90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

10 photos of President Trump with the troops show why he’s beloved in the military

U.S. veterans helped Trump win the presidency, and they don’t seem to have any regrets. A whopping 98 percent of veterans who say they are Republican approve of the job he’s doing. Only 10 percent of vets who say they are Democrats agree that he’s doing a good job.

Another poll conducted by the Military Times in September revealed that support for the president among active duty troops is also higher than it is from civilians.

Forty-four percent of enlisted troops gave Trump a favorable rating, while only 40 percent of approval numbers came from the general public.

But even those numbers seem low when you see the treatment President Trump gets when he’s on the ground meeting America’s finest.

Wherever President Trump goes, he seems to make time to visit the troops, and they can’t seem to get enough:

Judicial Watch has just dumped a new treasure trove of FBI emails regarding Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's conflict check relative to the Clinton email investigation (for those who missed it, we reviewed all of McCabe's many scandals here: "FBI Director McCabe Subject Of Three Separate Federal Inquiries Into Alleged Misconduct: Report"). Ironically, this particular FOIA request was filed in October 2016 under the Obama administration but they apparently just "didn't have time" to get to it.

Judicial Watch today released 79 pages of Justice Department documents concerning ethics issues related to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s involvement with his wife’s political campaign. The documents include an email showing Mrs. McCabe was recruited for a Virginia state senate race in February 2015 by then-Virginia Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam’s office.

The news that Clinton used a private email server broke five days later, on March 2, 2015. Five days after that, former Clinton Foundation board member and Democrat party fundraiser, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, met with the McCabes. She announced her candidacy on March 12. Soon afterward, Clinton/McAuliffe-aligned political groups donated nearly $700,000 (40% of the campaign’s total funds) to McCabe’s wife for her campaign.

Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a July 24, 2017, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to an October 24, 2016, FOIA request

Among other things, the new FOIA dump reveals a panicked FBI's efforts to enlist the support of an army of lawyers and public relations personnel to deal with the original Wall Street Journal article (see: "Clinton Ally Aided Campaign of FBI Official’s Wife") that first revealed McCabe's ties to the Clintons and his simultaneous oversight of the Clinton email investigation.

But perhaps none of the newly revealed emails from Judicial Watch today are more important than the following one in which McCabe describes how FBI Director Comey was breifed on his ties to the Clintons just days before his wife announced her Senate bid (and subsequently received roughly $700,000 in political donations for Clinton-friendly PACs) and then confirmed that he "has no issue with it."

An October 23, 2016, email shows McCabe running the response effort to a Wall Street Journal article that was published that day, titled “Clinton Ally Aided Campaign of FBI Official’s Wife.” McCabe provides Michael Kortan, the assistant director of Public Affairs, his version of a timeline of events surrounding the Clinton investigation and his wife’s campaign. McCabe said he contacted then-FBI Chief of Staff Chuck Roseburg about Jill McCabe’s candidacy and was told that “the D [Comey] has no issue with it.” (Judicial Watch earlier this month released documents showing that McCabe finally did recuse himself from the Clinton investigation only a week before last year’s presidential election.)

Internally, the Wall Street Journal article started a flurry of emails among Mrs. McCabe’s campaign, Kortan, Director McCabe, and the FBI’s General Counsel. Part of that exchange is an email from McCabe to someone in the General Counsel’s Office: “Sucks pretty much. Buckle in. It’s going to get rough.” The colleague responds, “I know. It’s awful. I shouldn’t be shocked by now, but I really am appalled.” McCabe also forwarded the article to Comey who responded, “Copy.”

On October 24, 2016, a memo was sent to all Special Agents in Charge, Assistant Directors, Executive Directors and the General Counsel’s Office regarding the Wall Street Journal article discussing campaign activities concerning Mrs. McCabe. Kortan suggested that questions could be referred to his office and he attached an “Overview of Deputy Director McCabe’s Recusal Related To Dr. McCabe’s Campaign for Political Office.” The Overview itself was previously reported by Judicial Watch.

FBI Investigating Itself For Dumping Info So Close To The Election.

Meanwhile, the documents also show repeated use of the official FBI email system in connection with Mrs. McCabe’s political campaign:

For most American families, Thanksgiving is a time to gather with loved ones, eat delicious food, and perhaps ~~watch some football~~.

But not everyone is pleased with the celebration of this holiday, and some have taken to maligning its “originators,” the Pilgrims.

An editorial in Al Jazeera labeled Thanksgiving a “thoroughly nauseating affair,” one that is “saturated with disgrace.” Other articles have called the Pilgrims genocidal toward Native Americans, or argued that the original idea of a Thanksgiving feast is a “myth.”

“Debunking” the nature and origin of Thanksgiving seems to be turning into its own cottage industry.

But the Pilgrim Thanksgiving story is based on real events. The small band of religious dissenters who crossed an ocean to a dangerous new world have, rightly, been given special prominence in the origin story of the United States.

A year after the Pilgrims landed in what is now Massachusetts, Gov. William Bradford called for a day of thanksgiving. As historian Rod Gragg noted:

The Pilgrims were not the first Europeans to hold a thanksgiving event in the New World—although they appear to have been the first to do so in New England … It was the Pilgrims of Plymouth, however, who would be credited with establishing America’s distinctive Thanksgiving holiday—thanks to a joyful observance sometime in the autumn of 1621.

The Pilgrims gathered for a three-day feast with about 90 local Wampanoag Indians to celebrate a bountiful harvest following a year of toil (over half of the Pilgrims had died since they set out for America in 1620).

Though the food on the menu excluded modern items like pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce, those who gathered for that Thanksgiving likely ate wild turkey, among other foods common in the area like venison and shellfish.

While later conflicts would ensue between the Pilgrims’ descendants and the descendants of the Indians who feasted with them, the initial contact between the cultures was...