Category Archives: Federalist

Tim Sale died Thursday. He was one of the best and most iconic comic book artists of the last 30 years. He was known primarily for a handful of major collaborations with writer Jeph Loeb on Batman and Superman in particular. Their two most important works were probably Batman: The Long Halloween and Superman for All Seasons. But my personal favorite was Spider-Man: Blue.

Superman for All Seasons was probably their greatest work. Several years ago I picked it as the greatest Superman story ever, and I stand by that. And Batman: The Long Halloween is an amazing piece of art. But it was the six issues they did on Spider-Man that have always had my heart. They were maybe the most normal thing the two ever did, which highlights what made Sale so special: Nothing about his art was normal.

Sales work was incomparable. It was both sloppy and precise, passionate and calculating, obtuse yet highly relatable. There are probably many better artists working in comics, but no one has ever drawn like Sale. His work was always instantly recognizable. No one could draw a cover that looked like a Tim Sale other than Tim Sale.

Every great comic book artist is unique and different, and they all have things that make their work distinctive. Jack Kirby, for instance, was known for his power and action. His panels were overflowing with comic book wonder and consistent disregard for human anatomy. Then you have Alex Ross, who does oil painting based on actual human models. Frank Miller is abstract and animalistic. Jim Lee is a perfectionist, Neal Adams is a classicist, John Romita Jr. is chaos incarnate, Steve Ditko was the industry standard, etc. The list of amazing comic artists is endless. But they all seem to be having a kind of conversation with each other over the decades. Theyre all playing a similar game, in essentially the same medium.

But Sale always felt like something else entirely.

Sure, he had influences. Superman for all seasons is at least 50 percent Norman Rockwell. But he also basically drew Superman like a huge thumb, and somehow we loved the Kryptonian even more that way. Sale had this ability to exaggerate and somehow make things feel more relatable at the same time.

Whats maybe most amazing about Sale is how little impact hes had on the industry in terms of overt influence. That sounds like a bad thing, imitation being the most sincere form of flattery. But Sales style was so precise, so specific to him, that it couldnt be imitated or even borrowed from. His artwork feels like a dream come to life; his pencil marks imbue characters with breath. Peter Parker and the Green Goblin seem like they are about to waltz right off the page, but not into our reality where bodies obey physics rather, into some other plane of real existence.

Thats one of the reasons Spider-Man: Blue is my favorite by him. Its so full of life, in a story about death. Each stroke of his pencil was laden with epic whimsy and romantic sadness. And his take on Spider-Man was pretty straightforward the character looked like a normal Spider-Man, instantly recognizable, the way Ditko and Lee had designed him all those years ago, yet somehow completely original. Sale always made every character his own, and converted them into his own visual language.

Spider-Man: Blue is the tale of an older Peter Parker, now married to Mary Jane, remembering his first love and how they finally got together. For the uninitiated, Peters first and arguably truest love was Gwen Stacy who was killed by the Green Goblin. Peter is recording the story of their romance on tapes in the attic, but because its a true Spider-Man story their romance involves just about every one of the major villains from his rogues gallery. And Sale nailed the look for all of them. But what is even more impressive is how he got the more mundane characters so perfectly. Using the most subtle implications of shape and form he makes the reader see Gwen Stacys soul and understand why losing her was so tragic.

Theres never going to be another Tim Sale. Comic purists and more sophisticated art snobs than I may not see the great sadness that conveys, but his utter uniqueness is still breathtaking to me. When he drew the bat cape it would magically change sizes, becoming ridiculously huge, and yet it never seemed silly. Whatever he did made emotional sense of what was happening in the writing at that moment. His Joker has teeth that appeared to be 5 or 8 inches long, and yet you never questioned it. Whatever Sale gave the reader, we simply devoured in an act of sheer gratefulness.

Thank you, Tim, for all the beauty you put into this world while you were here. I pray that you rest in peace.

A.C. Gleason is a proud alumnus of Biola University and Talbot Seminary. He teaches Philosophy full time. His writing has appeared in numerous outlets including Hollywood in Toto, The Daily Wire, and The Imaginative Conservative. He co-hosts and co-produces The AK47 Podcast with fellow Talbot Alum Kyle Hendricks.

Read the original:

Tim Sale Was Not A Normal Comic Book Artist, And There'll Never Be Another One Like Him - The Federalist

Nebraska joined the ranks of states cutting ties with the National School Boards Association on Saturday, making it the 25th state to boycott the organization after the NSBA sent a letter to President Biden in September 2021 urging the federal government to use domestic terrorism laws to go after parents at school board meetings. The Nebraska Association of School Boards voted to withdraw less than a month after its executive committee voted to cancel its membership, the Omaha World Herald reported.

The NSBAs letter to President Biden has enraged half of the states in the union now by suggesting that parental involvement in school board meetings amounts todomestic terrorism and by calling on the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Secret Service to quash parent interference. The letters first draft apparently included a petition for use of the Army National Guard but a different copy was sent.

[W]ith such acute threats and actions that are disruptive to our students well-being, to the safety of public school officials and personnel, and to interstate commerce, we urge the federal governments intervention against individuals or hate groups who are targeting our schools and educators, the letter read.

The only supposed hate group referenced in the letter was one that posted watchlists about school boards.

As states like Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania began to drop out of the association almost immediately, the NSBA issued an apology for the letter in October 2021, but the public backtracking hasnt stopped the mass exodus.

Nebraska politicians joined the state school board association in criticism of the NSBA letter, with Sen. Ben Sasse labeling the NSBAs collusion with the Biden Justice Department a political hack job and Gov. Pete Ricketts insisting that following the letters requests would be an absolute outrageous abuse of federal power meant to browbeat parents into not going to school board meetings.

Beth Whitehead is an intern at The Federalist and a journalism major at Patrick Henry College where she fondly excuses the excess amount of coffee she drinks as an occupational hazard.

See the article here:

Half Of The 50 States Have Now Ditched The NSBA For Targeting Parents - The Federalist

While Democrats continue exploiting the Uvalde shooting victims to prattle on about assault weapons and so-called common-sense gun control, another school was attacked on Thursday, but it wont make the headlines.

Thats because this school Walnut Park Elementary School in Gadsden, Alabama didnt have any victims except the would-be invader, who was shot dead by police after he tried and failed to bust into the building. Heres how it all reportedly went down.

A passerby saw a man aggressively trying to get into the school building. When the man was unsuccessful, he tried several other doors, all of which were locked. The responsible observer called to report the man, the school principal put the building on lockdown and called in a police officer who doubles as the school resource officer, and that officer called for backup. If the reports are correct, the chain of command worked smoothly thanks to decisive action and quickly followed protocols.

The resource officer reportedly engaged the would-be invader, who then also allegedly attempted to forcefully enter a marked police vehicle and to take the officers gun. More police officers rushed to the scene to help, and the assailant was shot and killed. According to the citys school superintendent, the schoolchildren who were there seemed to be unaware the incident occurred.

In other words, a man who aggressively tried to break into a school and take the firearm of a police officer was stopped because doors were properly locked and police officers acted bravely and urgently.

Hmm. Thats interesting. Because according to President Joe Biden, failed presidential candidate Beto ORourke, rom-com celebrity Matthew McConaughey, and late-night political scold Jimmy Kimmel, the only way to end the carnage of schoolchildren being murdered is to pass anti-gun laws or issue executive orders that radically infringe on the Second Amendment but are slapped with an innocuous common-sense qualifier so they dont sound so bad.

Nothing else would do the trick, such people say despite the fact that the Uvalde killer had no problem passing a background check, entered through an unlocked door, and faced little resistance from law enforcement for a disgustingly long time.

When Texas Sen. Ted Cruz responded to the Uvalde murder with calls for better school security in the form of locked doors and single-point entry, which could have prevented that killing, leftists and the corporate press ridiculed him for focusing on doors. [S]enator Ted Cruz comes out bravely against doors, scoffed The Atlantics Molly Jong-Fast on Twitter. Are they really gonna make it about too many doors on the school? They are, arent they? chimed in woke comedian Patton Oswalt.

Meanwhile, nobody on the left wants to talk about the criminal failures of the Uvalde police and the Department of Public Safety. Thats in part because if they had done their jobs rather than standing outside like cowards for the better part of an hour, lives undoubtedly would have been spared. Its also because the implication of Democrats disarming responsible citizens is that the only remaining defense will be armed government employees, who may or may not have the courage to actually help anyone.

Thankfully, in Alabama on Thursday, police did have that courage, and lives were saved because of it. But Democrats and their media lapdogs wont speak a word of Walnut Park Elementary because it obliterates their gun do somethingism.

It turns out we dont need celebrity lectures and sweeping gun control to keep schoolchildren safe. We just need locked doors and adults who do their dang jobs.

Here is the original post:

A Would-Be School Invader Failed Thanks To Locked Doors, Brave Police - The Federalist

The recently released Medicare trustees report estimates the programs Part A trust fund faces insolvency in 2028, two years later than last years estimate. Some might think that represents a major improvement in the programs fiscal position. But a fact-checkerat least a politically honest onemight say the 2028 projection lacks important context.

In reality, Medicare faces a series of financial challenges, many of them created by fiscal gimmicks, that make the programs shortfalls much greater than the official estimates suggest. Politicians have been hiding the hard facts about Medicare for decades, and when they finally have to face the fiscal musicwhich will happen sooner rather than laterthe American people will not like what they hear.

In truth, Medicares trust fund is already insolvent, and has been for several years. In 2009, the last year before Obamacares passage, the programs actuaries estimated trust fund insolvency in 2017five years ago. But suddenly, the year that Obamacare passed, the insolvency date got extended until 2029. What happened?

As some might recall, Obamacare lowered Medicare spending by $718 billion and raised several Medicare-related taxes. What happened with that money is such a Washington politicians gimmick that the politicians deserve to explain it themselves:

The Medicare reductions didnt really make the programs financial position any better in practice, because they went to fund Obamacare. They only improved Medicares solvency on paperpractically the only thing Washington politicians care about.

In other words, the double-counting of the Medicare cuts included in Obamacare has been the only thing keeping Medicare from acknowledging its trust fund insolvency. Its therefore entirely reasonable to call the program functionally insolvent. It in fact has been for several years.

As to the immediate reason the official insolvency date got pushed back to 2028, the trustees report explained that the new report estimates income, largely from payroll taxes, as 5 percent ($176 billion) higher from 2021-2028, with expenses only marginally increased.

But that estimated increase in payroll tax revenue could prove as fleeting as the phony double-counted Obamacare savings. The Medicare actuarys office, which compiles the trustees report, admitted that it locked in its economic assumptions behind this years report in February.

As with the Congressional Budget Offices recent estimate of the fiscal outlook for the next ten years, the Medicare actuarys estimates seem already outdated, due to the continued spike in inflation. Rising pricesand rising interest rates to counteract the inflationmean that most analysts believe the risk of recession has risen since the actuary completed its assumptions in February. And if a recession hits, most or all of that $176 billion in projected additional payroll tax revenuethe prime factor driving the extension of the official insolvency datewill likely evaporate.

The rising risk of a recession, and the looming insolvency of Medicare, represents but one of the many challenges the next president will have to faceand none too soon. Because of the Obamacare double-counting referenced above, politicians have spent the last decade with their heads in the sand about the need to right-size Medicare. If not for the Obamacare fiscal gimmick, Donald Trump and others would not have had the luxury of claiming they wouldnt cut anyones Medicarethe looming insolvency would have forced them to act.

Medicare faces challenges in the long term, too. The trustees report also discusses how current payment levels for doctors and hospitalssome of them created by Obamacare, some notwill fall to unsustainably low levels in coming decades, another way the official estimates significantly understate the depths of the problems the program faces.

To put it bluntly: Washington has spent the past several decades lying to the American people, by hiding the tough choices our nation will have to face about fiscal priorities as the Baby Boomers retire. Those long-delayed choices will finally start coming due over the next few years. When they do, the politicians who have dodged the truth for lo these many decades better have some good answers for why they did.

Read the original:

Fact Check: Medicare Is Already Functionally Insolvent - The Federalist

The Daily Wires Matt Walsh called for everyone at Fox News who aided in creating and promoting a controversial segment promoting chemical castration for children to be fired for celebrating that a 14-year-old girl named Ryland has been subjected to radical transgender ideology and practices since she was a baby.

I know for a fact that many people at Fox do not approve of this and never would have agreed to air radical far left trans propaganda, the What is a Woman? documentary creator tweeted on Friday afternoon. But Fox reporter Bryan L[l]enas chose to do this story and someone at Fox chose to put it on the air. Everyone involved should be fired immediately.

In the segment aired on Americas Newsroom on Friday, Fox News Correspondent Bryan Llenas explained in a voiceover that Rylands parents began sex experimentation on the child after determining that Before Ryland could even speak, he managed to tell his parents that he is a boy.

The poor kid is 14 now with a permanently altered body, condemned to live forever with an identity imposed as a small child. It is horrifying, evil, and sick. And it is what Fox chose to promote, Walsh added.

The reporter says that the child announced a new gender as a toddler. Does Fox want us to believe that BABIES can choose their gender? This is the most extreme, radical, dangerous form of gender ideology. And its being promoted on Fox News, Walsh continued.

Walsh said while he is grateful to have been given a platform by Fox News many times, he will risk his relationship with the network to call out the evil lunacy encapsulated in the 8-minute clip highlighting the YouTube family.

Walsh also called on Fox News viewers to demand that Fox publicly retract and apologize for the horrendous, dangerous propaganda it aired today and fire the people responsible for it.

Accept nothing less than full accountability, he wrote.

Walshs outrage was not only shared by his colleagues at The Daily Wire, but other conservatives and Fox News viewers who agreed the network had overstepped its bounds.

Conservative commentator and podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey condemned the segment asheartbreaking, maddening,andas extreme and depraved as it gets.

David Reaboi, a senior fellow at the prominent, conservative think tank Claremont Institutecalledthe decision to run the segment sick.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

Read more:

Walsh: Fox Segment Praising Child Sex Experimentation Is 'Horrifying, Evil, And Sick' - The Federalist

Democrats on the House Select Committee to InvestigateJanuary 6claim their public hearings, starting this week, are meant to tell the story about what happened that day.

But millions of Americans watched the violence unfold on television, and theres been breathless news coverage in the months since. The events ofJan. 6, 2021have been investigated by Senate committees, federal inspectors general, and a phalanx of Washington reporters. Prosecutions are still ongoing in open court.

With so much information already public aboutJan. 6, what is the real purpose of these prime-time hearings? And why has the committee so aggressively stretched its investigative powers beyond the limits, including by subpoenaing me and four other Republican colleagues?

Behind the committees storytelling, theres a more sinister aim: convincing Americans that conservatives are to blame for the events of that day. In fact, Democrats have already done just thatasserting last year that President Trump was unmistakably responsible for the violence and even calling Republicans traitors for their Electoral College objections. Never mind the fact that Democrats made the very same objections to every Republican president in this century, or that Democrats spent most of 2020 condoning left-wing violent riots across the country.

The committees real goal, and what it hopes to achieve with its unprecedented subpoenas and its bright-light hearings, is a repudiation of conservatism and all those who hold conservative values. Democrats want to use the violence ofJan. 6to stigmatize conservative voices and delegitimize conservative ideals. Theyve even talkedcondescendingly, of courseabout treating conservatives as cult members who need to be deprogrammed.

Theres long been an arrogance among those on the left that has compelled them to try to delegitimize conservatives. President Obama famously predicted the grassroots Tea Party fever would break following his 2012 re-election. Four years later, Hillary Clinton infamously dismissed millions of Americans as deplorables who were hopelessly misguided and irredeemable.

But in the wake ofJan. 6, Democrats are amplifying their attacks against conservatives.

You hold a sincere belief that state election integrity measures help to make elections more accurate and more secure? Democrats call you a racist. And President Biden says youre part of Jim Crow 2.0 and as bad as 1960s segregationist Bull Connor.

You exercise your right to speak up at a school board meeting to say that boys shouldnt be allowed to use the girls restroom in elementary school? Democrats say youre transphobic, and you may even get a visit from President Bidens FBI.

These attacks are intentional. Their design is to make you feel embarrassed and ostracized. And it goes hand in hand with the lefts Orwellian effort to tell you what to think.

The Biden White House has called on Big Tech companies to fight disinformation, and the Department of Homeland Security stood up a so-called Disinformation Board for the same purpose. Of course, the disinformation only runs one way, and always against conservatives. Prominent Democrat politicians have posted demonstrably false information online and there is no broad outcry to take it down. But when a conservative voices an opinion that conflicts with the lefts woke ideology, her account is shut down unless and until she bends a knee to the left.

Each of these heavy-handed tactics, including the Select Committee subpoenas and hearings, has at its core the same goal: delegitimize conservative views so that they dont need to be debated or even addressed in polite society.

Todays Democrat Party is a party of coastal elites who believe they are smarter and more enlightened than their fellow Americans. They set up fact-checkers and disinformation boards because they think Americans are too stupid or too busy to make up their own minds. And when their radical, top-down policies still prove to be unpopular, they move to delegitimize dissenting ideas.

That is why the Select Committee will spend dozens of hours of prime-time television coverage to lecture Americans about an event they saw for themselves less than 18 months ago. That is why the Select Committee is targeting their Republican colleagues with ridiculous charges of insurrection and treason. Make no mistake, the violence ofJan. 6was as wrong as wrong can be. But Americans watching the hearings should have no illusions about the Democrats true objectives.

Mr. Jordan is the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee.

Original post:

J6 Probe's True Goal Is Slandering The Right Out Of The Public Sphere - The Federalist

At the same time Congressional Democrats host televised Jan. 6 witch hunt show trials, leftists are turning a blind eye to political violence and destruction that far-left representatives and senators have repeatedly begged for.

A 26-year-old California man armed with a pistol and other tactical weapons was arrested on Wednesday for attempting to murder U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home. The man, Nicholas Roske, confessed to detectives that he was inspired to violence after learning from the infamous Dobbs v. Jackson opinion leak that the high court might overturn Roe v. Wade.

A plan to assassinate Kavanaugh and the dozens of assaults on pro-life centers around the country should have sparked countless coverage from the corporate media, who have pegged domestic terrorism as the greatest threat to our democracy, as well as endless condemnations from politicians on both sides of the aisle. Yet, the left was largely silent.

Instead, the same party that blamed Sarah Palin and a map released from her PAC for a deadly shooting in Arizona absolved itself of any blame it could shoulder for an attack on a justice.

When Justice Samuel Alitos draft Dobbs opinion was prematurely leaked, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand,Elizabeth Warren,Ron Wyden,Tammy Duckworth, andReps. Eric Swalwell,Cori Bush,Ayanna Pressley,Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, andTim Ryan all used incendiary language to encourage Americans to reject any SCOTUS decision that hurt their abortion agenda.

That was after politicians such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had already threatened Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch.

You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You wont know what hit you, Schumer said in 2020.

The White House finally issued a vanilla statement about the Kavanaugh assassination attempt on behalf of the president on Wednesday.

President Biden condemns the actionsof this individual in the strongest terms, and is grateful to law enforcement for quickly taking him into custody, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates told The Daily Wire.

That statement, however, doesnt square with Bidens comments later Wednesday night. Instead of condemning the attempted murder of Kavanaugh, Biden joked about sending his political enemies to jail and threatened that the Supreme Courts potential decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will cause a mini-revolution.

On Thursday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who is stalling legislation designed to protect SCOTUS justices while she and her cronies focus on political prosecution regarding Jan. 6, 2021, added to Bidens nonchalance by claiming that the justices are protected.

Nobody is in danger over the weekend because of our not having a bill, she told reporters.

This isnt the first time Democrats and their corrupt corporate media cronies have blown off inconvenient political violence and this likely wont be their last.

When rioters and arsonists laid siege to the nations major cities during the summer of 2020, Democrats and the press cheered them on and bailed them out. The riots that caused billions of dollars in damages were labeled by the propaganda press as fiery but mostly peaceful.

When leftists stormed the Supreme Court to protest Kavanaughs confirmation, they were heralded by the same outlet that pushed lies fueling the justices confirmation battle and Democrats who were upset that Trump had another SCOTUS nominee. The same reaction occurred when climate protesters occupied a federal building.

If you disagree with Democrats, youre an insurrectionist. But if youre a Democrat actually inciting violence like Maxine Waters did, of course, you get away with it. If you make an attempt on a Supreme Court justices life because a bunch of leftists told you to fight back, it is somehow still Republicans fault.

Democrats only condemn and exploit political violence when it is convenient for them. Unless their political enemies can somehow be blamed, leftists like Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi will keep ignoring political violence and destruction that can clearly be traced back to them.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

View post:

Dems Don't Just Fail To Apologize For Left-Wing Violence, They Incite It - The Federalist

Recently released handwritten notes from a briefing of the acting attorney general on the status of Crossfire Hurricane reveal the FBI either lied about the source of intel or the British intelligence community fed information to the U.S. agents investigating Donald Trump and his associates.

As part of the pre-trial discovery in the governments prosecution of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, the special counsel provided defense lawyers notes taken on March 6, 2017, during a high-level briefing of acting Attorney General Dana Boente about the then-ongoing investigation into supposed Russia collusion.

Boente, who held oversight of the DOJ and FBI related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation because of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessionss recusal, received an update during the meeting from the FBIs then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, then-assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap, and Counterintelligence Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok. DOJ officials Tashina Gauhar, Mary McCord, and Scott Schools took notes during the briefing, and those notes became public during the Sussmann trial that ended in an acquittal last week.

Soon after the release of the notes, Hans Mahncke and Stephen McIntyre detailedfor The Federalist, several passages that indicated the FBI had lied to the DOJ during the March 6, 2017 meeting in numerous ways. From the cryptic notes, Mahncke and McIntyre deciphered and exposed several significant false storylines sold to the acting attorney general, making their article a must-read.

While any lies, misrepresentations, or material omissions matteror should, especially when told to the acting attorney general related to an investigation connected to the president of the United States, the notes references to CROWN reporting prove particularly significant because of the FISA courts insistence that the DOJ included Christopher Steeles background as an MI6 agent in the FISA application prior to the secret surveillance court issuing an order to surveil Carter Page.

The phrase CROWN Reporting appeared multiple times in one set of handwritten notes taken during McCabe, Priestap, and Strzoks March 6, 2017, FBI briefing of the DOJ and Acting Attorney General Boente. Next to CROWN Reporting, the notes referenced convention, Crimea and NATO and soften stance for exchange of Russian energy stocks. These notations fell under the header of points related to Manafort.

A second reference to CROWN source reporting came during the FBIs briefing of Boente concerning the investigation of Carter Page, with the notation following the general discussion of Page.

The notes do not elaborate on the CROWN source or who provided the CROWN source reporting. There are two possibilities, both of which have huge implications for the ongoing special counsel investigation.

First, the claimed CROWN source could be former MI6 spy Steele. To date, Steele remains the only person with a connection to British intelligence publicly known to have provided the FBI with information related to Trump and individuals connected to Trump during the Russia collusion investigation.

But if by CROWN source the FBI meant Steele, the individual briefing Boente lied to him in several ways, did so in a material way, and there is likely a paper trail that can confirm an earlier, similar lie by FBI agents.

While Steele had at one time served in the British intelligence service, his MI6 status ended long ago, when he retired in 2009 to start the private intelligence service Orbis Business Intelligence. Further, as the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (OIG) reported more than two years ago, Steele told the OIG that the source network he used to compile the memoranda, referred to colloquially as the Steele dossier, did not involve sources from his time as an MI6 agent. On the contrary, his sources were developed entirely in the period after he retired from government service.

So not only was Steele not a CROWN source, his supposed intel also lacked any connection to Crown Source Reporting. Accordingly, unless the FBI had a still publicly unknown CROWN source who provided the information on which agents briefed the DOJ during the March 6, 2017 meeting, they lied to the DOJ.

Falsely attributing intel to a CROWN source proves significant, and not merely for Boentes oversight of Crossfire Hurricane, but also for Boentes decision to approve the third application to surveil Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). And the DOJs representation of a connection between Steele and British intelligence in the FISA applications appeared dispositive to the FISA courts decision to authorize surveillance of Page.

Two little-noticed passages, separated by some 50 pages in the OIGs 478-page report on FISA abuse, revealed the importance the FISA court put on Steeles connection to British intelligence in ordering surveillance of Page. According to the OIG, before filing its official FISA application, the DOJ submitted a read copy to the FISA court to obtain feedback from the FISA courts legal advisor on whether the application met the statutory requirements and on any issues of concern raised by the legal advisor or the FISA judge handling the application.

In the first read copy submitted to the FISA court related to Page, the application contained a description of the source network that included the fact that Steele relied upon a Primary Sub-source who used a network of sub-sources, and that neither Steele nor the Primary Sub-source had direct access to the information being reported. The draft application also contained a separate footnote on each sub-source with a brief description of his/her position or access to the information he/she was reporting.

After reviewing the read copy, the FISA courts legal advisor asked how it was that Steele had a network of sub-sources. In response, the governments Office of Intelligence (OI) attorney provided additional information to him regarding Steeles past employment history.

The FISA courts legal advisor then requested that additional information be included in the final application, resulting in the final version of the October 2016 FISA application including a footnote detailing Steeles prior work for British intelligence. The FISA court granted the revised FISA application, ordering surveillance of Page to begin in October 2016. The FISA court renewed the surveillance order three additional times, once in December, again in March, when Boente signed the application, and finally on June 29, 2017, when Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein signed the final FISA application.

All of the applications referenced Steeles past service in British intelligence, but, as noted above, Steeles source network was unrelated to his government work and came entirely from his private work. Given that the FISA courts legal advisor questioned how it was that Steele had a network of sub-sources, and that the advisor directed the OI attorney to expressly include Steeles previous work as an MI6 agent in the application, the FISA court clearly believed Steeles network of sources came from his time as a British agent.

Further, given the significance the FISA court placed on that fact, it seems likely the FISA court would have denied the surveillance order had it been told the truththat Steeles network of sources had been privately acquired.

The FBIs representation during the March 6, 2017 meeting that the supposed intel related to Manafort and Page came from CROWN sources,again, assuming the agent meant Steelesuggests the Crossfire Hurricane team deceived the DOJ from the beginning, resulting in the OI attorney representing to the FISA court that Steeles network of sources were sources used by British intelligence. That deception also likely affected Boentes decision to sign the second renewal application.

While these events occurred more than five years ago, and a five-year statute of limitations governs false statement offenses, the D.C. Circuit has held that if a defendant engages in a scheme to falisf[y], conceal[], or cover[]up material facts, the limitations period does not begin to run until the scheme ends.

In this case, then, any FBI agents involved in concealing from the DOJ during the final preparation and review of the June 29, 2017, FISA application that Steeles sources were not CROWN sources or connected to his work in British intelligence could still face criminal liability.

Further, while the Sussmann trial proved memories failsometimes convenientlyuncovering the individuals responsible for representing Steeles source network as connected to his past life as an MI6 agent seems a relatively straightforward venture given what we learned from the special counsels conviction of Kevin Clinesmith.

Clinesmith pleaded guilty nearly two years ago to altering an email related to Page to make it appear that Page was not a source for the CIA. Clinesmiths undoing came from the fact that in preparing the FISA application and renewals, the various government actors used email to confirm details, including with Clinesmith.

The OIG report on FISA abuse detailed that process, noting there were many back-and-forth exchange[s] between the OI Attorney and the FBI, during which the OI Attorney asked many questions about Page, as well as about Steeles reporting and the structure and access of his source network. To further address reliability, the OI Attorney sought information from the FBI to describe the source network in the FISA application, according to the OIG report. And that information-gathering process included email exchanges and written summaries of briefings.

Either that briefing left the OI attorney with the impression that Steeles source network came from his MI6 work, or after the FISA court legal advisor asked, how it was that Steele had a network of sub-sources, the OI attorney pushed the FBI for more information. If the latter, emails likely memorialize the exchanges.

Whether the FBI agents affirmatively misrepresented Steeles source network as connected to his British intelligence work in their communiques with the OI attorney, and in turn the OI attorney relayed that information to the FISA court, is unknown to us, but hopefully not to Special Counsel Durham.

Even if no one lied to the OI attorney and he merely assumed Steeles source network carried over from his time with MI6, a misrepresentation to Boente during the March 6, 2017, briefing that Steele was a CROWN source still matters because the FISA surveillance orders were renewed two more times after that meeting.

That, of course, is assuming the FBI meant Steele when they referenced a CROWN sourcesomething not entirely clear. More on that shortly.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist's senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prizethe law schools highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Originally posted here:

Why Handwritten FBI Notes The Special Counsel Just Released Are Huge - The Federalist

A spate of news articles came out in recent days hilariously attempting to do two things for Joe Biden. The first is to paint his dumpster presidency as though hes a victim of circumstance rather than the rotting root of all of our nations woes.

Politicos version on Sunday went like this: President Joe Biden and his aides have grown increasingly frustrated by their inability to turn the tide against a cascade of challenges threatening to overwhelm the administration. The story also declared that, In crisis after crisis, the White House has found itself either limited or helpless in its efforts to combat the forces pummeling them

Similarly, an online article by NBC News last week said Biden is Faced with a worseningpolitical predicament. Biden is not faced with a predicament and there is not a cascade of challenged thats threatening his administration. Biden is the predicament. He is the challenge.

Its not a matter of chance that the southern border continues to be crushed by all of Latin Americas destitute. Its because Biden and his trusty sidekick Kamala Harris allow it. They invite it.

There were 234,000 illegal border crossings in April, the latest month for which government data is available. Thats more than any other month of Bidens presidency. Its 55,000 more than April of the previous year and its more than triple the amount of crossing that took place in the final month of Donald Trumps presidency.

Watching those numbers climb, Bidens team decided it was as good a time as any to lift the Covid rule that allowed for the expedited expulsion of illegal migrants.

Its by no sad stroke of luck that under Biden the cost of gas has doubled and Americans have to take out a second mortgage to buy a week of groceries. Its the $2 trillion in welfare (sometimes referred to as Covid relief) Biden and Congressional Democrats shoved into an economy that was already at a simmer. Steve Rattner, an economist who worked in the Obama administration, when Biden was vice president, said all of that money would go down in history as an extraordinary policy mistake.

This is the case with all of our biggest problems. Biden isnt faced with them. He created them.

The second thing these news articles do is try to make it look like Biden and his aides are aware of the calamity and are in some way productively strategizing the best ways to address it.

Heres how the Washington Post did it on May 31: President Biden [has] complained for weeks to aides that his administration was not doing enough to publicly explain the fastest price increases in roughly four decades. The story referred to new activity, a flurry of activity, and, a flurry of moves by the White House, which amounted to some officials writing op-eds and appearing on TV news programs.

That Politico piece said the plan is now to put Biden on the road to highlight progress being made.

NBC illustrated how deadly earnest Biden is in noting that hes pressing aides for a more compelling message and a sharper strategy, and mentioned that hes bristling at how theyve tried to stifle the plain-speaking persona that has long been one of his most potent assets.

Dont worry, FOLKS. Biden knows just how bad it is out there for you FOLKS. Hes pressing and bristling, FOLKS.

If it werent for the fact that moms arent able to find baby formula in Bidens barren economy, this would be funny. But thats another one of those real problems Biden faces created.

Hang tight. The White House is about to put Biden on the road.

More:

Joe Biden Is Not A Victim. He Is The Aggressor - The Federalist

Just Tyrus, the new memoir by Fox News commentator Tyrus, details his independent streak that conservatives can learn from, rooted in the commonsense individualism of a biracial, fatherless young man who defeated victimhood and landed high-profile gigs with household brands such as Snoop Dogg and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

William F. Buckleys highbrow, harpsichord-plucking, snobbish, WASPy, country club conservatism is waning. Tyrus rugged, homegrown, free-thinking The Hulk and John Wayne-inspired conservatarianism is rising.

The oldest child of a then-illegal biracial marriage, Tyrus (legally named George Murdoch) tells of horrific domestic violence against him and his white mother by his black father, who attempts to throw a young Tyrus out the window of their cramped, high-rise Boston apartment.

After a California move, a dysfunctional white stepfather bashes out a 13-year-old Tyrus front teeth, inspiring a subsequent vengeance beating by Tyrus, who eventually grew to a dominating 6 feet 8 inches tall and 350 pounds. Beating his stepfather led Tyrus to depart home at age 16, his belongings in a trash bag, sparking years of couch surfing.

During a childhood with no consistent male role models at home, Tyrus felt drawn to masculine, heroic archetypes flashing across TV especially WWE superstars. Social science data suggests Tyrus is an exception: a poor, abused, fatherless child who graduated college and successfully turned his Hollywood fairytales into realities, rather than dropping out of high school or perishing in gangbanging street violence. As rising generations of fatherless, latchkey kids suffer from opioid overdoses and other postmodernism-induced ailments, Tyrus story of triumph is that much more inspiring.

Its painful to read the harrowing obstacles Tyrus faced while suffering from a racist grandfather who couldnt stand his own grandsons skin. He told Tyrus mother she was lucky any white man would have her after she slept with a black man. Tyrus first girlfriend hid him under her bed for five hours after her racist family unexpectedly showed up.

While hes honest about such wrongdoing against him, Tyrus is also honest about his own sins, including using a chair to crush the orbital socket and collarbone of a loving foster mother worried about his soiled playground clothes. Tyrus says that is his biggest life regret. It happened at age 7, and she quickly forgave him. He also details regret about a stint dealing drugs while living in Nebraska pursuing collegiate football.

Tyrus eventually used his daunting physique to land L.A. nightclub bouncer gigs, which turned into bodyguarding for Snoop Dogg. He later details the grueling workouts and mandatory weight loss to fulfill his childhood fantasy of snagging roles in the WWE spotlight.

Its high-concept entertainment built around heroes and villains, he writes, dismissive of those who whine (he doesnt name them, but many establishment pearl-clutching Republicans fit) about WWEs low-brow inauthenticity. The art of simulating combat is revered, especially in Japan. Its considered an art form, in fact. At its heart, thats what professional wrestling is. Not to mention the fact that you have to be in incredible shape to perform at the highest levels that professional wrestling demands.

Tyrus sums up his life: I am or have been a blue-chip, all-American, talented college athlete; a college graduate; a liar, cheater, manipulator; an animal enthusiast; a smart-ass (a personal point of pride); a rude bully; a lost, angry bar cook. Ive been fucked over, hated on, fired, passed over, judged; a target of attempted lynching (but it didnt work out for them); a police brutality survivor; that n-gg-r, a n-gg-r, my n-gg-r [slurs printed in original]. Ive had a gun to my head twice; had my heart broken; had it put back together againbut Ive never been a victim.

Arguably, skepticism of victimhood underpins what Tyrus reported was his most popular Fox News segment: skewering the hypocrisy of Black Lives Matter. While he says hes personally experienced some rare over-policing, hes rightly incensed by people unfairly demonizing police while trying to excuse their actual crimes.

Of course, these BLM sympathizers are abetted by weak district attorneys funded by billionaire George Soros and Vice President Kamala Harris, who elevate criminals over actual victims. Tyrus money line in the Fox segment: If you choose to resist arrest, that doesnt make you Rosa Parks. That makes you a criminal.

This sense that Tyrus rejects victimhood leads him over and over to reinvention beyond a broken home, beyond broken football dreams, beyond political labels. He said he voted for Barack Obama twice, in part for the aspirational nature of the first African-American president. But Tyrus also has warm words for former President Donald Trump.

Trump changed my mind, he affected the way I think, Tyrus writes. I like how important it was for Trump to expose the system for the common man. When he gave speeches and when he dealt with the press, he was very deliberate about putting information out there; for the most part, it gave voters a chance to really understand how ugly the back of the political kitchen was.

A former Never Trumper, Tyruss journey toward respecting the 45th president shouldnt surprise, given Trump was a fixture on the WWE scene. They are both scrappy showmen at heart in a sport rejected by Beltway elites.

One topic Tyrus doesnt touch was the long-running feud between Trump and Tyruss former employer, Snoop Dogg. Snoop made a video with a mock assassination of Trump and later depicted Trumps corpse in a remake of Ice CubesDeath Certificate cover. But Snoop put that behind him after Trump issued a last-minute pardon to Death Row Records co-founder Michael Harry-O Harris, absolving Harris of attempted murder and kidnapping.

I love what they did, Snoop said, according to the New York Post. Let them know that I love what they did. It is amazing what the work of God can actually bring to life to make people understand that there is a God.

Snoops evolution in some ways parallels Tyrus own evolution away from race-infused divisiveness. Just Tyrus is a roadmap for conservatives navigating Americas shifting cultural and racial landscape its a profile of a Big Tent voice the right should welcome.

Read the original:

Tyrus's Memoir Shows How He Defeated Victimhood With Hard Work And Reinvention - The Federalist