Dem Senate Candidates Rejecting Corporate PACs Received $1.6M from Entities Backed by Corporate Cash

Nearly a dozen 2020 Democratic Senate candidates who have sworn off corporate PAC money have found a workaround: They are accepting cash from allied PACs that are free to accept corporate-linked contributions.

Thanks to the loophole, the Democrats have together received at least $1.6 million from committees that receive money from corporate PACs, according to a Washington Free Beacon review. Corporations establish PACs because they are barred from sending company money to political campaigns. The PACs are instead funded by employees at the corporation.

Every Democratic Senate candidate endorsed by the End Citizens United PAC, a liberal group that decries the influence of corporate PAC money, has received contributions from Democratic leadership PACs that are heavily financed by corporate PACs. The End Citizens United PAC has endorsed 11 Senate candidates and has transferred at least $50,000 to 9 of those candidates for the 2020 election cycle. None of the campaigns responded to a Nov. 25 request for comment.

For example, Iowa Democrat Theresa Greenfield, who is seeking to unseat Sen. Joni Ernst (R.), said in September that she would not accept money from corporate PACs. Despite this promise, her campaign has received $156,500 in funds from 25 Democratic leadership PACs that have taken money from PACs associated with big corporations. The Impact PAC, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's leadership PAC, is one such group that has given money to Greenfield. Schumer's PAC has received more than $200,000 from Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Facebook, Altria, Google, and Humana's PACs.

Democrat Mark Kelly, who is challenging Sen. Martha McSally (R., Ariz.), has also benefited from corporate PACs despite trumpeting refusal to accept their money. Kelly has received $127,500 from 24 leadership PACs that take money from corporate PACs. Blue Hen PAC, which is affiliated with Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.), has given $7,500 to Kelly's campaign and is funded by Google, Microsoft, Comcast, and AT&T's PACs.

Four of the incumbent senators endorsed by End Citizens United have their own leadership PACs that have taken between $8,500 and $163,900 from corporate PACs: Doug Jones's (D., Ala.) Seeking Justice Committee PAC has raised $46,500; Gary Peters's (D., Mich.) Motor City PAC has raised $163,900; Jeanne Shaheen's (D., N.H.) A New Direction PAC raised $48,500; and Tina Smith's (D., Minn.) Velvet Hammer PAC raised $8,500 from corporate PACs.

Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D., N.M.), who is now running for the Senate, has also brought in $19,500 to his Turquoise PAC from such entities.

https://freebeacon.com/politics/dem-senate-candidates-rejecting-corporate-pacs-received-1-6m-from-entities-backed-by-corporate-cash/

DOJ releases memos backing Trump immunity claims ahead of impeachment vote

The Justice Department on Thursday made public a series of internal memos that the Trump administration has relied on to justify its defiance of congressional subpoenas related to the impeachment inquiry.

The memos, written by legal advisers in the department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), date as far back as the Nixon administration and supply legal arguments for a broad reading of presidential power in the face of congressional oversight.

The documents may provide clues to the defense strategy for President Trump in a Senate impeachment trial that is all but certain. Democrats have sought administration witnesses and documents to make their case for removing Trump from office.

The memos were released a day before the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to advance two articles of impeachment. The House is slated pass the articles next week in a floor vote, a move that would make Trump just the third president in U.S. history to be impeached.

The OLC reportedly published the opinions in response to a request from House Democrats, who are suing to compel testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn. The OLC cited the memos in a May OLC opinion that gave legal justifications for blocking the congressional subpoena against McGahn.

The release of the memos comes as the Justice Department appeals a ruling by a federal district judge last month ordering McGahn to testify before Congress. In that ruling, the judge rejected the department’s argument that McGahn has “absolute immunity” from the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee's subpoena.

“As a matter of law, such aides do not have absolute testimonial immunity,” U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, an Obama appointee, wrote.

One of the newly released OLC memos, written in 1982 by Assistant Attorney General Ted Olson, is titled “History of Refusals by Executive Branch Officials to Provide Information Demanded by Congress.”

The opinion from Olson traces historical examples since the country’s founding where presidents ordered the withholding of information in the name of executive privilege. It cites instances from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, through the Civil War and Reconstruction-era administrations of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, and continues through the early years of the Reagan administration.

“The memorandum seeks to show that presidentially mandated refusals to disclose information to Congress — though infrequent — are by no means unprecedented acts of this or any other administration,” the opinion states.

Another OLC opinion from 1982 was requested by then-Associate Attorney General Rudy Giuliani, who is now Trump’s personal attorney. That memo, also written by Olson, explained how executive privilege applies when Congress requests testimony from close presidential advisers.

OLC opinions are generally considered binding on the executive branch, but courts are not required to treat them as legal authorities.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/474462-doj-releases-memos-backing-trump-immunity-claims-ahead-of-impeachment

‘The Cost of Sanity, in this Society, Is a Certain Level of Alienation’

We close ourselves off from a full sense of participation when we depart from the consensus worldview, writes Caitlin Johnstone. But in closing that door we open so many more.

The late psychonaut/philosopher Terence McKenna once said “The cost of sanity, in this society, is a certain level of alienation,” and I think my regular readers will immediately and experientially understand exactly what he was talking about.

It’s not always easy to be on the outside of consensus reality. Our entire society, after all, has been built upon consensus — upon a shared agreement about what specific mouth sounds mean, on what money is and how it works, on how we should all behave toward each other in public spaces, and on what normal human behavior in general looks like.

We all share a learned agreement that we picked up from our culture in early childhood that it’s normal and acceptable to stand around with your hands in your pockets and babble about the weather to anyone who gets too close to you, for example, whereas it would be considered weird and disruptive to stand around slathered in Cheese Whiz shrieking the word “Poop!” But we could just as easily reverse that consensus on behavioral norms tomorrow, and as long as we all agreed, we could do that without missing a beat.

In exactly the same way, there exists a general consensus about what’s going on in our world at the moment. There’s a general consensus that we live in the kind of society we were taught about in school: a free and democratic nation which maybe did some not so great things in the past, but is now a supremely virtuous beacon of light on this earth that kicked Hitler’s ass and then surfed into the present day on a wave of truth and sensible fiscal policy. There’s a general consensus that the news reporters on our screens paint us a more or less accurate picture of world affairs, that there are a lot of Bad Guys in our world with whom the Good Guys in our government are fighting, and that most of our nation’s problems are caused by the people in the other political party.

This consensus is grounded in delusion. It is insanity.

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/12/the-cost-of-sanity-in-this-society-is-a-certain-level-of-alienation/

I'm Taking Charlottesville's Politicians and Antifa Gangs to Court - Greg Conte

Two years ago, just days after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville was crushed by Virginia’s police forces, Roberta Kaplan brought a lawsuit against several men and groups who had come to that ill-fated event. For Kaplan it was never enough that these men and their supporters be denied their most basic rights.

Charlottesville proved that the exercise of free assembly was too dangerous to be left to the discretion of mere citizens… at least, not to anyone who would oppose Jewish control of their governments, media, educational systems and culture. Free speech only matters when you have something unpopular to say. Kaplan’s lawsuit, still ongoing, has a plain objective: to intimidate white Americans from standing up to Jewish power.

You can support Greg Conte's fight here.

As such, it is part of a larger, years-long campaign against the Alt-Right populist movement, a campaign whose tactics include media-defamation mass-censorship, economic blackmail (“doxing”), highly selective criminal prosecutions, and mob terror. It is now nearly impossible for anyone who disagrees with the ruling class to gather in public.

Political demonstrations around the country have been attacked or thwarted by the militant left, often with the tacit support of the authorities. Even private meetings can only be put together with the most arduous precautions against attempts to harass, intimidate, or outright attack attendees.

So far, these abuses have gone unanswered.

https://www.dailyprogress.com/conte-balogh-utr-lawsuit/pdf_83968232-bf86-11e9-834f-777be132ec24.html

https://russia-insider.com/en/im-taking-charlottesvilles-politicians-and-antifa-gangs-court-greg-conte/ri28024

SDF Raids Ammo Depot Of U.S.-Backed Arab Group In Northeast Syria

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have raided a large ammo depot of the Syrian Elite Forces (SEF) in the governorate of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) revealed on December 12.

According to the UK-based monitoring group, the ammo depot is located in the al-Shaitat area in southeast Deir Ezzor.

“The SDF confiscated large quantities of weapons and ammunition during the raid,” the SOHR’s report reads.

The SEF is linked to the Syria’s Tomorrow Movement led by Ahmad al-Jaraba, who is regarded as Saudi Arabia’s man in the Syrian opposition. The group is one of very few Arab forces in northeast Syria, which received U.S. support despite not being a part of the SDF.

Earlier this week, the SDF showcased loads of weapons, which were allegedly seized from an ISIS smuggling network. Opposition activist claimed that the weapons were in fact seized from the SEF’s depot.

This was not the SDF’s first attack on the SEF. Last year, the Kurdish-led group attacked several positions of the SEF in southeast Deir Ezzor. As a result, the Arab force suspended its operations against ISIS in the governorate.

https://southfront.org/sdf-raids-ammo-depot-of-u-s-backed-arab-group-in-northeast-syria/

GROWING BORED WITH THE CARROT AND STICK

insert excuses now…..

So if no arrests and unsealing in 2019 then what????

insert more excuses now…..

As best I can see the NWO is still being rolled out WW.