Thursday Noon ~ TheFrontPageCover

TheFrontPageCover
~ Featuring ~
liar-nObama Judges Rule Cross Monument Must Go, Showing Elections Do Have Consequences
by Peter Parisi 
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U.S. Electric Grid Vulnerable to Unprecedented Waves of Attack 
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by Adam Kredo
{ freebeacon.com } ~ The U.S. electric grid has become increasingly vulnerable to what the federal government is describing as an unprecedented wave of attacks that threatens to cripple the nation... according to a new investigative report that warns the energy industry is lagging in efforts to boost physical security of these critical sites. Amid a wave of increasing attacks across the country on key power stations, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, or NERC, has been struggling to force the power industry to enact a series of security improvements meant to stop would-be attackers and terrorists from crippling the nation's infrastructure. Since 2014, "security risks to the power grid have become an even greater concern in the electric utility industry," according to a new Congressional Research Service report that warns the power industry "has not necessarily reached the level of physical security needed based on the sector's own assessments of risk."... http://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-electric-grid-vulnerable-unprecedented-waves-attack/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=ec2ae4cb17-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-ec2ae4cb17-45611665
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Rick Gates knowingly worked 
with ex-Russian intel officer during campaign
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by Kelly Cohen
{ washingtonexaminer.com | ~ A former Trump campaign associate knew he was communicating with a former Russian intelligence officer during the 2016 election... In a court filing late Tuesday night, special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors show that Rick Gates — a close associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort — and “Person A” were “directly communicating” in September and October 2016. According to the special counsel, “Person A” has “ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016.” “During his first interview with the Special Counsel’s Office, van der Zwaan admitted that he knew of that connection, stating that Gates told him Person A was a former Russian Intelligence Officer with the GRU,” the Tuesday court filing reveals. The unnamed person had lived in Kiev and Moscow, and worked for one of Manafort’s companies. Other details suggest that person could be Konstantin Kilimnik, who ran Manafort’s consulting office in Kiev for 10 years...   https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/rick-gates-knowingly-worked-with-ex-russian-intel-officer-during-trump-campaign 
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Judge allows emoluments lawsuit against Trump to go forward
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by Kelly Cohen
{ washingtonexaminer.com } ~ A federal judge has denied the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging President Trump has violated the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clause... because of his ties to his Washington hotel. U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte in Maryland ruled the plaintiffs — Washington and Maryland — have standing. The judge limited the case to the Trump International Hotel in Washington only, excluding Trump organization activity outside of the District of Columbia. In his 47-page order, Messittee said the plaintiffs have standing “to challenge the actions of the president with respect to the Trump International Hotel and its appurtenances in Washington, D.C., as well as the Trump Organization with respect to them." The lawsuit was originally brought by the watchdog group Citizens for Ethics with Washington Attorney General Karl Racine and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh. They argue that government officials from foreign governments are going to the Trump Hotel instead of hotels or other properties that would benefit Maryland or D.C. The Justice Department said in court papers filed Monday there is no proof Maryland or Washington are losing customers, and even if they were, that is not a constitutional violation by Trump. Messitte's ruling appears to lean toward siding with the plaintiffs... https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/judge-allows-emoluments-lawsuit-against-trump-to-go-forward 
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Justice Department watchdog 
opens surveillance probe after allegations of abuse
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by Sarah Westwood
{ washingtonexaminer.com } ~ A Justice Department watchdog will soon investigate the process by which investigators obtained a surveillance warrant on a "certain U.S. person"... amid allegations from Republican lawmakers that the FBI relied improperly on campaign opposition research to justify the warrant. The inspector general, who is already probing allegations of political bias in several investigations leading up to the 2016 election, will determine  what the Justice Department knew about the role "an alleged FBI confidential informant" played in providing information about the unnamed surveillance target. Congressional investigators have revealed that the FBI sought a warrant in 2016 to spy on Carter Page, a former adviser to President Trump's campaign, using information that Christopher Steele, a former British spy, had gathered on behalf of a firm on the payroll of liar-Hillary Clinton's campaign. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/justice-department-watchdog-opens-surveillance-probe-after-allegations-of-abuse 
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liar-nObama Judges Rule Cross Monument Must Go, Showing Elections Do Have Consequences
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by Peter Parisi
{ westernjournal.com } ~ When Republican congressional leaders went to the White House on Jan. 23, 2009 — just three days into Barack liar-nObama’s presidency — to discuss legislation, he helpfully reminded them that his policy preferences necessarily had to prevail because “elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.”

liar-nObama is out of office now, but the regrettable consequences of his election remain strewn across the political landscape. Perhaps nowhere is that more consequential than in the makeup of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 4th Circuit handles cases originating from the states of Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

liar-nObama appointed six of the eight judges who, on March 1, refused to reconsider a wrongheaded 2-1 ruling of a 4th Circuit panel last fall. That ruling found the World War I memorial Peace Cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, suddenly “unconstitutional” after more than 90 years without controversy.

Erected with funding from the American Legion and local families in 1925, at what is now the intersection of U.S. Route 1 and Maryland state Route 450, the 40-foot cross features a plaque listing the names of 49 Prince George’s County men who gave their lives in what H.G. Wells dubbed — wrongly, as it turned out — “the war that will end war.”

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission took control of the land on which the memorial sits in 1961 because of its location.

According to the October ruling, the commission’s paying for the upkeep and repairs of the monument “has the primary effect of endorsing religion and excessively entangles the government in religion” — supposedly in violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

That plaque at the base of the memorial also includes the words “valor, endurance, courage, devotion.” But the only thing the secularists at the American Humanist Association which filed the suit is “devoted” to is anti-Christian intolerance.

To the humanists, the decision was “a big win … for the separation of church and state.” Never mind that that’s a phrase and a concept nowhere to be found in the Constitution, the left’s assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.

The vote was 8 to 6 against reconsidering the panel’s ruling, with all six liar-nObama appointees to the 4th Circuit in lockstep along with an appointee of President liar-Bill Clinton and another, shamefully, from President George W. Bush.

Two of the “Gang of Eight” judges, Stephanie D. Thacker and James A. Wynn, also made up the 2-1 majority in the October ruling. Both were put on the bench by liar-Obama, for whom judicial appointments were a key component of his 2008 campaign vow of “fundamentally transforming” America.

Writing for the majority in refusing to rehear the case, Wynn held that the plaque commemorating the local veterans’ sacrifice was insufficient to offset the sectarian religious iconography of the cross itself.

“We cannot allow it to be the final word,” said Hiram Sasser, deputy chief counsel for First Liberty Institute, the Plano, Texas-based nonprofit public interest law firm representing the American Legion, warning of the slippery slope the 4th Circuit’s ruling will create if it’s not repudiated by the Supreme Court.

“If this decision stands, other memorials — including those in nearby Arlington Cemetery — will be targeted as well,” Sasser warned.

In her majority opinion back in October, Thacker dismissed concerns about how this ruling might affect other monuments, noting that size does, in fact, matter.

“The crosses at Arlington National Cemetery are much smaller than the 40-foot-tall monolith at issue here,” she wrote.

In his dissent in October, Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory wrote that the First Amendment “does not require the government ‘to purge from the public sphere’ any reference to religion.”

Gregory, initially nominated by liar-Clinton late in his term and renominated in 2001 by Bush, added he could not agree that a monument honoring veterans “violates the letter or spirit of the very Constitution these heroes died to defend.”

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, called the 4th Circuit’s ruling “an affront to all veterans,” and a spokesman for Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, said his office would file a brief in support of the veterans memorial monument when the case is appealed to the Supreme Court, as it will — and should — be.

A reversal by the justices would send a much-needed shot across the bow of an out-of-control 4th Circuit.

It would also send a clear signal to the neighboring 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, which will be hearing an appeal by Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, of a ruling against its nearly 75-year-old county seal.

The Lehigh County seal, which dates to 1944, includes a cross among a number of other historical symbols. On March 12, the county filed an appeal of a September ruling in favor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is demanding a redesign of the county seal without the cross.

“In this case, neither the longevity of the seal, nor the secular symbols surrounding the cross detract from the religious message that a cross conveys to the reasonable observer,” wrote District Judge Edward Smith in his ruling.

Not surprisingly, Smith is also an liar-nObama appointee, further underscoring the notion that elections have consequences — in this case, adverse consequences.

That’s why conservatives should be grateful it’s President Donald Trump — and not President liar-Hillary Rodham Clinton — who is appointing federal judges these days.

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