Google's CEO testified to Congress that his company doesn't manually manipulate search results. But they do.

Democrats get away with worse than WaterGate.

Free Beacon

The city of Austin violated Texas' gun law by restricting licensed citizens from carrying concealed firearms at Austin City Hall, a court ruled today.

The Travis County District Court ruled the city violated Texas' open carry law and imposed a fine for each violation which was far below the fine the City of Austin could have faced.

... but the failure to impose a full fine suggests why they think they can get away with it.

Next time, if there is a next time, I suggest going after the decisionmakers personally. There's now precedent this is illegal, so good faith is no longer valid.

Free Beacon

The Air Force repeatedly failed to submit the Sutherland Springs shooter's criminal record to the FBI, allowing the shooter to purchase guns without failing a background check. A report issued by the Department of Defense's Inspector General on Thursday said this was due to a lack of understanding or mistakes on the part of military law enforcement officials.

The report described six separate times the criminal records of the shooter, Devin Patrick Kelley, should have been reported to the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Center under DOD policy but weren't. Investigators said these repeated failures led directly to the shooter being able to pass a background check and obtain the firearms he used to commit mass murder before being shot himself by a civilian.

Even under the unversal background checks demanded by gun control proponents, even if you discount criminals selling guns to each other outside the law, mass shootings would still happen, because people screw up the background check process.

Judicial Watch

“Speaker Pelosi has a demonstrated record of abusing the perks of office that give her access to military luxury travel paid for by taxpayers,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch previously uncovered that Pelosi’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over one two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol.

That's a pretty big carbon footprint.

Two of the major revelations from Bruce Ohr's testimony about SpyGate, as recently leaked: Bruce Ohr was working with Steele not just after he had been fired, but months before the 2016 election, and very early in the process, Ohr says he informed the FBI officials he was working with of both Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson's significant antiTrump bias and the nature of their work as paid opposition researchers.

In other words, the FBI knew from the beginning -- the very first FISA request -- that Steele's dossier (which, remember, was the basis of the FISA and without it, no FISA would have been issued) was paid opposition research by extremely biased individuals with financial motives to simply make stuff up.

The FBI did not pass on any of these warnings to the FISC court reviewing their application to spy on an opposition Presidential campaign.

And, as a bonus, Democrat House member Adam Schiff lied about the timing. He's one of the few people with access to the original (unredacted) documents in this case.

Read the whole thing.

The Transportation Security Agency is an agency everyone hates, with good reason. Privatizing airport security would improve efficiency, customer service, and effectiveness. And all Trump needs to do to create thousands of new airport security jobs in the private sector is to declare the entire southern border an airport and put TSA in charge of security screening. They could build massive walls to channel people to TSA screening points.

That would satisfy both camps: we would have a wall protecting our southern border AND completely open borders!

Daily Caller

The former general counsel for President Obama made “false and misleading statements” to the Justice Department regarding work he did for the Ukrainian government that has come under scrutiny in the special counsel’s probe.

Greg Craig’s allegedly false statements were revealed in a settlement announced Thursday by the Justice Department. The agency announced it was settling with Craig’s former firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which worked with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on behalf of Ukraine beginning in 2012.

Skadden Arps agreed to register retroactively with the Justice Department as a foreign agent of Ukraine and to pay a $4.6 million fine, the same amount that the firm was paid for its consulting work.

So, will he face the same standard of justice that has been applied to Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort and others? Or will he get a pass because he's an Obama Democrat?

The Federalist

MeatEater, a popular hunter-focused entertainment company started by outdoorsman and writer Steven Rinella, was purchased by a rabidly anti-gun Democrat financier late last year in a move that has raised alarms among hunters and gun-rights activists. The Chernin Group, a California-based investment fund run by wealthy Democratic activist and Hollywood producer Peter Chernin, purchased a controlling stake in Rinella’s MeatEater in 2018.

The left-wing, anti-gun political activism of MeatEater’s largest investor, as well as political commentary and activity from some of its key partners and sponsors, complicates the company’s expansion plans given that such a large percentage of hunters in the United States — who comprise MeatEater’s core audience — staunchly support both gun rights and Republican political candidates. Chernin’s company announced the investment in MeatEater and its hiring of a new CEO for the company via a press release last October.

Adjust your buying habits accordingly.

Free Beacon

A Pittsburgh City Council member told a local radio show on Tuesday the city would move forward with passing new gun-control legislation despite a warning from a local district attorney that it would violate state law.

The City Council is currently considering legislation that would ban certain kinds of firearms like the AR-15, bump stocks, and magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, and so-called armor-piercing bullets within city limits, as well as implement Extreme Risk Protection Orders allowing law enforcement to seize firearms from individual residents in certain circumstances. Gun-rights groups have already vowed to fight the proposed legislation in court because they believe it violates a state law forbidding localities in Pennsylvania from creating their own gun-control ordinances.

Obviously, it's the ban that's illegal. Pennsylvania has state preemption so cities cannot pass gun control laws.

Alan Gottlieb quoted at View from North Central Idaho

The gun control crowd invariably loses its voice when a bad guy is shot while committing a crime. Groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action scream loudly when they push restrictive gun laws to disarm honest citizens, but when an intended victim is able to win in a deadly confrontation, they quickly stick their heads in the sand and pretend nothing happened.

Their silence is not only deafening, it is deadly.

And as soon as everyone has forgotten the name of the criminal who got killed, they add him to the list of victims of gun violence to pad their numbers.

Sharyl Attkisson

This is the first time a national journalist has filed a court challenge the government’s alleged improper surveillance of journalists. So far, the case has survived four years of Justice Department attempts to dismiss and obstruct it. I believe this is also the farthest a court challenge has reached in a private citizen’s challenge of the government’s surveillance practices in the era of the Edward Snowden revelations.

I read her book on the events that led up to this lawsuit, Stonewalled.

Honestly, I'm not sure ransom is the right word. Blackmail maybe? Anyway, they want $50K each to go away. AND a quicker asylum process, which pretty much puts the lie to the going away part.

What color is the sky on the world they live in where they imagine they can make monetary demands like that?

Philadelphia Inquirer

I might buy a gun.

I’d need a permit. And lessons on how to shoot, a place to keep it safe, and a way to overcome the fear that I’d shoot myself.

I’m not a natural gun owner. I’m more likely to be holding a knitting needle than a Glock — but recent events have made me rethink my natural aversion to weapons, an aversion that has nothing to do with philosophical opposition and everything to do with my own physical incompetence. I’m the one they picked last for all the intramural sports in grade school because I have the precision vision of Mr. Magoo and could trip over a non-existent wire. If my life were a western movie, it’d be called “Have Gun, Will Unravel.”

But it’s time to take my life into my own hands, forget about all of the anti-gun rhetoric that I hear bandied about by those who exploit tragedy for their own political purposes, and make 2019 the year that I stop expecting others to look out for me.

Welcome to adulthood. It's strangely liberating.

Zerohedge

“Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty”, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who told an audience in Berlin that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.

“The Franco-German couple [has]the obligation not to let the world slip into chaos and to guide it on the road to peace”.

“Europe must be stronger… and win more sovereignty,” [French leader Macron] went on to demand, just like Merkel, that EU member states surrender national sovereignty to Brussels over “foreign affairs, migration, and development” as well as giving “an increasing part of our budgets and even fiscal resources”.

They are now making these demands openly. It's an effective conquest by legal and diplomatic means rather than military means. If this continues to escalate, the EU will disintegrate into individual nations again. At this point, that would probably be for the best.

Details here. This one has a single feature test, meaning it will ban any AR-15 type rifle, or anything else with that accepts a magazine and has a pistol grip. And with Maxine Waters running the Commerce Committee, look for financial targeting to get a lot worse.

The Federalist

In a Friday night news dump, the New York Times revealed the FBI’s surprisingly flimsy justification for launching a retaliatory investigation into President Donald Trump, their chief adversary during their recent troubled era.

Admitting there is no actual evidence for their probe into whether Trump “worked for the Russians,” FBI officials instead cited their foreign policy differences with him, his lawful firing of bungling FBI Director James Comey, and alarm that he accurately revealed to the American public that he was told he wasn’t under investigation by the FBI, when they preferred to hide that fact.

The FBI is frantically trying to spin their coup attempt into something that is less criminal. As Mollie Hemingway points out in the quoted section above, it's a pretty flimsy set of reasons for opening up an investigation. Bongino believes they are trying to hide the international element of the anti-Trump investigation, which is probably part of it -- at a minimum, the UK and other foreign governments were involved in trying to prevent his election and possibly sabotage his administration after the election. Both perspectives have validity, but I think there's a subtle element they are missing here. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first admission by the FBI that they actually opened a counterintelligence investigation into the sitting President. For a long time, they were talking about an investigation into Trump's campaign, but after Comey's firing as they have now admitted, they opened a formal investigation into the President personally.

I think that's going to be one of the facts that hangs them.

Conservative Treehouse quoting NBC

New York Attorney Gen.-elect Letitia James says she plans to launch sweeping investigations into President Donald Trump, his family and “anyone” in his circle who may have violated the law once she settles into her new job next month.

“We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well,” James, a Democrat, told NBC News in her first extensive interview since she was elected last month.

This is scorched-earth, destroy-your-enemies-with-the-state, third-world shithole stuff. Investigating a person (and his family!) to find a crime, rather than investigating a crime to find out who committed it.

Power Line

The Post published op-eds that at times were suggested, researched, and drafted by an affiliate of the Qatari government, a government that since the mid-1990s has been sharply at odds with Saudi Arabia. In effect, these were fake op-eds. By running them, the Post became a tool of Qatar — an absolute monarchy, by the way. After Khashoggi’s death, the Post compounded the offense with a drumbeat of fake news about Khashoggi’s alleged independence and integrity.

I take the Post at its word when it says it didn’t know about Qatar’s role in producing Khashoggi’s op-eds. But in embracing Khashoggi, the Post ignored several red flags. Anyway, knowingly or not, the Post served as the vehicle for spreading Qatari propaganda.

Khashoggi was a foreign propaganda operative working for the Washington Post for years. That doesn't mean he should have been killed, but it certainly undercuts the idea that he was an innocent journalist targeted for no reason.

At least one person in the Department of Justice is willing to say so publicly, which validates the concerns that the DOJ and FBI are using their intelligence and law enforcement powers to influence politics and in fact engaging in an effective coup.

You don't have to like the President, even if you work for the DOJ or FBI. You do have to respect the office and follow his orders in your professional life, unless you choose to resign your position. You don't have a license to spy on him, investigate him, or try to get him impeached.

His speech at sentencing was made for a news audience. He was ordered to pay nearly $2 million and his admission of guilt mentioned the President repeatedly. But, of that two million, only $100K was for anything related to Trump -- the Meuller lying to Congress charges amounted to $50K and the SDNY campaign finance charges another $50K. The other $1.9M was for his own tax and taxi issues, as far as I can tell.

Mueller has massive leverage on Cohen after raiding his office and violating attorney-client privilege to get to Trump, but still came away with pretty much nothing.

PJMedia

H.R. 1 has 218 cosponsors. It forces states to implement mandatory voter registration. If someone is on a government list -- such as receiving welfare benefits or rental subsidies -- then they would be automatically registered to vote. Few states have enacted these systems because Americans still view civic participation as a voluntary choice. Moreover, aggregated government lists always contain duplicates and errors that states, even without mandatory voter registration, frequently fail to catch and fix.

H.R. 1 also mandates that states allow all felons to vote. Currently, states have the power under the Constitution to set the terms of eligibility in each state. Some states, like Maine, have decided that voting machines should be rolled into the prisons. Other states, like Nevada, have chosen to make a felony a disenfranchising event.

H.R. 1 also undermines the First Amendment by exerting government control over political speech and undoing the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision.

The proposal also undoes another Supreme Court decision. In Husted, a case arising out of Ohio, the Court ruled that federal laws -- known as "Motor Voter" -- do not prohibit states from using a voter’s inactivity from triggering a mailing to that voter to see if they still are living at that location. H.R. 1 would undo that ruling and prohibit states from effectively cleaning voter rolls.

Any one of those measures, applied nationwide, would probably be sufficient to ensure Republicans never win a national or statewide election again. All of them together? Game over. Democrats know that and they are determined that the moment they regain power, Trump will never, ever be allowed to happen again.

Read the whole thing for even more, and even worse, examples.

Breitbart

Graham said Barr also told him about his longtime relationship with Mueller. Barr and Mueller worked together when Barr was Bush’s attorney general from 1991 to 1993 and Mueller oversaw the department’s criminal division. Graham said that the two men were “best friends,” that their wives attended Bible study together and that Mueller had attended the weddings of Barr’s children.

“So his opinion of Mr. Mueller is very, very high in terms of ethics and character and professionalism,” Graham said.

Graham listed a number of questions that he had put to Barr: “I asked Mr. Barr directly, ‘Do you think Mr. Mueller is on a witch hunt?’ He said no. ‘Do you think he would be fair to the president and the country as a whole?’ He said yes. ‘And do you see any reason for Mr. Mueller’s investigation to be stopped?’ He said no. ‘Do you see any reason for a termination based on cause?’ He said no. ‘Are you committed to making sure Mr. Mueller can finish his job?’ ‘Yes.’"

Given those answers -- especially Barr's long-standing personal and professional relationship with Mueller -- I cannot see how Barr can be expected to provide the restraint Mueller's special counsel role has so far been lacking.

I wonder if Trump knew that when he nominated Barr? Somehow, I doubt it.

Someone should tell him before Barr is confirmed, in case he wants to nominate someone without such conflicted personal relationship.

Feinstein

Bans the sale, manufacture, transfer and importation of 205 military-style assault weapons by name. Owners may keep existing weapons.
Bans any assault weapon that accepts a detachable ammunition magazine and has one or more military characteristics including a pistol grip, a forward grip, a barrel shroud, a threaded barrel or a folding or telescoping stock. Owners may keep existing weapons.
Bans magazines and other ammunition feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, which allow shooters to quickly fire many rounds without needing to reload. Owners may keep existing magazines.

So what are the big things here? Bans two hundred firearm models by name. That's a lot.

Bans any firearm that accepts a detachable magazine and has "one or more [evil scary features]". It only takes one. A pistol grip counts. Or any other grip. Or anything around the barrel so you don't burn yourself. Or anything you put on the barrel. Or any stock that you can adjust to fit your body size. Put all of those features together and you can pretty much ban all semiautomatic firearms, period, end.

Also bans magazines holding more than 10 rounds, which hardly matters since there will be no firearms left to take those magazines.

Oh, and about that "owners may keep existing [weapons or magazines]"? Can you prove you bought your rifle before the ban? What about your magazines? How? Your firearm has a serial number but will the company still be in business to verify when they made it? Your magazine likely doesn't have a serial number.

Feinstein

Requires a background check on any future sale, trade or gifting of an assault weapon covered by the bill.
Requires that grandfathered assault weapons are stored using a secure gun storage or safety device like a trigger lock.
Prohibits the transfer of high-capacity ammunition magazines.
Bans bump-fire stocks and other devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at fully automatic rates.

Oh, look, bans private sales of "assault weapons" even if you are otherwise allowed to have it. Also gifts and trades. And you better be storing it in a government approved manner, or they will charge you with a crime when someone else steals it. And prohibits ALL transfer of magazines, so you'll have to destroy yours before you die or your heirs will be in deep shit.

And the bump-fire stock ban is tossed in as an afterthought.

Basically, this ban is going after any semiautomatic firearm. (Remember, practically by definition, a pistol has a pistol grip; I don't see any language in this summary that would exclude pistols, and several indications that they are included).