Tag: Chuck Grassley

A Sad Story of Sensible Gun Legislation

Kelly D Johnston
Kelly D Johnston
24121263
 

It’s official: House Democrats, acting on a purely partisan basis, are trotting up their poll-tested “best of” legislation to restrict gun ownership. The House Judiciary Committee is holding an “emergency hearing” on Thursday to “mark up” the bills. Any GOP efforts to modify the bills in any way will be rejected. Oldies but goodies, politically speaking.

Are you one of the thousands of teenagers in Pennsylvania who enjoy the opening of hunting season – a school holiday in many parts of the Commonwealth? If you are 19 years old and looking to buy a new .30-06 caliber rifle for that hunting trip – more powerful than the scary-looking AR-15 that is generally unsuitable for large game hunting – the Democrats say no. Even if you pass your background check and just completed basic training for the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. Where you were trained to handle really scary-looking guns. Even grenades.

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Manage Your Expectations, GOP Voters

Kelly D Johnston
Kelly D Johnston
70141407
 

The cake is in the oven and is baking nicely. The cake will serve up a hearty GOP majority in the US House and possibly the US Senate when the election rolls around in almost seven months.

Lots can happen between now and then, of course. But Democrats have shown no proclivity, even interest, in doing anything to soften the coming blow, with weakness abroad, an open southern border, and raging inflation at home “baked in” to voters’ equation. Democrats seem content to lead with their chins. Maybe it’s a “long game” thing, where progressive Democrats think they can purge their non-woke brethren this fall and, while a minority in the 118th Congress, entice voters to pine for their socialist schemes as a harsh and angry GOP majority overplays their “authoritarian” hand.

Perhaps Democrats dream that AOC, who turns the constitutionally required 35 years of age on October 13, 2024, to qualify as President before the Fall election, will ascend from the hearts of Americans to the Capitol’s west front on January 20, 2025. Dr. Jill Biden will guide her doddering husband to their seats to facilitate the transfer of “the football” to the former Brooklyn bartender.

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Truth Finally Gets Its Boots On

Kelly D Johnston
Kelly D Johnston
13104313
 

Conservative fixation – and frustration – with Special Counsel and former US Attorney John Durham may be well placed, but a poorly-reported event this week deserves attention.

As reported by the Washington Examiner, which broke the story, the Federal Election Commission fined the 2016 Hillary Clinton for President campaign and Democratic National Committee for violating reporting requirements for over $1 million in payments to their law firm Perkins Coie. What did the FEC find on a likely unanimous, bipartisan vote (there are six commissioners, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans)? The failure to properly disclose the Clinton campaign’s payments for the discredited “Steele Dossier.”

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Senate Democrats’ Latest Crazy Filibuster Idea

Kelly D Johnston
Kelly D Johnston
19141659
 

While you’ve been busy watching football or digging out of snowstorms, both House and Senate Democrats have been working overtime to find a way of enacting a partisan federal takeover of America’s elections. They are desperate to get a bill to the president’s desk.

And they are almost there. But that last hurdle is a doozy.

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Three Martini Lunch

Grassley Runs Again, U.S. Kids Hostage in Afghanistan, Biden’s Ugly Border Lie

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Hosted by Greg Corombos & Jim Geraghty

Jim and Greg discuss 88-year-old Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley announcing he will run for an eighth term next year and how he is probably the best GOP option to hold the seat. They also highlight the fact that dozens of California school kids are desperately trying to leave Afghanistan and the Biden administration and the media pretend it’s not even happening. And they hammer Biden for promoting the despicable lie that border patrol officers on horseback were whipping Haitian migrants.

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Media Musings: Mark This

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
55
 

How hard is this reporting stuff? Is it too much to ask people who are paid to publish to get basic reporting right? Could they perhaps take a moment to think through the logic of documents, on their face, before and after drafting a news or analysis piece? Not that I have any strong opinions on the subject, but pardon me while I rant a bit about a Federalist article … and poor Senate Republican staff work.

The context is an excellent post by Scott Johnson at PowerLine “Dear AG Barr: Declassify This.” In that post, you will see a cover letter from Republican Senators to Attorney General Barr. This embedded copy is properly marked for it to be on an unclassified network. You may safely download a copy without imposing a serious burden on yourself and any network administrator. This is in marked contrast to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. And, briefly, The Federalist.

The Federalist crew originally cut and pasted or embedded the Senate document, compounding the error by Senate staffers. Now the Federalist has cleaned up its site, removing the embedded document. Good on them. Shame on the Senate staff, who have not corrected the error. What error? The cover letter is, by itself, unclassified and publicly releasable. However, it was the cover letter to a highly classified enclosure, made so by the level of classification asserted by the DOJ IG for four footnotes. Therefore, default classification for the cover letter is the same as the enclosure, same as the footnotes. Those classication markings go at the top and bottom of every page. The “unclassified” markings go inside, nearer to the body of the page.

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The Kavanaugh Report: Never Forget

tigerlily
tigerlily
4016
 

Monday, November 5, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released a 414-page report (a 28-page report with 386 pages of appendices) regarding the Judiciary Committee’s investigations of various 11th-hour allegations against now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings. It is the most comprehensive single document regarding the various allegations and the actual investigations undertaken and facts found by the Committee for each issue.

In addition to the Blasey-Ford allegations, the report includes the steps taken and all the information the Committee obtained regarding the Deborah Ramirez/Yale allegations, the Swetnick/Avenatti allegations, the Jane Doe allegations, and one or two others. For each and every one of these allegations, the Committee found “…no verifiable evidence to support…” the allegation. The report notes that criminal referrals to the Department of Justice have been made by the Committee regarding Swetnick/Avenatti and Jane Doe, and that the Committee is continuing to investigate others, such as Blasey-Ford’s long-time friend and former FBI agent Monica McLean, for possible criminal violations.

This issue is not over for the Left and should not be over for conservatives and Republicans. Thankfully, it appears that Chairman Grassley is continuing to investigate the Kavanaugh accusers in the hope that this sort of smear job will not be repeated. In addition, I hope that there are investigative reporters currently looking into Blasey-Ford to find the truth of who she is and why she attempted her smear of Justice Kavanaugh.

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Senator Collins: Lioness of the Senate

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
8429
 

Senator Susan Collins stood forth on the Senate floor; today she was our Deborah. Senator Lamar Alexander, following her, praised her speech as one for the ages, linked to Senator Margaret Smith. Majority Leader McConnell then said he had been a young staffer when Senator Margaret Smith was the first to denounce McCarthyism. Senator Collins’s speech is important, not only for guaranteeing Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation, but also for marking off the bounds of decency — as her state’s first female Senator did over a generation ago.

Two weeks ago, I wrote “Senator Collins has been a true stateswoman in the Kavanaugh hearings.” A week ago, I observed:

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Three Martini Lunch

GOP Voters Energized, FBI Finds Nothing New, Coons Downplays Dem Letter

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Hosted by Greg Corombos & Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America savor four pieces of good news Thursday.  First, they are encouraged by a new poll showing the the Kavanaugh fight has Republican voters fired up, erasing a big enthusiasm edge for Democrats just a month before the midterm elections.  They also welcome statements from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and other senators that there is nothing in the new FBI report to corroborate the eleventh hour accusations against Judge Kavanaugh and they also get a kick out of Democrats suddenly denouncing the FBI because of it.  They applaud Sen. Chris Coons for explaining that Democrats have nothing new on Kavanaugh despite suggesting otherwise on Wednesday.  And they applaud the Capitol Police for arresting the person apparently responsible for publicizing the personal information of three Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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Three Martini Lunch

Grassley Getting Fed Up, Flip-Flop Flake, Corroboration Games

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Hosted by Greg Corombos & Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley for not humoring scurrilous accusations against Brett Kavanaugh and for demanding Dr. Ford turn over the evidence she claims will back up her allegations.  They also shake their heads as Sen. Jeff Flake suggests Kavanaugh’s demeanor towards committee Democrats is not something that belongs on the Supreme Court, making them wonder whether Republicans really have the votes for confirmation.  And they throw up their hands at how both sides react to Ford’s former boyfriend stating under oath that she helped a friend prepare for a polygraph examination, which would contradict her sworn testimony.  Some conservatives are treating the allegation as fact while liberals are suddenly horrified by the prospect of reporting uncorroborated accusations.

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Member Post

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
159
 

How is it that the memorandum, written by Rachel Mitchell, was leaked, in its entirety, to the Washington Post? Why do we not see it on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s (SJC) web pages, where most other documents are found? Surely the Republican staff would want to get the memo scanned to Fox News, […]
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Flake and the Great Big Ugly Man

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
1813
 

As I was standing in the street,
As quiet as could be,
A great big ugly man came up,
And tied his horse to me.

As I watched Sen. Flake over the past two weeks, this bit of children’s nonsense verse kept coming to mind. Sen. Flake is the poor innocent fellow who was standing in the road back in 2016, when a Great Big Ugly Man came up and tied his horse to him. Since then, Flake just hasn’t been himself, or at least not his best self, or at least not the best self he would have us see.

Having declined to defend his seat, submitting himself to the judgment of his party’s voters, in his state, Sen. Flake needed a new purpose. His mentor, the man whose political career he had hoped to emulate, left public view in a blaze of hate-fueled spite. We all remember the gleeful thumbs up as Sen. McCain broke his own word and his party’s decade-old pledge to repeal Obamacare.

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Three Martini Lunch

Grassley’s Format Flop, Doppelganger Confessions, Kamala’s Reckless Stunt

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Hosted by Greg Corombos & Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America growl in frustration as the questioning of Dr. Christine Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh is chopped up into five minute chunks for each party, preventing any sort of flow to the GOP’s line of questioning. While some on the right want it to be true, Jim and Greg are skeptical of reports that two men have come forward to the Senate Judiciary Committee suspecting Dr. Ford might be remembering something they did to her. And they fume as California Sen. Kamala Harris forwards an anonymous accusation against Brett Kavanaugh containing virtually no details to the FBI for further scrutiny, leading Jim to suggest the FBI give lawmakers some clues about what they need to conduct an investigation.

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Who Will Be the American Margaret Thatcher? Who Will Be Our Deborah? [Updated]

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
4317
 

Deborah portrayed in Gustave Doré’s illustrations for La Grande Bible de Tours (1865)

Too many Republican “men” of the Senate are passively complicit in the Kavanaugh smear (Clarence Thomas smear, part II), or cowering in vision-distorting fear. Senator Collins was praiseworthy early last week, as was Senator Grassley. Time, however, has exposed the danger of their failure to stand strongly for justice, and for protecting the seriousness of real cases of sexual violence. Senator Collins has it right, that women must lead in this matter. So let one or a group of the Republican Senators who are women, or a great, aspiring stateswoman, like Congresswoman Martha McSally, take inspiration from Deborah, and stand forth!

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Member Post

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
511
 

Sadly, Senator Grassley is going all wobbly in public, tweeting half-apologies to Judge Kavanaugh, while pathetically tweeting that (by his own actions) he was being made to look “second trombone” to the Senate Minority Leader. It strikes me that this is all due to his and “Leader” McConnell’s, self-created, weak hand with the two abortion […]
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Yes, *And* — “Kavanaugh” from Knife Fight to Cold War?

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
2214
 

Much has been written about the Kavanaugh brawl, some of it quite good. Reading these pieces, I keep coming to yes, and. It has been asserted that this has nothing to do with Kavanaugh. Dr. Bastiat writes:

My point is that this really is not about Mr. Kavanaugh – he’s just collateral damage. It’s a shame somebody had to be destroyed, but as long as he’s conservative, it’s not too much of a shame.

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Chairman Grassley Slams Door on Further Delay Tactics in Kavanaugh Brawl

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
3516
 

Chairman Grassley followed up his scorching letter to the Democrats, with a letter to Ranking Member Senator Feinstein, setting 10 AM, September 21, as the deadline for Dr. Ford to agree to be interviewed or testify on Monday. He was very flexible in how and where the appearance would take place. He was completely firm on not letting the process drag on any longer.

The letter setting the witness response deadline was published with another scathing press release, denouncing Feinstein’s continued concealment of the original, unredacted, letter that made the sexual assault allegations: “Ranking Member Refuses to Disclose Secret Allegations Even After Dr. Ford Goes Public.”

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Chairman’s Letter Breathes Fire Against Democrats’ Delaying Tactics on Kavanaugh

Jon Gabriel, Ed.
Jon Gabriel, Ed.
1920
 

Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, wrote a scorching letter Wednesday to committee Democrats concerning their handling of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.

Since many of the impartial firefighters in the DC press corps are only providing a few quotes in their effort to oppose Kavanaugh, I have reprinted the entire text below. In addition, I bolded several stand-out passages in which Grassley clarifies the misperceptions on the issue.

September 19, 2018

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Member Post

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
36
 

We are relearning the danger of law enforcement and spy agencies using “secret” labels and special courts to shield their domestic political collusion and attempted manipulation of both elections and policy-making. At the same time, we would do well to relearn healthy skepticism about secrecy-shrouded military procurement, especially as the pork barrel is rolling again […]
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Three Martini Lunch

Sunlight for New Russia Scandal, Unmasking Mess Gets Worse, ‘Fake Melania’

22
Hosted by Greg Corombos & Jim Geraghty

As they celebrate seven years of the Three Martini Lunch, Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America also applaud Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley for requesting testimony from the FBI informant behind the explosive reports of Russians engaging in bribes, kickbacks, and Clinton Foundation donations in order to get Hillary Clinton’s help in steering 20 percent of U.S. uranium to Russia.  They also wonder just how deep the unmasking scandal goes, as former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power says she had nothing to do with the vast majority of the 260 unmasking requests done in her name.  And they have fun with the absurd but viral contention among liberals on social media that someone else was pretending to be First Lady Melania Trump during a recent appearance with the president.

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