Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on former Secretary John Kerry: “What Secretary Kerry has done is unseemly and unprecedented.” He also says: “Secretary Kerry ought not to engage in that kind of behavior.”
POWERLINE: “What Secretary Kerry Has Done Is Unseemly And Unprecedented”
Yesterday morning I revisited former Obama administration Secretary of State John Kerry’s coaching of the powers that be in Iran on the fine art of resistance to the Trump administration. Yesterday afternoon Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked at a press conference (transcript here) about Kerry’s freelance diplomacy, as Michael Rubin calls it in this excellent New York Post column. Pompeo responded: “What Secretary Kerry has done is unseemly and unprecedented. This is a former Secretary of State engaged with the world’s largest state sponsor of terror…” Going further, Pompeo condemned Kerry’s conduct as “beyond inappropriate.”
Pompeo spoke firmly but diplomatically, as befits the office he holds, but how sweet the sound of Kerry being called out by a Secretary of State seeking to squeeze the Iranians into civilized norms of behavior….
John Kerry deserves jail for secret Iran diplomacy
Kerry has always been an arrogant and aloof man. During his long career on Capitol Hill, Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle described him as the least-liked senator, an opinion repeatedly affirmed by his own office staff during his long career. He is disdainful of democracy. Simply put, he sees himself as above the law, deserving of privilege and special dispensation not only when he is in government, but also as a private citizen.
Perhaps Kerry believes he is not violating the Logan Act of 1799 which states that: “Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”
Trump responded Thursday night. Brooke Singman reports at FOX News:
President Trump and John Kerry entered into a war of words on Twitter Friday, with the president suggesting the former secretary of state had “illegal meetings” with the Iranian regime, and Kerry suggesting the commander-in-chief should be more concerned with the Russia investigation.
“John Kerry had illegal meetings with the very hostile Iranian Regime, which can only serve to undercut our great work to the detriment of the American people. He told them to wait out the Trump Administration! Was he registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act? BAD!” Trump tweeted Thursday night.
President Donald Trump said Friday that he’s considering using military resources to finish construction of his long-promised border wall instead of relying on Congress to fund the project through the Homeland Security Department’s budget.
He also wouldn’t eliminate the possibility of a government shutdown if Democrats continue to confound his efforts to appropriate money for the project on the U.S.-Mexico border.
‘We have two options,’ he told DailyMail.com aboard Air Force One as he flew from Billings, Montana to Fargo, North Dakota. ‘We have military, we have homeland security.’
He was asked specifically about using the Army Corps of Engineers as a taxpayer-funded construction crew.
Trump said he would prefer to fund the ambitious construction ‘the old-fashioned way – get it from Congress – but I have other options if I have to.’
Here is an update due to some discussion on my Facebook for the skeptics. This first article excerpt from THE HILL dated December 2011:
The Obama administration won’t be bound by a gun-control ban in the $1 trillion spending bill for 2012, the president said Friday.
The funding provision for the federal Health agency says that “none of the funds made available in this title may be used, in whole or in part, to advocate or promote gun control.” The language aims to ban taxpayer dollars from supporting gun-safety research.
“I have advised the Congress that I will not construe these provisions as preventing me from fulfilling my constitutional responsibility to recommend to the Congress’s consideration such measures as I shall judge necessary and expedient,” Obama said in a statement as he signed the bill into law…..
….It’s not an official ‘Federal Budget’. It’s an Omnibus bill…not a Budget…He outsmarted them again…Congress basically screwed themselves by not passing a Budget…
Per the Constitution…the President must adhere to a Budget set forth by Congress and direct the expenditures as provided therein.
This is another one of those big Porkulus Bills, like they gave Obama for 8 years. This is not a Budget..
An Omnibus Spending Bill may have some ‘instructions’ as to how the money will be spent…but Obama ignored them. He spent the money, or didn’t spend it, however, he wanted to. And Congress didn’t do a thing about it! Because they couldn’t..”
As some suspected Trump had an “Ace up his sleeve”. Sunday on Social Media, the President verified that he had indeed kept his promise to stay focused on the “Building the Wall”….
Democrats View of Trump’s Game
Donald’s Real Game
The morning after Trump signed the ominous OMNIBUS bill, a friend and I were very disappointed, to say the least. Below is our conversation… and let me say, I was wrong and not in tune with what this business man was after. And he was after getting his way because he loves America. My buddy is the orange boxes, I am the light colored boxes:
And it is that “what if” at 10:53am that got me thinking that Trump just may have bitch-slapped that evil grin on Schumer’s face off! And speaking for myself as an Evangelical conservatarian, I am reinvigorated — greatly.
How I now see it… The Omnibus Bill is a temporary spending procedure to keep the government funded for a while (I don’t know how long? 6-months? a year?). It was a mess of funding every pet project the Dems wanted to continue to fund, like Planned Parenthoood, NPR, etc. The bill may have even increased spending in some of these areas. But again, this is a t-e-m-p-o-r-a-r-y fix, and can be revisited in the future. It has to be.
A REAL BUDGET passed by the Congress and signed into law has to allocate money specifically to earmarked results — so if monies were said to go to the “a”, they couldn’t then be used for “a(i)”. So the monies allocated to these projects are more “malleable,” so-to-speak. Especially if the executive “declares” something that this office has power over. Congress would have a much rougher go at it, as they would have to collectively agree on what they have authority over, and THAT ain’t happening anytime soon.
So Trump’s Monday Tweet was as follows:
The “M” me thinks (hat-tip to Rush Limbaugh BTW) is the military. What that Tweet shows are the two requirements needed to use the military funds and know-how to build a large portion of the wall. A humanitarian emergency (crime, rape, drugs, etc. — related to the border and at the border) as well as a national security threat (terrorists being able to easily enter through our Southern border).
And walla, the ARMY Core of Engineers can get to work.
And he knew this from the get-go.
So 5-hours before he signed the bill he said he was going to veto it. Naw, that was a head-bob and weave. After he signed it he said never again. That is because he got what he wanted/needed.
The graphic to the right is for me: “Oh ye [me] of little faith.”
I could imagine this happening behind closed doors:
Schumer and Pelosi and others are in a private “backroom” gloating, having martinis and a few smoking cigars. Schumer’s aid walks in unannounced and comes over to Schumer, he bends down and whispers something in his ear. Schumer looking perturbed, being the egotistical ass he is, out loud says they put an iron-clad aspect in the bill to not pour concrete with the 33-million they allocated to “Trump’s wall.” He was shooed from the room.
* laughter from the back of the room is heard* and murmurs of how they will make sure unions get the job… and then the 33-million will only get them a couple miles of fence with all the overtime.
A few minutes later Pelosi’s aid walks in unannounced and rushes over to Pelosi and whispers something in h-e-r ear. She laughs and shoos her out of the room. Schumer asks what that was about. Pelosi said that Trump is planning on using the 33-million to grade the land for the wall to prepare the building he will access from the military budget.
Laughter and small talk turns to heads tilting and serious debate. Aids are told to bring in precedence and a legal team.
What was once a happy and giddy time soon turned into wailing and gnashing of teeth.
My Tweet regarding the 33-million the Dems gave Trump:
Even if the above is not true to the “tee”… it has to be true in some respect. The Democrats got played. And I bet they are pissed! So are the spineless GOPers! (A two-fur one)
Trump strengthened the military greatly, and he can now come at North Korea and Iran with a stronger military and a bigger bargaining chip — and keep China’s ambitions with their Navy to a minimum. And, he gets his wall. AND he routed the Dems. Awesome! I am not worthy:
Michael Medved interviews economist STEPHEN MOORE about the recent agreement between Trump and the current [and incoming] President[s] of Mexico. I did not include the callers, but one guy pointed out that it still has to pass our Congress and Mexico’s. A great interview.
The first hour of Thursdays show where Mark Levin discusses the false media reports that Donald Trump violated campaign finance laws. A good dealing with the topic.
Former CIA chief Hayden warns against impeaching Trump (“One-third of America will believe it was a soft coup’)
….“If President Trump is somehow forced to leave office before the end of his first term […] one-third of America will believe it was a soft coup,” added Mr. Hayden, a career intelligence official who retired in 2009 after leading the CIA under former President Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
An outspoken critic of the president, Mr. Hayden warned against impeachment in light of prosecutors securing convictions this week against Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former personal attorney and election campaign chairman, respectively….
RED STATE does a BANG-UP job in the following list:
…A comparison of the carnage at the very highest levels of the FBI and the DOJ to the complete lack of evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump following over two years of investigations should tell Robert Mueller that it’s time to extricate himself, as gracefully as possible, from this fraud. He needs to admit defeat in his attempt to undo the results of a fair election.
Seamus Bruner of The Epoch Times has just put together a list of 25 DOJ and FBI officials who have resigned in the last year. Some of them, Rachel Brand for example, have left to take positions in the private sector. Mike Kortan has said he was planning to retire anyway. But many on this list have been fired, or forced out (largely in disgrace) or demoted, because of the Trump/Russia investigation.
Joel McElvain, assistant branch director of the civil division (resigned)
*Status Unclear
As I look at this list, I know it includes only a fraction of those who have risked their careers and their reputations because they simply couldn’t bear to see Donald Trump in the White House.
Before this is over, others will be added to the list. Perhaps even Rod Rosenstein. And there will likely be former top-level Obama officials caught in the net as well. Perjurers John Brennan and James Clapper come to mind.
In addition to the men and women who have been working against Trump in the DOJ and the FBI, there were/are employees in the State Department and the CIA, holdovers from the Obama administration, who are complicit.
The mainstream media has played a huge role in perpetuating this hoax. They have breathlessly distorted events to influence public opinion. Instead of reporting the news, they have worked overtime to shape it.
For an example of how the mainstream media has aided and abetted the left’s attempt to impeach Trump, we need to look no further than their outrage over the revocation of John Brennan’s security clearance….
Even contention in the ranks of the upper echelon of SPOOKS is starting to maske it’s way to the public as people “cover their asses”
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Sunday that he thinks former CIA Director John Brennan‘s rhetoric is becoming an issue “in and of itself.”
“John and his rhetoric have become an issue in and of itself,” Clapper said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “John is subtle like a freight train and he’s gonna say what’s on his mind.”
Clapper’s comments came in response to an op-ed penned by Brennan in The New York Times this week, in which he wrote that President Trumpcolluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
Clapper said he empathized with Brennan, but voiced concerns for Brennan’s fiery rhetoric toward Trump and his administration.
“I think that the common denominator among all of us [in the intelligence community] that have been speaking up … is genuine concern about the jeopardy and threats to our institutions,” Clapper said.
Brennan’s claims drew criticism from some in the intelligence community who said the timing was suspect.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) on Thursday took aim at Brennan for “purport[ing] to know, as fact, that the Trump campaign colluded with a foreign power.”
“If his statement is based on intelligence he has seen since leaving office, it constitutes an intelligence breach. If he has some other personal knowledge of or evidence of collusion, it should be disclosed to the special counsel, not The New York Times,” Burr said……..
WOW — how far Podhoretz has fallen. When Mika Brezinski (on the Left) notes John Podhoretz Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS)… if she see’s it it MUST be bad!
…Ohr’s wife Nellie worked for Fusion GPS, which hired Christopher Steele to produce the opposition research on Donald Trump. The Clinton Campaign and the Democrat National Committee paid for the Steele dossier through a law firm.
The FBI used Steele as a source for a while. And recently revealed documentsindicate that Bruce Ohr was funneling information from Christopher Steele to the FBI, even after the FBI fired Steele as a source. It appears that Ohr served as a go-between at a time when the FBI had ended its association with Steele.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) told Fox News Monday night that he used to work at the Justice Department “doing what Bruce Ohr does now.” Both men are or were prosecutors.
“It’s unbelievable that a prosecutor would insert himself into an ongoing investigation for which he had nothing to do,” Gowdy said.
According to Gowdy, “Bruce Ohr worked for the Department of Justice. He had nothing to do with the Russia investigation other than he inserted himself by having contact with Christopher Steele.”
Ohr “even had contact with Chris Steele after the FBI terminated its relationship with Chris Steele.” Gowdy noted that one branch of the Justice Department — the FBI — decided Steele was “not even fit to be an informant,” yet a high-ranking Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr, was continuing to funnel information from Steele to the FBI.
“We’re going to interview him on August 28th,” Gowdy said. “I am going to come back to Washington — I’m going to leave my beloved South Carolina and I’m going to go back, and I’m sure others will, too…we’re going to be back, and we’re going to interview Bruce Ohr — not in a public circus setting, but in a deposition with no time limits and we’re going to get to the bottom of what he did, why he did it, who he did it in concert with, whether he had the permission of the supervisors at the Department of Justice.
“I used to work doing what Bruce Ohr does now. It’s unbelievable that a prosecutor would insert himself into an on-going investigation for which he had nothing to do.”….
Jim Jordan was on Neil Cavuto’s show discussing the recent firing of Peter Strozk:
This is the main point Jim Jordan made, among the others:
Dan Bongino fills in for Mark Levin and discusses John Solomon’s recent article entitled, “Did FBI Get Bamboozled by Multiple Versions of Trump Dossier?“. Devastating information keeps coming out, and the FBI is looking worse-and-worse by the day (well, it’s leadership is):
…In fact, The New York Times itself described Obama’s economy this way in August 2016: “For three quarters in a row, the growth rate of the economy has hovered around a mere 1%. In the last quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016, the economy expanded at feeble annual rates of 0.9% and 0.8%, respectively. The initial reading for the second quarter of this year, released on Friday, was a disappointing 1.2%.”
GDP growth decelerated in each of the last three quarters of 2016.
And on January 27, 2017, after the government reported that GDP growth for all 2016 was a mere 1.6% — the weakest in five years — the Times announced that “President Trump’s target for economic growth just got a little more distant.”
That same month, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecast growth this year would be just 1.9%.
There were other signs of stagnation as well. Stocks had flatlined in 2016, with major indexes down slightly. Real median household income dropped that year, according to Sentier Research.
Growth had been so worrisomely slow throughout Obama’s two terms in office that journalists started warning about “secular stagnation.” They said the country was in a period of long, sustained, slow growth resulting from slow population and productivity growth.
In August 2016, the Times declared that “the underlying reality of low growth will haunt whoever wins the White House.”
Predictions of Slow Growth
The next month, CBS News reported that “with U.S. economic growth stuck in low gear for several years, it’s leading many economists to worry that the country has entered a prolonged period where any expansion will be weaker than it has been in the past.”
In short, there was no upward trajectory to the economy on anyone’s radar when Trump took office…..
Dennis Prager poses a 64,000-dollar question to Andy Puzder, which brings clarity to the differences in the two economies when compared so far. (Puzder is an American attorney, author, and businessman… former chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr…. previously a commercial trial lawyer in private practice from 1978 to 1995 who handled many high-profile cases and was active in the pro-life movement…. Puzder is a frequent commentator on economic and political issues.)
Pastor Darrell Scott thanked President Donald Trump for helping inner-city communities, predicting he would be the “most pro-black president in our lifetime.”
“I will say this, this administration has taken a lot of people by surprise … this is probably the most proactive administration regarding urban American and the faith-based community in my lifetime, he said. “To be honest, this is probably going to be the most pro-black president in our lifetime.”
Scott, a vocal Trump supporter, met with the president and a group of inner-city pastors at the White House to discuss their priorities on Wednesday….. (BREITBART)
Princeton professor and Russian expert Stephen Cohen went on Anderson Cooper with unhinged #NeverTrumper Max Boot earlier this week. The discussion quickly escalated when Max Boot accused Cohen of being a Russian sympathizer because he would not cheer on war with Russia. Professor Cohen destroyed him. (GATEWAY PUNDIT h-t)
