The Duke University co-ed whose moonlight porn job grabbed national headlines has already racked up nine videos since December — including one with the adult industry’s biggest male star.
One of the titles available now for online purchase, “Three Way is The Best Way,” stars Knox and world-famous porn actor James Deen. Her first video went up for sale Dec. 10; the video with Deen went on sale Feb. 3.
Deen is the smut world’s two-time male performer of the year, in 2009 and 2013, as named by Adult Video News.
“He [Deen] had nothing but nice things to say about her [Knox],” said AVN senior editor Peter Warren.
“He said she was really cute, really sweet, really good to work with.”
The Duke freshman said she needs to do porn to help cover the $60,000 annual tuition bill at the private Raleigh, NC, university.
“The fact that the only viable options to pay for college are to take out gigantic student loans, to not go to college at all or to join the sex industry really says something. “
Knox’s titles include “Belle Bottom” and “Belle Knox in Casting Couch X .”
Her work, so far, has run the gamut of mainstream porn performances, including sex acts with men, women and in threesomes.
All of Knox’s now-available works are “scenes” — shorts of about 20 minutes to a half-hour, as opposed to full-length movies of 90 minutes to two hours.
A whopping $21 trillion was found to be missing from the US federal budget as of this past year.
Michigan State University professor Mark Skidmore and a group of graduate students made the discovery after overhearing a government official say that the 2016 report by the Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General (DoDIG) indicated $6.5 trillion in adjustments had not been adequately documented. Attempting to uncover the reasoning behind these adjustments, Skidmore began to dig deeper. He says, “I tried to call and talk to the office of the Inspector General to talk to the people who helped generate these reports. I haven’t been successful, and I stopped trying when they disabled the links.”
Despite disabled links and neglect from officials, the verification of over $6T inspired Skidmore and his students to comb through thousands of Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports for 1998-2015.
Regarding his findings Skidmore stated, “This is incomplete, but we have found $21 trillion in adjustments over that period. The biggest chunk is for the Army. We were able to find 13 of the 17 years and we found about $11.5 trillion just for the Army.” While it is known that the US government engages in unauthorized spending and black budgets, quantities this large abuse basic Constitutional and legislative requirements on spending.
Shortly after Skidmore’s findings went public, the Pentagon announced the first ever audit of the Department of Defense (DoD). Despite having $2.2 trillion in assets and billions of dollars flowing through each year, the DoD has famously never been audited. The audits are set to begin in 2018 and occur annually. Defense Department’s Comptroller David L. Norquist is confident that the audits will benefit DoD’s management of tax dollars and establish confidence in Congress as well as the American people.
In addition to depriving the public of access to US financial accounting reports by disabling links, the Department of Defense’s clever implementation of an audit bent this twisted act into a positive endeavor for DoD in the eyes of the public. Apart from Forbes’ brief report on the adjustments and NPR’s recognition of the first audit, US corporate media has failed to recount any of the details concerning the shocking findings of Mark Skidmore’s research.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in hot water this week after being accused of making illegal payments to her boyfriend, and one top conservative group is taking action.
The right-leaning Coolidge Reagan Foundation filed a complaint this week with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign may have illegally funneled thousands of dollars through a PAC to her boyfriend, Riley Roberts.
Here’s more from Fox News on the complaint and how Ocasio-Cortez appeared to have made the alleged illegal payments:
Members of the Washington, D.C.-based Coolidge Reagan Foundation allege in their complaint that when the Brand New Congress PAC (BNC) — a political arm of Brand New Congress LLC, a company that was hired by Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to run and support her campaign — paid Roberts for marketing services, it potentially ran afoul of campaign finance law.
Members of the Washington, D.C.-based Coolidge Reagan Foundation allege in their complaint that when the Brand New Congress PAC (BNC) — a political arm of Brand New Congress LLC, a company that was hired by Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to run and support her campaign — paid Roberts for marketing services, it potentially ran afoul of campaign finance law.
“It’s not illegal for [Ocasio-Cortez] to pay her boyfriend, but it appears that they created some sort of scheme to avoid claiming the money [as a campaign expense],” Dan Backer, a D.C.-based attorney who filed the complaint on behalf of the foundation, told Fox News. “What exactly did he do for that money?”
It was first reported last week that the Brand New Congress PAC paid Roberts during the early days of the Ocasio-Cortez campaign. According to FEC records, the PAC made two payments to Roberts – one in August 2017 and one in September 2017 – both for $3,000.
The FEC complaint specifically cites the use of “intermediaries” to make the payments, “the vague and amorphous nature of the services Riley ostensibly provided,” the relatively small amount of money raised by the campaign at that stage and “the romantic relationship between Ocasio-Cortez and Riley” in asserting the transactions might violate campaign finance law.
The Coolidge Reagan Foundation — a 501(c)(3) — is requesting that the FEC look into the payments for potential violations on relevant campaign finance laws that state that campaign contributions “shall not be converted by any person to personal use” and that “an authorized committee must report the name and address of each person who has received any disbursement not disclosed.”
As noted by a report last week from I Love My Freedom, Ocasio-Cortez’s team originally attempted to lie and claimed that Roberts was not “officially” part of the campaign and was not being paid.
Roberts has an official government email address and is listed in Ocasio-Cortez’s staff directory.
Reports also indicate that he is being paid by the campaign.
Check it out below:
Sure seem like a big deal, doesn’t it?
It certainly looks like Ocasio-Cortez’s team attempted to hire and pay her boyfriend under the radar, and they got caught.
In a speech Sebastian Gorka just said "the green New Deal is like a watermelon. It's green on the outside and deep, deep communist red on the inside!" That's all we need to know!
Deep state shill John Podesta sets the stage for Hillary's 2020 reemergence tour.
Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager John Podesta told ABC News that Roger Stone’s public Nixion impressions havn’t been working well for him in the political arena and predicted jailtime for the former adviser to Donald Trump presumably over Stone’s alleged communication with Wikileaks during the runup to the 2016 presidential election.
“I think at the end of the day, he can strut and he can do his Nixon impressions,” Podesta said. “But maybe when the cell door clanks he’ll feel a little bit more remorse.”
The 70-year-old Democratic deep state operative also maintained that Roger Stone is “on his way to prison” and said that he wants Robert Mueller’s investigative report to be made public so that the truth will come out. However, it’s likely that Podesta is just posturing for Hillary’s final run.
Some online conspiracy theorists claim John Podesta is the alleged “Pizzagate” ringleader.
Actress Ellen Page penned an op-ed about actor Jussie Smollett and hate crimes, but made no mention of a viral interview in which she blamed the Trump administration for a hate crime that police now believe was staged.
“The conversation around Jussie Smollett has led us all to examine hate violence and its implications and aftermath,” Page wrote in the column published Wednesday morning on the Hollywood website. “I had no reason to doubt Jussie.”
Smollett, a gay, black actor on “Empire,” alleged that he was the victim of a hate crime in late January. He claimed he was attacked by two white men who yelled racist and homophobic slurs and voiced support for President Trump.
When Smollett's story first went public, many figures in Hollywood, politics, and the media jumped to his defense.
About two weeks after the alleged attack, Page appeared on ”The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert and encouraged people to "connect the dots" between the Trump administration, particularly Vice President Mike Pence, and the alleged attack on Smollett.
“The vice president of America wishes I didn’t have the love with my wife,” Page told Colbert. “If you are in a position of power and you hate people, and you want to cause suffering to them, you go through the trouble, you spend your career trying to cause suffering, what do you think is going to happen? Kids are going to be abused and they’re going to kill themselves, and people are going to be beaten on the street.”
In the editorial, Page did not apologize for blaming the hate crime on Pence or her linking the alleged attack to the Trump administration.
Page, who is gay, said even though Smollett’s case was most likely not a true hate crime, she hopes people will not question other hate crimes in the future.
“The media coverage does not convey the reality and totality of the cruelty and danger we face,” Page said. “This is the story that must be told.”
JW President Tom Fitton appeared on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on the Fox Business Network to discuss the Mueller Probe’s expected report and Rep. Adam Schiff’s threat to subpoena Mueller.
(CNSNews.com) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) "will gladly release her tax returns if and when she runs for president," said her Chief of Staff Drew Hammill, apparently indicating that, in Pelosi’s current position as speaker, she will not release her tax returns.
When CNSNews.com repeatedly followed-up and asked Hammill to directly confirm that Pelosi, as speaker, would not release her tax returns, Hammill did not respond.
Pelosi, who was born on March 26, 1940, will turn 79 next month--and has not announced that she is running for president in 2020.
CNSNews.com has been trying for two weeks by email and telephone to get a direct answer from Speaker Pelosi on this tax-return question because she has co-sponsored legislation (H.R. 1) that would require the president and vice president to release their tax returns. Under 3 U.S. Code 19 (enacted under Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution), the Speaker of the House is third in line to the presidency.
Specifically, CNSNews.com asked Speaker Pelosi's Press Spokesperson Taylor Griffin and Communications Director Ashley Etienne these questions:
H.R. 1, which Speaker Nancy Pelosi supports, would require the president and vice president to release their current tax return and their tax returns from the last 9 years. It states: "With respect to each taxable year for an individual who is the President or Vice President, not later than the due date for the return of tax for the taxable year, such individual shall submit to the Federal Election Commission a copy of the individual’s income tax returns for the taxable year and for the 9 preceding taxable years."
Here are my questions:
1. Does Speaker Pelosi support legally requiring the speaker of the House to release his or her tax returns?
2. Will Speaker Pelosi release her tax returns for this year and the previous 9 years? Yes or no?
At a Feb. 13 press briefing, CNSNews.com was able to ask Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) this question: "H.R. 1 would legally require the president and vice president to release their tax returns. Should House Speaker Pelosi be required to release her tax returns? Yes or no?"
Jeffries said: "Well, that’s a question that I think you should direct to Speaker Pelosi."
That same day, Politico posted the exchange in a tweet and Hammill replied to Politico, tweeting, "The Speaker will gladly release her tax returns if and when she runs for president."
Hammill also sent a link to that reply to CNSNews.com. Hammill’s implication appears to be that Pelosi, as the Speaker, will not release her tax returns. CNSNews.com repeatedly followed up by asking Hammill--by email and telephone--to specifically clarify that that was the case. However, Hammill did not respond.
H.R. 1, which is co-sponsored by Pelosi, would force President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, but not members of Congress, to make their tax returns public.
Known as the "For the People Act of 2019," it was introduced by Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) on Jan. 3, the first day of the 116th Congress. The act aims to "expand Americans’ access to the ballot box," "reduce the influence of big money in politics" and "strengthen ethics rules for public servants."
Section 10001 of the act, entitled Presidential and Vice Presidential Tax Transparency, states that the sitting president and vice president must submit copies of their income tax returns "for the taxable year and for the 9 preceding taxable years" to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and that the FEC must make the returns "publicly available."
In addition, the act would require presidential and vice presidential candidates from a "major party" to submit copies of their income tax returns for the "10 most recent taxable years."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald Trump,
and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). (Getty Images)
The Speaker of the House, who presides over a body responsible for all legislation enacted by the federal government, would not be required to disclose his or her tax returns under H.R. 1.
Pelosi has repeatedly voiced her support for H.R. 1.For example, she and Rep. Jim McGovern (D.-Mass.), who is also a co-sponsor of the bill, co-authored a Jan. 3 op-ed for USA Today. In it, they wrote: "Transparency, ethics and unity will be the guiding light of the Democratic Congress."
"HR 1 will allow us to clean up Congress to give confidence to the American people that we can and will deliver results for the people," they added.
Democrat Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) almost single-handedly caused Amazon to pull out of a deal to bring a new headquarters to her home state.
Tens of thousands of jobs and billions upon billions in revenue went out the window.
Days ago, a billboard was erected in Times Square blasting the freshman lawmaker for her actions.
Job Creators Network put up a second billboard that stated: “Hey AOC, Saw your wack tweet.”
The criticism of Ocasio-Cortez “comes after Ocasio-Cortez vigorously defended her role in sinking Amazon’s move to New York City on Tuesday in the face of bipartisan criticism,” Fox News reported. “The freshman Democratic New York congresswoman has faced days of criticism from normally friendly media voices and fellow Democrats over her role in Amazon’s decision to pull back from building a $2.5 billion campus in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens.”
New York City Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio had to correct Ocasio-Cortez for incorrectly thinking that “the $3 billion in tax breaks that were going to go to Amazon still existed after Amazon pulled out of NYC,” The Daily Wire reported.
Ocasio-Cortez has announced she’ll be going on a nationwide tour to promote her “Green New Deal,” a project that would cost tens of trillions to the American taxpayer.
Twitter took notice and AOC was quickly and resoundingly mocked.
It doesn’t look as though Alexandria has public opinion on her side.
But launching a 15-city tour while pushing legislation that calls for net-zero emissions while making air travel obsolete seems contradictory, and actually defies logic.
WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Friday that he was nominating Kelly Knight Craft, the United States ambassador to Canada, to succeed Nikki R. Haley as ambassador to the United Nations, days after his first choice for the position withdrew from consideration.
Mr. Trump announced the nomination on Twitter, writing that Ms. Craft "has done an outstanding job representing our Nation and I have no doubt that, under her leadership, our Country will be represented at the highest level."
Ms. Craft’s elevation to the ambassador post at the 193-member United Nations would fill one yawning vacancy in the Trump administration’s diplomatic corps but leave another in Canada, where the relationship with the United States under Mr. Trump has been buffeted by trade disputes and other issues.
She also would be taking up the United Nations position at a time when doubts have grown, among America’s allies and adversaries alike, about the Trump administration’s commitment to large multilateral institutions like the one she has been nominated to sit in.
Ms. Craft and her husband, Joseph W. Craft III, a billionaire Kentucky coal magnate, were major contributors to Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and donated to his inaugural committee. In total, the couple donated more than $2 million to Mr. Trump’s candidacy and inauguration.
Ms. Craft, who turns 57 on Sunday, made her name in Kentucky politics as a fund-raiser for Republican candidates and officeholders. She and Mr. Craft are close to Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who is the de facto head of the state party in his home state of Kentucky.
Mr. McConnell had urged the president to choose Ms. Craft to succeed Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, who announced her resignation in October and left the job at the end of the year.
"The president made an exceptional choice for this critical post," Mr. McConnell said in a statement after Mr. Trump announced his choice. "Kelly Craft is a strong advocate for American interests and will be a powerful representative of our great nation at the U.N."
Mr. Trump’s first pick for the position, Heather Nauert, a spokeswoman at the State Department and former "Fox & Friends" host, dropped from the running on Saturday night, in part because she had a nanny who was in the United States legally but did not have the proper work visa, according to people familiar with the process. Ms. Nauert had initially declined when approached about the position. But after Mr. Trump failed to find other candidates to fill the post and pressed her, she accepted, disclosing the potential issue to investigators at the beginning of the background check, according to people involved in the process.
A renewed push then began for Ms. Craft, with advocates telling the president that she would have a smooth confirmation since she was recently confirmed by the Senate for her post in Canada. She also has some prior experience at the United Nations, having served as an alternate delegate to the world organization under the administration of President George W. Bush.
Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, said in a statement that "Ambassador Craft has been an outstanding advocate for America’s national security and economic interests in Canada and she is extremely well qualified to do the same at the United Nations."
John R. Bolton, the national security adviser and a former United Nations ambassador himself, backed the choice of Ms. Craft, according to a person familiar with the process.
After Ms. Nauert removed herself from the running, many Trump allies and former officials who represent Mr. Trump’s base made a public push for Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany, to get the nod. Those voices included Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager, and Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary. Mr. Grenell was at the White House this week for meetings with senior administration officials, according to an administration official. But Mr. Trump had expressed hesitation about removing him from his post in Germany.
The United Nations ambassador position is not expected to remain a cabinet-level post, as it was under Ms. Haley.
Nonetheless, the post of ambassador to the United Nations is one of the most high-profile diplomatic positions in any White House administration, and in some ways the person holding the post is America’s face to the world.
As ambassador to Canada since the end of 2017, Ms. Craft served in the role during one of the most acrimonious periods in relations between Canada and the United States — a period buffeted by tortuous trade negotiations and rhetorical skirmishes during which President Trump referred to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "very dishonest and weak" and accused him of making up "false statements."
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Partly because of the acrimony, Ms. Craft kept a conspicuously low profile compared with previous American ambassadors, and adeptly sought to play up the strong historical ties between the two countries — at a time when many Canadians felt antipathy toward her boss.
"She has a pretty tough road as ambassador at a time when the relationship took a definite turn for the worse, and she handled the challenge with tact and grace," said Fen Hampson, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University, who had met Ms. Craft a few times. "There wasn’t really a defining moment of her ambassadorship," he added.
Before she arrived, the Fourth of July party at the American ambassador’s official residence was one of the must-go-to social events of the year in Ottawa, with 4,000 people invited to the event hosted by Bruce Heyman, her predecessor under President Barack Obama.
Ms. Craft officiated at a more streamlined, modest affair after it was boycotted by several Canadian officials, including Mayor Jim Watson of Ottawa, and Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the New Democratic Party, amid the trade tensions and Mr. Trump’s perceived bullying of Canada.
Speaking at the party, Ms. Craft made the best of it, invoking Thomas Jefferson. "I have never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy as a cause for withdrawing from a friend," she said.
Displaying a sense of humor, Ms. Craft also suggested guests take a "sip of good ol’ Kentucky bourbon" to help smooth the friendship, she was quoted as saying by The Globe and Mail.
Ms. Craft, who was known in Ottawa for her love of jogging and horses, has also shown an adeptness for soothing the targets of the president’s well-known belligerence. After Mr. Trump drew headlines in Canada for complaining about the negotiating style of Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, Ms. Craft came her to defense, saying that she had tremendous respect for the minister.
"She’s smart, articulate and has been a good friend since my arrival in Ottawa," she told The Canadian Press.
Adam B. Schiff, a Democrat, represents California’s 28th Congressional District in the House and is chairman of the Intelligence Committee.
This is a moment of great peril for our democracy. Our country is deeply divided. Our national discourse has become coarse, indeed, poisonous. Disunity and dysfunction have paralyzed Congress.
And while our attention is focused inward, the world spins on, new authoritarian regimes are born, old rivals spread their pernicious ideologies, and the space for freedom-loving peoples begins to contract violently. At last week’s Munich Security Conference, the prevailing sentiment among our closest allies is that the United States can no longer be counted on to champion liberal democracy or defend the world order we built.
For the past two years, we have examined Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and its attempts to influence the 2018 midterms. Moscow’s effort to undermine our democracy was spectacularly successful in inflaming racial, ethnic and other divides in our society and turning American against American.
But the attack on our democracy had its limits. Russian President Vladimir Putin could not lead us to distrust our own intelligence agencies or the FBI. He could not cause us to view our own free press as an enemy of the people. He could not undermine the independence of the Justice Department or denigrate judges. Only we could do that to ourselves. Although many forces have contributed to the decline in public confidence in our institutions, one force stands out as an accelerant, like gas on a fire. And try as some of us might to avoid invoking the arsonist’s name, we must say it.
I speak, of course, of our president, Donald Trump.
Opinion | Obstruction of justice is hard to prove, even if Trump makes it look easy
How to prove obstruction of justice: Did the suspect have corrupt intent, and would the actions, if successful, be likely to obstruct the proceeding? (Joshua Carroll/The Washington Post)
The president has just declared a national emergency to subvert the will of Congress and appropriate billions of dollars for a border wall that Congress has explicitly refused to fund. Whether you support the border wall or oppose it, you should be deeply troubled by the president’s intent to obtain it through a plainly unconstitutional abuse of power.
To my Republican colleagues: When the president attacked the independence of the Justice Department by intervening in a case in which he is implicated, you did not speak out. When he attacked the press as the enemy of the people, you again were silent. When he targeted the judiciary, labeling judges and decisions he didn’t like as illegitimate, we heard not a word. And now he comes for Congress, the first branch of government, seeking to strip it of its greatest power, that of the purse.
Many of you have acknowledged your deep misgivings about the president in quiet conversations over the past two years. You have bemoaned his lack of decency, character and integrity. You have deplored his fundamental inability to tell the truth. But for reasons that are all too easy to comprehend, you have chosen to keep your misgivings and your rising alarm private.
That must end. The time for silent disagreement is over. You must speak out.
This will require courage. The president is popular among your base, which revels in his vindictive and personal attacks on members of his own party, even giants such as the late senator John McCain. Speaking up risks a primary challenge or accusations of disloyalty. But such acts of independence are the most profound demonstrations of loyalty to country.
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III may soon conclude his investigation and report. Depending on what is in that report and what we find in our own investigations, our nation may face an even greater challenge. While I am alarmed at what we have already seen and found of the president’s conduct and that of his campaign, I continue to reserve judgment about what consequences should flow from our eventual findings. I ask you to do the same.
If we cannot rise to the defense of our democracy now, in the face of a plainly unconstitutional aggrandizement of presidential power, what hope can we have that we will do so with the far greater decisions that could be yet to come?
Although these times pose unprecedented challenges, we have been through worse. The divisions during the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement were just as grave and far more deadly. The Depression and World War II were far more consequential. And nothing can compare to the searing experience of the Civil War.
If Abraham Lincoln, the father of the Republican Party, could be hopeful that our bonds of affection would be strained but not broken by a war that pitted brother against brother, surely America can come together once more. But as long as we must endure the present trial, history compels us to speak, and act, our conscience, Republicans and Democrats alike.
House Democrats on Friday took the first step in a long-shot bid to stop President Donald Trump's national emergency declaration aimed at getting more money to build his proposed border wall after congressional Democrats refused to give it to him.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she will bring a resolution to terminate Trump's national emergency proclamation for a vote on Tuesday, the first swing congressional Democrats are taking to try to block the additional border wall money the president is seeking through executive action.
"We will fight his action in the Congress, in the courts and in the public," Pelosi, D-Calif, told reporters on a conference call Friday morning. "This isn't about anything partisan or political. This is about upholding the oath of office we take to protect and defend the constitution."
H.J. Resolution 46 was filed earlier Friday morning, after Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, rallied "226 or 227" original cosponsors, including Michigan Republican Rep. Justin Amash.
In a nod to the long odds the resolution faces of being enacted, Castro called the president's proclamation an "unconstitutional power grab" that will "require historic unity" to counteract the president.
Pelosi denied that there is a crisis at the national border, calling the president's description of the border "frivolous and cavalier."
"The president does have such a right to do such a thing when there is a true emergency," Pelosi acknowledged. "If there was such an emergency, he wouldn't have to do it. We'd be right there with him."
"This is not what is happening now," she continued. "The president is being frivolous to the constitution."
Instead, Pelosi and Castro claimed that Trump is taking the action to fulfill a campaign promise, not because there is an actual emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Not only is he disrespecting the legislative branch and the Constitution, he is dishonoring the office in which he serves," Pelosi said. "This is institutional; it is constitutional; it is not political; it is not partisan. It is patriotic."
Though some Republicans have expressed concern about the president's executive action, none has vowed to join the Democratic effort to terminate the national emergency that's unlikely to succeed.
Despite its dim prospects, the gambit still promises to produce a political spectacle. With newfound power in the House majority, Democrats are seizing the opportunity to not only attack the president on cable TV, but also to force Republicans into casting politically difficult votes.
At the same time, other efforts to block the president are playing out in court.
President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the Rose Garden at the White House to declare a national emergency in order to build a wall along the southern border in Washington, D.C., Feb. 15, 2019.
According to the National Emergencies Act, any national emergency declared by the president shall terminate if there is a joint resolution terminating the emergency enacted into law or the president issues a proclamation terminating the emergency.
The text of the resolution is relatively straightforward, identifying the president's proclamation and then destroying it: "Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled That, pursuant to section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622), the national emergency declared by the finding of the President on February 15, 2019, in Proclamation 9844 (84 Fed. Reg. 4949) is hereby terminated."
Since the resolution would require Trump's signature to become law, he's likely to veto the measure instead -- in what would be the first of his presidency. There does not appear to be enough bipartisan support constituting supermajorities in both chambers to override a presidential veto, so this attempt to block the president legislatively likely would end there as legal challenges continue in court.
A coalition of 16 states filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco against the president and his administration to block the proclamation, arguing the declaration amounts to a misuse of executive power. The case could drag into the 2020 presidential campaign and ultimately end up at the Supreme Court.
Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi speaks during a weekly news conference at the U.S. Capitol, Feb. 14, 2019, in Washington, DC.
In a "Dear Colleague" letter sent Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Republicans and Democrats alike to support the resolution, warning the proclamation "undermines the separation of powers and Congress's power of the purse, a power exclusively reserved by the text of the Constitution to the first branch of government, the Legislative branch, a branch co-equal to the Executive."
"All Members take an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution," Pelosi, D-Calif., noted. "The President's decision to go outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process violates the Constitution and must be terminated. We have a solemn responsibility to uphold the Constitution, and defend our system of checks and balances against the President's assault."
While the Senate's majority is controlled by Republicans, the measure is privileged and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is compelled to hold a vote on the measure after House passage, creating an awkward vote to either buck the president or surrender the constitutional authorities many lawmakers believe are threatened by executive action. If the House passes it, the resolution could sit in committee for up to 15 days before it's considered privileged in the upper chamber and its consideration is mandated.
Last week, McConnell encouraged the president to pursue executive action, though several GOP senators, including Sens. Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, Thom Tillis, Susan Collins and Lamar Alexander have expressed an aversion to the president's declaration.
"The president has made a strong case for increased border security, but declaring a national emergency is unnecessary, unwise and inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution," Alexander, R-Tenn., warned Wednesday prior to the president's announcement on Friday. "It is inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution because, after the American Revolution against a king, our founders chose not to create a chief executive with the power to tax the people and spend their money any way he chooses. The Constitution gives that authority exclusively to a Congress elected by the people."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that identical companion legislation to the House resolution "will soon be introduced in the Senate."
"If the president's emergency declaration prevails, it will fundamentally change the balance of powers in a way our country's founders never envisioned," Schumer, D-N.Y., cautioned. "That should be a serious wake-up call to senators in both parties who believe in the constitutional responsibility of Congress to limit an overreaching executive."
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., warned President Donald Trump that if he declared an “emergency” to build a wall, “think what a president with different values can present. … Why don’t you declare [the epidemic of gun violence in America] an emergency, Mr. President? I wish you would. … A Democratic president can declare emergencies as well.”
Her fellow Democrats, Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., quickly agreed. Warren tweeted: “Gun violence is an emergency. Climate change is an emergency.”
Yikes.
Not every problem in America should be declared an emergency—or used by a president to justify
But why are guns on the Democrats’ “emergency” list anyway?
One reason is sloppy reporting by lazy media.
Last year, they claimed that there were school shootings at “hundreds of schools.” It was “an almost daily occurrence” in the U.S., some said.
This was nonsense. NPR reporters looked into the 235 shootings reported by the U.S. Department of Education and were only able to confirm 11 of them.
It turned out that schools were added to the list merely because someone at a school heard there may have been a shooting. Good for NPR for checking out the Education Department’s claims.
Economist John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center (and the father of one of my producers), spends much of his time researching gun use and correcting shoddy studies.
A few years ago, much of the media claimed that the U.S. has “the most mass shootings of any country in the world.” Then-President Barack Obama added it’s “a pattern now … that has no parallel anywhere else … .”
CNN and the Los Angeles Times wrote about “Why the U.S. Has the Most Mass Shootings.” (“The United States has more guns.”)
But the U.S. doesn’t have the most mass shootings, says Lott. It’s a myth created by University of Alabama associate professor Adam Lankford, a myth repeated by anti-gun media in hundreds of news stories.
“Lankford claimed that since 1966, there were 90 mass public shooters in the United States, more than any other country,” says Lott. “Lankford claimed ‘complete data’ were available from 171 countries.”
But how could that be? Many governments don’t collect such data, and even fewer have information from before the days of the internet.
A shooting in say, India, would likely be reported only in local newspapers, in a local dialect. How would Lankford ever find out about it? How did he collect his information? What languages did he search in?
He won’t say.
“That’s academic malpractice,” says Lott in my video about the controversy.
I’m not surprised that Lankford didn’t reply to Lott’s emails. Lott is known as pro-gun. (He wrote the book “More Guns, Less Crime.”) But Lankford also won’t explain his data to me, The Washington Post, or even his fellow gun control advocates.
When Lott’s research center checked the data, using Lankford’s own definition of a mass shooting—“four or more people killed”—the center found 3,000 shootings around the world. Lankford claimed there were only 202.
Lankford said he excludes “sponsored terrorism,” but does not define what he means by that. To be safe, Lott removed terrorism cases from his data. He still found 709 shootings—more than triple the number Lankford reported.
It turns out that not only did the U.S. not have the most frequent mass shootings, it was No. 62 on the list, lower than places like Norway, Finland, and Switzerland.
There was also no relationship between the rate of gun ownership in different countries and the rate of mass shootings.
If journalists had just demanded Lankford explain his study methods before touting his results, his “more mass shootings” myth would never have spread.
So if Pelosi, Harris, and Warren ever follow through on their threat to declare gun violence a “national emergency,” be sure to check their math. Or just remember the wisdom of the Second Amendment.
Government’s desire to control us—and to lie to make its case—is the real emergency.
By invoking a law regulating foreign agents to pursue prosecution of former Trump campaign officials, special counsel Robert Mueller opened the door to more intense scrutiny of some U.S. environmental groups, according to legal analysts who say China and Russia use such groups to influence America’s energy policy.
But these legal analysts said they also see a danger that Mueller’s Russia investigation could set a precedent for the Justice Department to “selectively enforce” the Foreign Agents Registration Act in a manner that undermines the rule of law and potentially jeopardizes national security.
The Trump administration, they say, should closely examine the relationship between environmental advocacy groups and foreign governments that are considered strategic competitors of the U.S.
“If the Mueller probe has any real benefit, it is that it opened the door for the Justice Department to employ FARA as a basis to investigate green groups that are undermining our country and aiding socialist/communist regimes,” lawyer Mark Fitzgibbons told The Daily Signal.
Because these same environmental groups persistently lobby for policy changes to restrict U.S. energy use and the projection of U.S. military power, the groups may operate at the direction and encouragement of hostile foreign actors, Fitzgibbons and other reform proponents argue.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act, which predates World War II, requires anyone who acts as an agent of foreign principals “in a political or quasi-political capacity” to disclose that relationship periodically, as well as “activities, receipts, and disbursements in support of those activities,” according to the Justice Department.
But because FARA has not been strictly enforced, little case history and precedent exist for investigations into the actions of possible foreign agents who decline to disclose their activities, Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a Washington-based nonprofit government watchdog, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
Americans and their elected representatives have been deprived of the openness and transparency they need to evaluate the political activism and legal tactics of environmental advocacy groups, Fitton said.
‘Selectively Enforced’
The disclosure requirements of the Foreign Agents Registration Act explicitly state that information made available through registration would help ensure that citizens and officials can get the specifics they need to evaluate the activities of anyone who registers “in light of their function as foreign agents.”
But Fitton expressed concern that the law could be misused and misapplied to advance a political agenda detached from its stated purpose.
“We already know the law has been selectively enforced,” Fitton said of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. “Violations of FARA have typically been handled administratively. If you didn’t file paperwork, you were told to file it. But the Mueller special counsel operation, desperate for prosecutions, started criminally prosecuting FARA regulations where they had never been criminally prosecuted before.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein appointed Mueller to serve as special counsel on May 17, 2017, to investigate allegations that the Russian government interfered with the 2016 presidential election.
Mueller, a former FBI director, also is probing allegations that the Trump presidential campaign coordinated with Russian operatives in its efforts to win the election.
So far, the Mueller investigation has resulted in dozens of indictments and eight guilty pleas, none of which involves coordination or collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign. An updated list of charges, pleas, and resulting convictions is available here.
Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman for two months, pleaded guilty in September to charges that he violated FARA because he failed to disclose to the Justice Department that he worked as an agent of Ukraine’s government and as a lobbyist for pro-Russian political forces in that country.
Richard Gates, a former Trump campaign aide and business associate of Manafort’s, also pleaded guilty to FARA violations in connection with his lobbying efforts in Ukraine.
No Comment From Special Counsel
Mueller has pointed to potential violations of foreign agent registration rules in his prosecution of 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies accused of trying to manipulate the 2016 election through internet and social media campaigns.
Fitton favors counterintelligence investigations into the actions of groups and individuals who appear to skirt registration requirements, but has expressed concern with how the law has been applied against Trump campaign officials.
“In my view, the Mueller team has been manufacturing dubious FARA charges against Trump campaign people,” Fitton told The Daily Signal. “In the case of Manafort, he was really working for political parties, not a foreign government. So this is a pretty dramatic expansion of FARA.”
The Daily Signal sought comment from the Special Counsel’s Office on concerns that the law might be “selectively” or “unevenly” applied in a manner that enables some environmental activists to escape scrutiny.
“We will decline to comment,” Mueller spokesman Peter Carr replied in an email Tuesday morning.
Duringa December hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Fitton commented on how some actions of nonprofit advocacy groups and their relationships with foreign governments could activate requirements of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
In response to questions from Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., Fitton said that if advocacy groups are found to be “taking orders from a foreign government” or “beholden to them financially,” they probably should be required to register under the law.
During his exchange with Fitton, Gosar said environmental advocacy groups that oppose natural gas development and the process of hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) have received millions of dollars in grant money that congressional investigators traced back to the Russian government.
Environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council “have undermined the energy sector in the United States and even got fracking banned in the cash-strapped state of New York,” Gosar said.
‘Cozy’ With the Chinese
If there is genuine concern on the part of Mueller, the media, and other members of Congress about Russian meddling in American affairs, the Arizona Republican said, then environmental advocacy groups working to disrupt American energy while receiving financial support from the Russian government should be subjected to investigations.
Gosar, who also sits on the House Natural Resources Committee, took the opportunity to focus attention on the relationship between environmental activists and China’s communist government. In 2018, the Natural Resources Committee sent letters to several environmental groups, inquiring about their relationship with government entities in China and Japan.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, for example, has “gotten cozy with the environmentally unfriendly Chinese government while suing the U.S. government whenever it can,” Gosar said during his exchange with Fitton.
He suggested that the environmental group’s lawsuits against the Navy and its “weapons development programs” could work to the strategic advantage of China’s communist government.
The letters, signed by then-Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., who chaired the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, asked environmental organizations either to provide documentation showing they are in compliance with FARA or to explain why they are not registered as foreign agents.
The committee’s June 5, 2018, letter to the Natural Resources Defense Council describes how the environmental group took an “adversarial approach” toward the U.S. while refraining from criticizing Chinese officials.
“Over the last two decades, your organization has sued the U.S. Navy multiple times to stop or drastically limit Naval training exercises in the Pacific arguing that naval sonar and anti-submarine warfare drills harm marine life,” the letter says. “We are unaware of the NRDC having made similar efforts to curtail naval exercises by the Chinese.”
In their letter, Bishop and Westerman say the Natural Resources Defense Council “sought to shape public opinion” by working to “discredit those skeptical of China’s commitment to pollution reduction targets or to honestly reporting environmental data.”
Funding for Green Groups
The New York-based NRDC, which is devoted to opposing the use of fossil fuels, “has more than $180 million in assets to fund its programs,” according to Influence Watch, a project of the Capital Research Center.
Recent tax records show NRDC reported $155.2 million in revenue and $126.7 million in expenses. It received more than $15 million in grants from the San Francisco-based Sea Change Foundation, which has received funding from a Bermuda-based company that members of Congress view as the key component of a“paperless money trail” from the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the coffers of U.S. environmental groups.
The Energy Foundation, also based in San Francisco, has received $64 million in grants from the Sea Change Foundation, making it the single biggest recipient of such grants to date. The Energy Foundation also provided NRDC with tens of millions of dollars in grants, according to foundation records.
Green activism centered on the United Nations’ Paris climate agreement, which requires industrialized countries to curb greenhouse gas emissions, attracted the attention of some in Congress. The reason is an apparent concerted effort by activists to provide China with political cover to avoid complying with the terms of the U.N. agreement, according to the letters from the House Natural Resources Committee.
In a Sept. 5, 2018, letter to the World Resources Institute, the committee points out that the environmental group “hailed China’s 2015 pledge for the Paris agreement to ‘peak’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 as a ‘serious and credible contribution’ despite claims that it merely amounted to ‘continuing with business as usual.’ Conversely, WRI advocated for unrealistic Paris Agreement commitments by the United States.”
The World Resources Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit environmental research organization, has more than $2 million in assets, more than $3 million in total revenue, and about $1.6 million in expenses, according to Influence Watch.
Evidence gathered by House committees in the past year points to a deliberate strategy by green activists “to tank” America’s free market system while aiding foreign governments, Fitzgibbons, a lawyer and conservative strategist based in Virginia, told The Daily Signal in an email.
“DOJ should unleash what are called ‘civil investigative demands’ (CIDs) on many green groups that are believed to be violating FARA,” he said, referring to the Justice Department. “I believe CIDs are unconstitutional because they are searches of private papers without probable cause, but perhaps when socialist green groups get the sting of these menaces, the left’s erstwhile civil liberties groups will see the light about them. In the meantime, the DOJ seems to clearly have grounds to investigate green groups suspected of violating FARA.
To date, none of the green groups addressed in congressional correspondence have agreed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and all deny operating as foreign agents.
However, email records obtained through Freedom of Information Act lawsuits show that green activists cited in the House committee’s letters are advancing foreign governments’ policy goals in a manner consistent with the actions of foreign agents, according to sources who have examined the emails.
Policing ‘Unregistered Activity’
The Institute for Energy Research, a Washington-based nonprofit that favors free market energy policies, filed the FOIA lawsuits last year against the Treasury and State departments seeking information about foreign governments’ support to environmental advocacy campaigns in the U.S.
The Treasury Department did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on the FOIA suits; the State and Justice departments declined to comment.
Chris Horner, a lawyer with Government Accountability and Oversight, a public interest law firm, said in an email to The Daily Signal that he shares Fitton’s concerns about how the Foreign Agents Registration Act might be “selectively applied” going forward.
“Either the special counsel’s invocation of the FARA law represents remarkably selective policing of possible unregistered activity on behalf of foreign governments, depending upon one’s political associations, or signals that DOJ has decided to take this law seriously and has noticed, e.g., congressional probes into other potential violations,” said Horner, who filed the FOIA lawsuits on behalf of the Institute for Energy Research.
Horner added:
Given some rather startling information made public thanks to a congressional investigation—now neutered by the new [House] majority—surely this includes inquiries into environmentalist pressure groups. If that is not the case, then we have yet one more case of laws being unevenly applied, or selectively applied, depending upon ideological or political affiliation.
After reaching a settlement with the State Department in December, the Institute for Energy Research received email records from the department that provide insight into the relationship between the World Resources Institute and Chinese government officials.
In a series of emails dating back to April 2015, a World Resources Institute staffer explains to State Department officials that a Chinese government entity “approached” WRI for the purpose of opening up channels of communication with U.S. government officials and think tanks.
Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research, said he finds the emails revealing because they show China was working to shape U.S. policy on climate change.
“If WRI’s services on behalf of China aimed at influencing U.S. climate policy by diminishing American energy output do not constitute a violation of FARA, then what does?” Cohen said in an email to The Daily Signal, adding:
The Trump administration is already cracking down on China’s stealing our intellectual property and violating our cybersecurity. Given the crucial role energy plays in our economy and national security, the Trump Justice Department needs to join the fray and investigate possible violations of FARA by WRI and any other group colluding with foreign interests against the United States. Otherwise, China, Russia, and others will continue to avail themselves of their American fifth column.
“Any accusation that WRI is a foreign agent is completely without merit,” a spokesperson for World Resources Institute said in an email to The Daily Signal.
The Daily Signal also sought comment from the Natural Resources Defense Council, but had not received a response by publication time.
Earlier this month, the Institute for Energy Research began to receive records from the Treasury Department in response to its FOIA request related to Russia’s support for U.S. environmental groups. The nonprofit is reviewing those records.
