thinks.

If Flynn were running a DIA-sanctioned sting, he’d be bound by a non-disclosure agreement. But Flynn’s plea deal frees him from NDAs. He has yet to testify in public. His testimony could be one of the most explosive developments in Spygate.

* * * *

 

Flynn’s meeting with Judge Sullivan was more cordial than the last time. The judge noted Powell praised him in her book, License to Lie. (Sullivan sanctioned prosecutors who fabricated evidence against former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens).

Sullivan will set a date for sentencing at the end of August.

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You can tell leftists are running short of mud to sling at President Trump, because they’re recycling charges of sexual misconduct – by the least credible accuser yet.

Trump raped me, or something, in a changing room at Bergdorf Goodman’s in 1994, or 1995 or 1996, said E. Jean Carroll.

Ms. Carroll offered no evidence for her inherently implausible tale, which may have been derived from this episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Trump would have had to have been blind drunk to find her attractive – and he doesn’t drink.

Despite this – and no evidence she and Trump have ever met — Ms. Carroll was invited to tell her story on multiple MSNBC and CNN “news” shows… until this disastrous interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7APEhMgOp4

“Most people think of rape as being sexy,” Ms. Carroll said, leaning in to host Anderson Cooper, who immediately cut to a commercial break.

This wasn’t the first time Ms. Carroll has fantasized about rape. This poor woman has bats – many many bats – in her belfry. The MSM’s exploitation of someone so obviously mentally ill is disgusting – and is evident to more people now than ever.

* * * *

 

Stephanie Grisham, currently communications director for the First Lady, will be the next White House press secretary, Melania Trump announced Tuesday (6/25).

A veteran of Arizona GOP politics, Ms. Grisham, a single mother of two boys, joined the Trump campaign in July 2015. She’s been described as “combative,” “Melania’s pit bull,” and “the ultimate Trump loyalist.”

Ms. Grisham takes over from Sarah Sanders July 1^st. She’ll also fill the currently vacant job of White House director of communications. I don’t think the preening jackasses in the White House press corps will like Stephanie any more than they did Sarah.

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Facebook, Google, Twitter and other tech giants are trying to rig the 2020 elections, President Trump said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network Wednesday morning (6/26). They should be sued, he said. Regulators should fine them for being monopolies.

Project Veritas published a video Monday (6/24) in which Google executive Jen Gennai tells friends at a restaurant she’s been tasked with preventing another “Trump situation” in 2020.

YouTube – which Google owns — censored the video. Reddit deleted the Project Veritas account. So did Vimeo.

At a hearing Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) grilled Google exec Maggie Stanphil about the Project Veritas video. She’d heard about it, but was “too busy” to review it, Stanphil said.

The next day Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) asked Google exec Derek Slater to explain why Google calls Orthodox Jews Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager “Nazis.”

.@RepDanCrenshaw Grills Google Exec Derek Slater over LEAKED Google email — CRENSHAW: "According to those emails, the emails say, given that @benshapiro, @jordanbpeterson and @pragerU are Nazis, given that that's a premise, what do we do about it?" LEAK: https://t.co/1PzIA1Ac5Q pic.twitter.com/1reD69ctPT

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) June 26, 2019

“This begs the question: What kind of education do people at Google have?” Crenshaw asked. Slater did not have convincing answers.

On Thursday (6/27) Twitter announced it will start downgrading the tweets of politicians it doesn’t like – including President Trump.

Recent misdeeds by the Silicon Valley fascists justify a federal anti-trust suit, Sean Davis says.

The president will host “digital leaders” at a “Social Media Summit” at the White House July 11^th, a spokesman announced Wednesday. Whaddya bet Trump reads them the Riot Act then?

* * * *

 

It was a clown show… if you think clowns are evil.

Every Democrat on the debate stage Thursday (6/27) supports open borders and free health care for illegal immigrants.

“Overheard while watching the debate just now: ‘I’m not sure I’m a Democrat any more,’” said Washington Post reporter Rachel Bade. “Democrat next to me complaining how far left the party has moved.”

Journalists panned Biden’s debate performance. Then there was this disastrous post-debate interview.

“Biden seemed confused at times,” said Obama campaign mastermind David Axelrod. Both he and Sanders “seemed mired in the past.”

“Heels Up” Harris criticized Biden for opposing forced school busing. Claimed she was among those bused to integrate schools. Harris went to grade school and high school in Canada.

The big takeaway from the undercard Wednesday (6/26), which featured Fauxcahontas Warren with 0 and 1 per centers, may be Warren’s pledge to eliminate private health insurance, frets leftie journalist Jonathan Chait.

That’s very unpopular, Chait notes. Threatening the current Medicare program is even more unpopular.

Most Dems who favor single payer are ambiguous about what it entails. “But in the first debate (Warren) closed off that escape route,” Chait said. “She may have just filmed the most effective attack ad against herself.”

Fauxcahontas seems to be the DNC’s fallback if Biden falters. She polls 2^nd or 3^rd nationally, so she ought to have been with the grownups last night. Did the DNC put her at the kiddies’ table to protect her?

The only Dem to be asked a tough question Wednesday was Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (HI). Tulsi was the candidate most googled after the debate, was a landslide winner in Drudge’s online poll.

This is how the New York Post summarized the debates:

* * * *

That’s a wrap. Jack Wheeler will be back next week.

 

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret, and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan Administration.  Until his retirement in January 2017, he was the national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.