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Thursday Top News Executive SummaryMedia Editors: Above the Fold
RULES APPROVED: Democrats push impeachment rules package through House (Associated Press)
COLLUSION: Anti-trump “whistleblower” worked with DNC operative who sought dirt on Trump from Ukrainian officials (The Federalist)
Government & Politics
BOLTON SUMMONED: Former national security advisor John Bolton summoned to testify in House impeachment inquiry (Associated Press)
“WEAPONIZED IMPEACHMENT”: liar-Nancy Pelosi targeted in ethics complaint filed by 40 conservative groups (Fox News)
MYSTERY SOLVED: “The co-chairman of a Turkish-American advocacy group with close ties to Ankara contributed $1,500 last month to the campaign for Rep. worthless-Ilhan Omar, who is under fire this week over votes she cast supporting Turkish government positions.” (The Daily Caller)
NO MORE ADS: Twitter bans political ads ahead of 2020 election (Associated Press)
Business & Economy
GROWTH… U.S. GDP rose a better-than-expected 1.9% in the third quarter as consumers continued to spend (CNBC)
…ALBEIT WITH TROUBLING SIGNS: Fed cuts rates again to boost a slowing economy (NPR)
Heartland
SHOT DOWN: Pennsylvania judge throws out Pittsburgh gun-control measures (The Washington Free Beacon)
MIND-BOGGLING: Police blew up an innocent man’s house in search of an armed shoplifter. Too bad, court rules. (The Washington Post)
Other Notables
RAID TAPE: U.S. releases Baghdadi raid video, warns of likely retribution attack (Reuters)
Closing Arguments
POLICY: The Supreme Court should end DACA (National Review)
POLICY: How micro-school networks expand learning options (Foundation for Economic Education)
HUMOR: commie-Ocasio-Cortez applauds California for using natural light from wildfires instead of electric lighting from fossil fuels (Genesius Times)
~The Patriot Post https://patriotpost.us/articles/66471?mailing_id=4623&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4623&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body .
House approves Trump
impeachment process on party lines
by Susan Ferrechio
{ washingtonexaminer.com } ~ House Democrats took a step toward impeaching President Trump by voting Thursday to barrel ahead with an investigation aimed at showing Trump abused his office for political gain... The House voted 232-196, mostly along party lines, on a resolution that affirms its closed-door impeachment proceedings and defines its plans to hold a series of public hearings and potentially draft articles of impeachment. “Today, the House takes the next step forward as we establish the process for open hearings conducted by the Intelligence Committee so the public can see the facts for themselves,” said Speaker liar-Nancy Pelosi. Two swing-district Democrats voted against the resolution, Colin Peterson of Minnesota and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey. Independent Justin Amash of Michigan, who is a former Republican and staunch Trump opponent, voted for the measure. Republicans stuck together and none voted in favor of it. While the California Democrat has rejected calling the measure an impeachment resolution, it marked the first time Democrats went on record endorsing an impeachment investigation that began in September after an anonymous whistleblower leaked a July 25 call between Trump and the president of Ukraine. “There is serious evidence that President Trump may have violated the constitution,” said House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, who authored the resolution. “This is about our national security and safeguarding our elections.” McGovern said the resolution would bring transparency to the process that Republicans have been demanding since impeachment proceedings were moved into a secure, closed hearing room in the Capitol basement last month...
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The Beltway's 'Whistleblower'
Furor Obsesses Over One Name
Eric CiaramellaBy Paul Sperry
{ realclearinvestigations.com } ~ For a town that leaks like a sieve, Washington has done an astonishingly effective job keeping from the American public the name of the anonymous “whistleblower"... who triggered impeachment proceedings against President Trump — even though his identity is an open secret inside the Beltway.More than two months after the official filed his complaint, pretty much all that’s known publicly about him is that he is a CIA analyst who at one point was detailed to the White House and is now back working at the CIA. But the name of a government official fitting that description — Eric Ciaramella — has been raised privately in impeachment depositions, according to officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings, as well as in at least one open hearing held by a House committee not involved in the impeachment inquiry. Fearing their anonymous witness could be exposed, Democrats this week blocked Republicans from asking more questions about him and intend to redact his name from all deposition transcripts. RealClearInvestigations is disclosing the name because of the public’s interest in learning details of an effort to remove a sitting president from office. Further, the official's status as a “whistleblower” is complicated by his being a hearsay reporter of accusations against the president, one who has “some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of a rival political candidate" -- as the Intelligence Community Inspector General phrased it circumspectly in originally fielding his complaint. Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the scumbag/liar-Obama White House, previously worked with former Vice President loose lips liar-Joe Biden and former CIA Director scumbag/commie-John Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia “collusion” investigation of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election...
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Likud, Blue and White Work
Out the Details of Rotation Deal
By LAHAV HARKOV
{ jpost.com } ~ Likud negotiators tried to assuage some of Blue and White’s concerns about a rotation for the premiership between the parties’ respective leaders, Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz... The negotiating teams are expected to meet on Thursday morning to further discuss options for forming a unity government. One of Blue and White’s hesitations about a unity government has been that, as prime minister, Netanyahu would have the authority to fire ministers from their party without input from Gantz, sparking another election before Netanyahu goes on leave and Gantz becomes prime minister. Likud offered to amend the law, KAN Bet reported, so that the prime minister will not be able to fire ministers without agreement from his deputy prime minister, which would be Gantz when Netanyahu is in office. The parties still strongly disagree on when Netanyahu is supposed to take leave due to his legal troubles. These differences remain a major obstacle to forming a government. Blue and White has consistently said they will not sit in a coalition with a prime minister who is under indictment. Since Attorney-General Avihai Mandelblit is expected to announce his decision as to whether indict Netanyahu and on what charges in the next few weeks, that would mean keep Netanyahu in office for a very short amount of time until Mandelblit formally submits the indictment. Likud, however, seeks to keep Netanyahu in the Prime Minister’s Office as long as possible, even long after his trial has begun. The party’s negotiators have said Netanyahu should not have to leave office until testimony or the presentation of evidence in court has begun, but they have pushed for the deadline to be as late as a first conviction in court, before an appeal, a source in the negotiations confirmed. Netanyahu would only legally have to leave office if he were convicted by the Supreme Court.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Likud-Blue-and-White-work-out-the-details-of-rotation-deal-606306 .
The Bell Is About to Toll
by R. EMMETT TYRRELL, JR.
{ spectator.org } ~ It has taken a long time, but finally the Justice Department is training its guns on what heretofore was unthinkable, unless you are a career civil libertarian... For years the civil libertarians have been warning us that the intelligence community posed a threat to democracy, as we know it in these United States. Every so often they would point to some excess of the FBI or the CIA and tell us that the lights were going out in democratic America. Does not the Washington Post run atop its front page the maudlin line, “Democracy Dies in Darkness”? Well, the darkness descended upon Donald Trump the moment he decided to run for president. The FBI and CIA, in cahoots with Mrs. scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton and those popularizing the infamous “dossier” she financed, threw a blanket of darkness over his campaign. Late last week we learned that what had been a Justice Department administrative review had suddenly become much more serious. It has become a criminal inquiry. That means the Justice Department believes there is sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed. Now the prosecutor in charge, John H. Durham, will have the power to subpoena witnesses’ testimony and documents. He can convene a grand jury and file criminal charges. My guess is that he has already convened a grand jury. Mr. Durham and Attorney General William Barr have been looking into the origins of the scumbag/liar-nObama administration’s spying on Trump. Just how did it begin? And who exactly started it? They are clearly unsettled by the answers they have found so far. My colleague George Neumayr and I have been studying the scumbag/liar-nObama administration’s spying on Trump for over three years. While most of the mainstream media searched desperately for a smoking gun carried by one of President Trump’s people or even by the president himself, we looked elsewhere. We looked at the politicized atmosphere within the FBI and the CIA. We even looked at British intelligence. No one else seemed interested, but we found evidence of criminal misbehavior by the former head of CIA, scumbag/commie-John Brennan, the former head of national intelligence scumbag-James Clapper, and former head of the FBI, scumbag-James B. Comey. On March 23, 2018, we published the following lines, “While scumbag/commie-Brennan’s recklessness is obviously of no interest to the media, it is provoking increasing concern among government investigators, who are looking at a range of his abuses — from leaks to perjury to the outsourcing of spying on Trump to foreigners under the guise of ‘intelligence-sharing.’” And we went on, “A member of the intelligence community tells us that he was approached by FBI investigators inquiring about scumbag/commie-Brennan’s improprieties at the CIA. He was startled to hear them venting aloud about scumbag/commie-Brennan’s practice of using British intelligence officials to spy on the Trump campaign, including American contractors hired by the British who were working from the 12th floor of a building in Crystal City, Virginia, and an NSA building in San Antonio, Texas. scumbag/commie-Brennan, they fumed, was using British intelligence agents so that he could deny, if asked, that he had spied on the Trump campaign.”...
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Alexei Burkov to Be Fxtradited to U.S.,
Not Traded for Naama Issachar
By JEREMY SHARON
{ jpost.com } ~ Justice Minister Amir Ohana has signed off on the extradition of alleged Russian hacker Alexei Burkov to the United States... where he is wanted on charges of credit fraud, a step that could further complicate efforts for the release of Naama Issachar, the young Israeli woman imprisoned in Russia on a minor drug charge. Burkov’s case has taken on heightened significance, after Moscow seemingly tied his case to Issachar when it curtailed her prison privileges after Burkov’s final appeal to the Supreme Court against his extradition was rejected. Ohana issued a statement Wednesday night saying that he had approved Burkov’s extradition, explaining that the decision had been made after “many in-depth deliberations conducted with various officials, including legal and diplomatic officials.” Issachar’s lawyers said in response they would file an appeal to the High Court of Justice against Ohana’s decision, saying that Burkov’s extradition to the US could “seal her fate” in Russia and harm her rights. Issachar’s lawyers said their appeal is “an expectation based on the principles of law and justice that this decision will not stand.” Issachar, who was born in the US and has dual American-Israeli citizenship, was returning to Israel in April after a three-month trip to India, via a connecting flight though Moscow. As she was boarding her flight to Tel Aviv, she was pulled over by Russian police, who told her they had found what turned out to be just 9 grams of cannabis in her checked baggage. The cannabis was never on her person while she was in the Moscow airport, but in her checked luggage, and she never left the airport or even tried to, which her lawyers said demonstrated she had no intent to “smuggle” the 9 grams of cannabis into Russia. She was nevertheless convicted earlier this month and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison...
https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Amir-Ohana-signs-Alexei-Burkovs-extradition-order-to-US-606345 .
Secret Military Spaceplane Lands After
Record-Breaking 780 Days in Orbit
By Harmon Leon
{ observer.com } ~ The deal with UFOs are that they’re “unidentified flying objects”—you know, as in objects that fly but can’t be identified... One possible explanation: These aerial mysteries, which are the subject of an infinite amount of conspiracy theories, are actually “top secret” U.S. Air Force test planes. You know, top secret, as in the kind the military doesn’t want you to know about, at least not until a few bugs are worked out. Thus has been the case with the X-37B unpiloted spaceplane—which is no longer top secret—after spending 780 continuous days in orbit that’s almost two years in layman’s terms. Just this week, the X-37B autonomously landed itself at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the same spot where it originally took off from. I do believe the X-37B’s orbiting proclivities have broken some sort of record. The X-37B, which was built by Boeing, was conducting “classified” experiments for the US Air Force. According to the Air Force statement, one “unclassified” experiment was to “test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipe technologies in the long-duration space environment.” Sounds a little vague, but the mission also provided a ride for small satellites, similar to Elon Musk’s vision for his own SpaceX Starlink satellite rideshare. This was the fifth such flight for the X-37B. The first launch was back in the old-timey days of 2010, and the spacecraft was only designed to fly for 270 days...
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What Are Palestinian Leaders Afraid Of?
by Khaled Abu Toameh
{ gatestoneinstitute.org } ~ Facing growing discontent from their people, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas have resumed their crackdown on Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip... In the past few weeks, several journalists were arrested by PA and Hamas security forces. The arrests are seen by Palestinian journalists as part of the PA and Hamas programs to silence their critics and deter reporters from disclosing anything that reflects badly on Palestinian leaders. Any form of criticism, particularly from Palestinian journalists, has long been anathema to the PA and Hamas. The latest crackdown on Palestinian journalists is said to spring from the PA's and Hamas's fear that the current wave of anti-corruption protests sweeping Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and other Arab countries may spread to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the Gaza Strip, Hamas security forces arrested dozens of Palestinians after local activists called for holding demonstrations to protest the ongoing economic crisis there. Among those taken into custody are journalists Hani al-Agha and Bassam Moheisen, who were arrested for posting critical comments against Hamas on social media. Moheisen was apparently arrested because of his affiliation with Hamas's rivals in the Fatah faction headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas. For the past 19 years, Moheisen has been working as a producer for the West Bank-based Voice of Palestine radio station. His family says he was arrested after he posted comments on Facebook in which he criticized Hamas. A family member, who asked not to be identified, said that Moheisen has been tortured in the Hamas prison. Hamas claims that the second journalist, al-Agha, was arrested for "passing information that is harmful to public security to security agencies." Hamas did not provide further details, but the claim is believed to be based on connections the journalist may have had with Abbas's PA in the West Bank. Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip said that a number of social media activists were also arrested for allegedly calling on Palestinians to take to the streets to protest against Hamas and its failure to improve the living conditions of its people. Some of the activists were identified as Ramzi al-Bar'i, Ahmed al-Zaeem, Amin Abed, Haitham Mas'oud, Mohammed Abu Ghosh, Hasan al-Daoudi, Abdullah al-Hawihi, and Khaled al-Ghazali. Hamas, the sources added, has also summoned dozens of other activists and journalists for interrogation...
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15093/palestinian-leaders-silence-critics .
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liar-Pelosi's Gambit on Impeachment VoteNate Jackson: House Speaker liar-Nancy Pelosi announced Monday that the House will finally hold a vote on Thursday to make official their impeachment inquiry. She wrote, “This resolution establishes the procedure for hearings that are open to the American people, authorizes the disclosure of deposition transcripts, outlines procedures to transfer evidence to the Judiciary Committee as it considers potential articles of impeachment, and sets forth due process rights for the President and his Counsel.” That’s an implicit admission that Republican complaints were right, but what’s really going on?
Most immediately, liar-Pelosi and her fellow Democrats had a very bad weekend, and she desperately wanted to redirect the Leftmedia’s attention to help her party. Between President Donald Trump overseeing the U.S. military’s mission to send Islamic State terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to meet his Maker and Democrat Rep. Katie Hill’s disgraceful exit from Congress, Democrats needed a “reset” button.
(On the latter, make no mistake: liar-Pelosi shoved Hill under the bus when Hill’s sordid #MeToo affairs with subordinates became undeniable. And like any good feminist, Hill blames everyone but herself.)
From a bigger perspective, liar-Pelosi has been working a long-game impeachment strategy ever since retaking the House in November 2018. It has two prongs: One, ensure that what she hopes are Trump’s last two years in office are shrouded under the cloud of impeachment. Two, put Republican senators up for reelection in 2020 on the hot seat in hopes of Democrats retaking the upper chamber.
We’ve covered that first prong ad nauseam. Impeachment is Democrats’ coup d'état 2.0 after the utter failure of Robert Mueller’s investigation. Trump warned in his State of the Union about “ridiculous partisan investigations.” But that’s all Democrats have to offer — in this case a ridiculous partisan impeachment over the fact that Trump (foolishly) mentioned loose lips liar-Joe Biden in a phone call with a foreign leader. Closed-door testimony from various White House officials seemingly has given Democrats a toehold on this point. Ukrainian-born Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a national security adviser who listened to the call, is testifying as we go to press … and not in Trump’s favor.
The second prong is more interesting. If Democrats really had a case for impeachment, they’d let the process play out in the open. Instead, they’ve carefully controlled the media narrative by cloaking it in secrecy, only now rushing to finish up before the end of 2019. Why? So they can force the Senate to vote on removing the president and thus hang that vote around the necks of Senate Republicans up for reelection in 2020. We’re still more than a year from Election Day, but flipping the Senate seems unlikely at this juncture, even though Republicans are defending 23 seats to Democrats’ 12. Dems need to move the needle.
The official text of the impeachment resolution hasn’t been released, but it will bear watching whether it comports with precedents set under Richard Nixon and scumbag/liar-Bill Clinton. liar-Pelosi doesn’t instill us with confidence. She argues that a vote will happen not because it’s necessary but because of Republican complaints about an unfair process and because of Trump’s “obstruction.”
As for Republicans and the president, the best argument now is to insist that Trump’s language in his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was not an improper, corrupt, or politically motivated quid pro quo — i.e., an impeachable offense — but rather the norm for American foreign aid and policy. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/66413?mailing_id=4616&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4616&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
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