“LEFT JAB AND RIGHT JAB” JUNE 14, 2019

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“LEFT JAB AND RIGHT JAB”

“Right Jab And Left Jab” was created because we have two commenters that post on a daily basis either in our “IS IT TRUE” or “Readers Forum” columns concerning National or International issues.
Joe Biden and Ronald Reagan’s comments are mostly about issues of national interest.  The majority of our “IS IT TRUE” columns are about local or state issues, so we have decided to give Mr. Biden and Mr. Reagan exclusive access to our newly created “LEFT JAB and RIGHT JAB”  column. They now have this post to exclusively discuss national or world issues that they feel passionate about.
We shall be posting the “LEFT JAB” AND “RIGHT JAB” several times a week.  Oh, “Left Jab” is a liberal view and the “Right Jab is representative of the more conservative views. Also, any reader who would like to react to the written comments of the two gentlemen is free to do so.

FOOTNOTE: Any comments posted in this column do not represent the views or opinions of the City-County Observer or our advertisers.

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17 COMMENTS

  2. Karma is coming for the crooked swamp dwellers:
    ……………………………………………………………………

    Meadows: A Lot of Whistleblowers Have Come Forward Since Barr, Durham Began Their Investigation – ‘Indictments Are on Their Way’ (VIDEO)

    Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC) told Sean Hannity Wednesday night that tons of Spyagate whistleblowers are now coming forward because they believe Attorney General Bill Barr US Attorney John Durham are actually working to bring justice.

    Meadow said that these whistleblowers were too afraid to come forward under the DOJ leadership of Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein.

    “Sean, we’re getting a lot of whistleblowers, primarily the whistleblowers are coming forward because they believe Attorney General Bill Barr and John Durham are willing to get to the bottom of it,” the Freedom Caucus chairman said. “People that were perhaps afraid under previous leadership to actually say that ‘well we knew this was wrong’ — they’re coming forward now…”

    Meadows said that the FBI was aware that Hillary’s cronies and the DNC were shopping the phony dossier to the media prior to the first FISA warrant on Carter Page and the bureau still used it as ‘credible’ information to get a FISA warrant.

    “People need to go to jail. People need to be held accountable and I believe indictments are on their way,” Meadows said.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/06/meadows-a-lot-of-whistleblowers-have-come-forward-since-barr-durham-began-their-investigation-indictments-are-on-their-way-video/

  3. The lunacy of the far left:
    …………………………………

    Liberal Governor Grisham Who Mocked Trump, Declared ‘No Crisis’ at Southern Border — Now Sues Trump for ‘Crisis’ at Southern Border

    This would be hilarious if It weren’t so serious. Michelle Grisham, the alleged governor of New Mexico, earlier removed all of her National Guard troops from protecting the border. She accused President Trump of fabricating the border crises. Now, her state is being overrun with drugs and illegal aliens, and she plans to sue Trump for it. …

    Earlier this year, far left New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham withdrew 118 National Guard troops from New Mexico’s southern boundary.

    Governor Grisham called President Trump’s policies a “charade of border fear-mongering.”
    Governor Grisham even released a statement in February mocking Trump and insisting there was no crisis, saying, “There exists no national security crisis on the southwestern border.”…

    Shortly after the New Mexico governor’s statements and actions, the New Mexico border was overrun by the drug cartels and illegal aliens. This came after the governor’s brilliant plan to remove troops from the border….

    Now Governor Michelle Grisham is frantically tweeting on “the crisis” at the border — And she’s blaming Trump!

    https://davidharrisjr.com/politics/liberal-governor-grisham-who-mocked-trump-declared-no-crisis-at-southern-border-now-sues-trump-for-crisis-at-southern-border/

    • New trend in the ultra liberal city of Boulder Colorado.

      BOULDER, Colo. (CBS Local) — A small group of people in Colorado are drinking their own urine, insisting the practice has demonstrative health benefits. But the experts remain unconvinced.

      The Urine Therapy of Colorado meetup group hosts monthly gatherings at the public library in Boulder for people to explore, learn about and support others drinking urine or using it as a topical treatment….

      https://detroit.cbslocal.com/2019/06/13/this-works-group-says-drinking-your-own-pee-good-for-you/

    • This comment by a liberal runner is just about as smart as New Mexico Gov. Grisham:
      ……………………………………………………

      Male Runner Who Won Women’s NCAA Championship Says Female Runners Actually Have The Advantage

      The male track athlete who won an NCAA women’s national championship denies having an unfair advantage over female runners.

      “If anything, me competing against cisgender females is a disadvantage because my body is going through so many medical implications, like it’s going through biochemistry changes,” Franklin Pierce University runner CeCe Telfer told ESPN’s “Outside The Lines” in a feature that aired Thursday.

      “So being on hormone replacement therapy, your muscle depletion, your muscle is deteriorating, you lose a lot of strength because testosterone is where you get your strength and agility and all that athletic stuff, so I have to work twice as hard to keep that strength,” Telfer said in the interview. “And if I slack a day that’s like three days set behind.”

      Telfer, a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman, won the NCAA DII women’s 400-meter hurdles championship last month, besting the second place finisher by more than a second.

      https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/14/cece-telfer-interview-ncaa-transgender/

  4. The Latest Horror Spewing From Trump’s Mouth Should Not Shock Anyone — His Criminality Is NOT Hypothetical

    Americans need a new word for news that is both shocking and somehow also not shocking at all. That’s the best way to deal with the daily churn of horrors emanating from the Trump White House. Wednesday evening’s installment came in the form of an admission from President Trump that he would accept damaging information on a political opponent from a foreign government, one like, say, Norway.

    This admission came after ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Trump whether he’d he would entertain receiving such dirt in such circumstances. Stephanopoulos was explicitly asking about Russia, not Norway, but because he failed to note that the Russian efforts to influence the 2016 campaign involved criminal hacking, Trump was able to spin it as if he and George were just having a friendly chat about “oppo research,” as opposed to criminal conspiracy.

    Trump’s admission is being treated as a Very Big Deal, since it’s a move away from the “no collusion” talking point towards the “collusion isn’t wrong” argument that Trump’s team has flirted with in the past. But, for that tiny minority of people who actually bothered to read special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s report on the Russian campaign interference, it’s incredibly frustrating to see this issue discussed as a hypothetical. The report makes clear not just that Trump accepted such information, but that he and his campaign eagerly sought it out.

    In the report that so few people, even journalists, have bothered to read, Mueller explicitly writes that “the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts” and Mueller also details a number of instances when the Trump campaign took concrete steps to engage in what they knew was a criminal conspiracy to steal documents from Democratic officials and from Hillary Clinton herself.

    In July 2016, Trump explicitly asked on camera for Russia to “find the 30,000 emails” of Clinton’s that right-wing conspiracy theorists had obsessed over. Shortly after that, as Mueller painstakingly details, “Trump asked individuals affiliated with his Campaign to find the deleted Clinton emails” and “made this request repeatedly.” The campaign then drafted a plan to reach out to people who “have access through liaison work with various foreign services” — Russia being the main target — but Mueller couldn’t find evidence that they were successful.

    And of course there’s the infamous Trump Tower meeting in June 2016, which was arranged after a group of Russians with connections to President Vladimir Putin reached out to Donald Trump Jr. on with promises of “information that would incriminate Hillary Clinton.” A few hours later, Trump himself publicly declared that he would soon be revealing Clinton’s “corrupt dealings” with Russia. That supposed reveal never came. In what we’re told is a remarkable coincidence, it turns out the Russians were probably lying about having such information.

    The recitation of these well-worn details is clearly necessary to remind Americans that Trump’s willingness to engage in a criminal conspiracy involving foreign governments is not a hypothetical scenario for 2020, but a known and demonstrable truth gleaned from publicly established facts. Mueller wasn’t able to prove that there was any consummation of the conspiracy between Trump and the Russian government. The known and visible efforts to make a criminal deal with the Russians fell flat and, more than likely, the extensive obstruction of justice after the fact obscured more information about the conspiratorial campaign.

    Trump’s efforts to bamboozle the public about this are working far better than they should. This is evident even in the interview with Stephanopoulos, during which Trump frames the issue of foreign help as “oppo research” instead of what actually happened, which was criminal theft of private information.

    To be fair, Stephanopoulos came pretty close to reminding Trump — and ABC’s viewers — of that fact. Stephanopoulos asked Trump whether he would go to the FBI if a foreign government reached out with information. The president tried to play that off, as if it were a a ridiculous thing to ask anyone to do. Stephanopoulos then reminded Trump that when Al Gore’s 2000 campaign was given information stolen from the George W. Bush campaign, Gore’s staff did, in fact, call the FBI.

    “Well, that’s different, a stolen briefing book,” Trump replies. “This isn’t a — this is somebody that said we have information on your opponent.”

    Except that the “oppo research” in question was, in fact, stolen. As the Mueller report makes quite clear, the Trump campaign knew that it was stolen and, both before the cameras and behind the scenes, urged the Russian government to do more stealing on their behalf. The Mueller report also makes clear that the campaign was in communication with WikiLeaks on the regular, coordinating strategy around leaking and publishing the documents.

    Which is no doubt why Trump cut himself off right before telling a giant, honking lie about how this case has nothing to do with stolen information.

    There is no need for hypotheticals here. Unfortunately, by framing it that way, Stephanopoulos made it easier for Trump and his propaganda forces at Fox News to spin this entire situation as if Trump were being targeted for behaving the same way everyone else in politics does.

    Sean Hannity, for instance, tried to compare Trump’s campaign behavior to the Hillary Clinton campaign purchasing opposition research from a British investigator Christopher Steele. But Steele wasn’t working for a foreign government and, more critically, he did not obtain the information illegally.

    “Fox & Friends” dug into the idea that this is all a question of “hypothetically” entertaining “oppo research floating around Washington, D.C.,” echoing Trump’s notion that the hypothetical country in this hypothetical scenario is Norway.

    It cannot be stated strongly or (apparently) repetitiously enough that there is nothing hypothetical about this. Robert Mueller reports in considerable detail that Trump not only “would” accept stolen information provided by a foreign government, but that Trump and his campaign repeatedly tried to make that happen.

    Obviously, the reason that Trump’s statement is big news is because it’s a major detour from his repeated insistence that there was “no collusion” line. But Trump’s constantly shifting lies are less important than the actual facts. Those are that Donald Trump repeatedly and shamelessly tried to get the Russian government to break the law on his behalf. The Russians repeatedly did that. And the president has just admitted he’d be perfectly content to see them do it again.

    http://bit.ly/2ZmwAzc

  5. Ah😀HA😀HA😀HA😀HA😀HA😀HA! Twittler Wicked Witch 👺 CONway (and JethroBodine heart💔throb💔) has the feds come down on her. Enclosed are the reports recommendation

    MS. CONWAY’S CONDUCT WARRANTS HER REMOVAL

    In light of her knowledge of the Hatch Act’s prohibitions and the fact that just last year OSC sent a disciplinary action referral to the President for similar violations, Ms. Conway’s decision to continue using her media outreach to attack Democratic Party candidates is unacceptable. Ms. Conway’s continued promotion of her partisan political views during official media appearances in April and May 2019 is especially troubling given that OSC advised the Office of White House Counsel that her activity was in violation of the Hatch Act on several occasions in March of this year

    Likewise, Ms. Conway continued to use her Twitter account in violation of the law despite OSC’s explicit warnings and instructions in December 2018 and April 2019 that she cease doing so. Although Ms. Conway may promote the President’s agenda and defend the Administration while performing her official duties, she is prohibited from expressing her electoral preferences. Here, after being fully apprised of the Hatch Act’s prohibitions, Ms. Conway continued to campaign for the President and against Democratic candidates while acting in her official capacity

    Ms. Conway’s persistent, notorious, and deliberate Hatch Act violations have created an unprecedented challenge to this office’s ability to enforce the Act, as we are statutorily charged. She has willfully and openly disregarded the law in full public view. As recently as May 29, 2019, Ms. Conway defiantly rejected the Hatch Act’s application to her activities, dismissed OSC’s 2018 findings, and flippantly stated, “Let me know when the jail sentence starts.”50 And she made it clear that she has no plans to cease abusing her official position to influence voters

    Ms. Conway’s conduct undermines public confidence in the Executive branch and compromises the civil service system that the Hatch Act was intended to protect. Her knowing and blatant disregard for the law aggravates the severity of her numerous violations. The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which adjudicates Hatch Act violations, repeatedly has held that removal is the appropriate discipline when employees were warned and/or had substantial knowledge before engaging in prohibited political activity.51 In accordance with MSPB precedent involving similar aggravating factors, OSC respectfully requests Ms. Conway’s removal from federal service

  6. This just gets better and better for JethroBodine and Twittler. Hey sharpie, MAGA this! 😀😀😀😀😀

    Office Of Special Counsel Finds Kellyanne Conway Violated Hatch Act And Recommends Her Removal

    White House counselor Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act on “numerous occasions” and should be removed from the government, a United States federal office announced Thursday

    The recommendation was made by Henry Kerner, head of the Office of Special Counsel, in a letter sent to President Trump recommending she be removed from federal service

    Federal employees are prohibited by the Hatch Act from using their jobs to campaign for or against political candidates. The president and vice president are exempt from the Hatch Act but employees of the White House are not

    The Office of Special Counsel, led by Kerner, whom Trump nominated to the post, is charged with enforcing the Hatch Act and is not connected to now-former special counsel Robert S. Mueller Russia investigation

    Conway, 52, a longtime Republican pollster before joining Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was described as a “repeat offender” by Kerner for disparaging Democratic presidential candidates while speaking in her official capacity during television interviews and on social media

    “Ms. Conway’s violations, if left unpunished, would send a message to all federal employees that they need not abide by the Hatch Act’s restrictions. Her actions thus erode the principal foundation of our democratic system—the rule of law” the letter said.

    When asked about the Hatch Act, she stated, “If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it’s not going to work,” and “Let me know when the jail sentence starts” as the report notes Conway “downplayed the significance of the law as applied to her” during a May 29 interview

    OSC is an independent agency that “protects federal employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices,” according to its website.

    Specific violations listed by Kerner related to Conway’s comments during interviews about several 2020 Democratic candidates. She insinuated Sen. Cory Booker was “sexist” and a “tinny” “motivational speaker” and castigated former Rep. Beto O’Rourke “thinking the women running are good enough to be President” and said Sen. Elizabeth Warren was “lying” about her ethnicity and “appropriating somebody else’s heritage”

    Kerner also detailed her comments about “frontrunners” Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom she referred to as “two old white straight men career politicians” while Conway claimed Biden lacked “vision” and said his announcement video was “very dark and spooky” and criticized his unwillingness to be “held to account for his record” and Conway also said Sanders’ ideas were “terrible for America”

    He determined that Conway used her “@KellyannePolls” account on Twitter to perform her official duties, but also engaged in “significant political activity.” This included her retweeted a March 31 messaged that referred to Biden as “Creepy Uncle Joe”

    https://washex.am/2ZnA4Bq

  7. FEC Chair: It’s ILLEGAL To Accept Election Help From Foreign Governments

    Federal Election Commission Chair Ellen Weintraub offered the reminder one day after Trump said he’d listen to dirt on his 2020 opponents.

    The head of the Federal Election Commission sent out a timely warning to politicians on Thursday, reminding them that it’s illegal to accept information from a foreign national linked to an election in the U.S.

    The notice, posted by FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub, comes one day after Trump told ABC News that he would accept dirt on his opponents in the 2020 election from another country, such as Russia or China.

    Weintraub’s warning was direct: “Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election”

    “This is not a novel concept,” she added.

    The chair posted the memo on Twitter, along with an expression of disbelief.

    “I would not have thought that I needed to say this” she tweeted.

    In a two-day interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Trump said there was nothing wrong with accepting intelligence from foreign entities. He dismissed the act as “oppo research.”

    “I think you might want to listen,” Trump said, when asked what he would do if a foreigner reached out to him with election information. “I think there’s nothing wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said], ‘We have information on your opponent.’ Oh, I think I’d want to hear it.”

    He also suggested that he would only alert the FBI if he “thought there was something wrong.”

    In her memo on Thursday, Weintraub said that “electoral intervention from foreign governments” has been unacceptable for as long as the United States has been a country. Quoting a 1787 letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, Weintraub said the Founding Fathers had already “sounded the alarm about ‘foreign Interference, Intrigue and Influence.’”

    Weintraub didn’t name any politicians or presidents on Thursday but she did warn about the consequences of interacting with a foreign national during an election.

    “Anyone who solicits or accepts foreign assistance risks being on the wrong end of a federal investigation,” she said.

    http://bit.ly/2ZoWOB2

  8. Day 875: The Green Light

    1/ Trump admitted that he’d “want to hear” from foreign governments with damaging information about his political opponents. Trump claimed “there isn’t anything wrong with listening” to a foreign government if they contacted him and said “we have information on your opponent.” Trump also rejected the notion that accepting damaging information from a foreign government would constitute election interference, saying “It’s not an interference, they have information – I think I’d take it.” FBI Director Christopher Wray during congressional testimony last month told lawmakers that “the FBI would want to know about” any foreign election meddling. Trump, however, said he might alert the FBI “if I thought there was something wrong,” but then said “The FBI director is wrong, because frankly it doesn’t happen like that in life.” (ABC News / Associated Press / NBC News / New York Times / Bloomberg)

    Putin: Relations between Moscow and Washington “are going downhill, they are getting worse and worse.” (Reuters)

    2/ Nancy Pelosi: “Everybody in the country should be totally appalled” by Trump’s comments and that he “gave us evidence once again he does not know right from wrong.” Pelosi added that Trump is giving Russia “the green light” to again interfere in the presidential election. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, meanwhile, called Trump’s remarks “disgraceful” and “shocking,” saying that “it’s as if the president had learned absolutely nothing in the past two years” from Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. (Washington Post / Associated Press / ABC News / CNBC / CNN / Wall Street Journal)

    More than a dozen 2020 Democratic presidential candidates rebuked Trump after he admitted he would consider taking information on his political opponents from a foreign government. Many renewed calls for impeachment while also voicing new concerns about the security of American elections. (Washington Post)
    3/ Trump tried to defend and recast his comments about accepting information about his rivals from foreign governments, tweeting that he talks to foreign leaders every day and asking: “Should I immediately call the FBI about these calls and meetings? How ridiculous!” Trump then argued that his comments were taken out of context, claiming that his “full answer is rarely played by the Fake News Media” and that “They purposely leave out the part that matters.” He did not offer evidence to support the claim. (Politico / HuffPost)

    4/ The Justice Department plans to interview senior CIA officials about the origins of its Russia investigation and their conclusion that Putin ordered an influence campaign that “aspired to help” Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton. Attorney General William Barr previously said he wanted to review why the FBI opened the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in order to determine whether law enforcement officials abused their power. (New York Times)

    5/ Sarah Huckabee Sanders resigned and will leave the White House at the end of the month. Sanders has not held a press briefing for a record 94 days. (Politico / NBC News / CNN / The Guardian / New York Times / Washington Post / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal)

    6/ A federal watchdog agency recommended that Kellyanne Conway “immediately” be “removed from service,” citing repeated violations of the Hatch Act, which bans federal employees from political activity. The Office of Special Counsel – unrelated to Mueller’s office – said Conway has been a “repeat offender” by “disparaging Democratic presidential candidates while speaking in her official capacity during television interviews and on social media.” The decision to remove Conway is up to Trump. (Washington Post / Politico / ABC News / New York Times / Axios / Reuters / Associated Press / The Hill / The Guardian)

    7/ The House Intelligence Committee issued subpoenas to Michael Flynn and Rick Gates. The committee is demanding that Flynn and Gates provide documents by June 26 and testify before the committee on July 10. Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said the committee issued the subpoenas after both “refused to fully cooperate with Congress.” Flynn and Gates both pleaded guilty and cooperated in Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. (New York Times / CNN / Politico / Reuters)

    Trump approves of Flynn’s new lawyer, saying his former national security adviser “has not retained a good lawyer, he has retained a GREAT LAWYER.” Sidney Powell previously accused the FBI of spying on Flynn as part of a “setup,” arguing that Flynn should withdraw his guilty plea and that his case should be dismissed. (Politico)

    Notables:

    Trump Jr. indicated that he plans to campaign against Justin Amash, the only Republican congressman who has called for Trump’s impeachment. (CNBC / Washington Post)

    Two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman were attacked as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was meeting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran. The attack comes a month after four tankers were damaged in the same area. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, said intelligence showed that Iran was responsible for attacks on two oil tankers. While Pompeo didn’t present any evidence, he called the sabotage against the tankers the latest in a series of “unprovoked attacks [that] present a clear threat to international peace and security.” (Associated Press / Washington Post / New York Times / Bloomberg)

    Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney used his position to push for the nomination of a federal judge over the objection of White House lawyers. Mulvaney repeatedly pushed Don McGahn to nominate Halil Suleyman Ozerden to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mulvaney was a groomsman at Ozerden’s wedding in 2003. (Politico)

    Trump still owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in security fees to at least ten U.S. cities. The Trump campaign has failed to reimburse the cities for public-safety costs associated with his presidential and campaign rallies. The total bill currently sits at $841,219 and includes invoices that date back to before Trump was elected in 2016. (Center for Public Integrity / The Hill / NBC News)

    http://bit.ly/2Zniuxr

  9. Conservative Rains 🔥🔥🔥Hell🔥🔥🔥 On ‘Monstrously Wrong’ Right-Winger Blackburn For Derailing Foreign Election Meddling Bill

    In a scathing column for the Washington Post, CONSERVATIVE Jennifer Rubin dropped the hammer on Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) for blocking a bill in the Senate that would have required campaigns to report offers of information that are already illegal under current law.

    As Rubin notes, Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub just warned Donald Trump and congressional lawmakers that accepting foreign help was illegal. In a statement, following the president’s explosive comments on ABC, Weintraub wrote, “Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office. It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election. This is not a novel concept”

    Despite that, Blackburn chose to not join her colleagues in unanimous consent on the bill proposed by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) leaving it up for a formal vote at a later date. According to Rubin, Blackburn’s decision was “monstrously wrong.”

    “She is in favor of a brand of tribalism that is so morally blinding as to cause her to oppose safeguarding our elections from hostile powers,” wrote the CONSERVATIVE columnist. “In a pathetic effort to defend her vote, she made a long, rambling statement insisting that the bill was overbroad, would somehow entrap volunteer doorknockers on campaigns and would cause campaigns to report “dreamers” (!?).”

    “It was utterly ridiculous and utterly deplorable,” she added. “All public figures have a choice. They can be resolute in defense of the Constitution, or they can be lackeys of a president who’s willing to betray our democracy.”

    Rubin — who grown extremely disenchanted with the Republican Party under Trump — then indicted the whole party.

    “Blackburn is not an outlier. She is emblematic of a party and of a right-wing media machine, including pundits who know very well that Trump’s comments are monstrously wrong,” she wrote. “These people have jettisoned principle, patriotism and honor. Americans of goodwill must run Trump’s party out of power up and down the ticket in 2020 — and shun those who carried their water when the country needed truth-tellers”

    https://wapo.st/2ZoaJr3

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