Dialing For Dollars: Members Of Congress Are Instructed To Spend 4 Hours A Day On The Telephone Raising Money

When I made the decision to run for Congress, I figured that I better learn how members of the House of Representatives actually spend their time, and what I learned chilled me to the core.  It turns out that both parties instruct their members to spend approximately four hours a day on the telephone raising money.  As a new member of Congress, I would be expected to raise $200,000 for the National Republican Congressional Committee, and that would require me to spend enormous amounts of time away from the job that I was actually elected to do.  Of course I have already pledged that I will not “dial for dollars”, and the establishment is not pleased about that at all.  To me, it is absolutely disgraceful what our system has become.  Today, members of Congress are essentially mid-level telemarketers for the NRCC or the DCCC, and it is time that we said enough is enough.

As I have traveled around Idaho’s first congressional district and shared how members of Congress spend much of their time “dialing for dollars”, many people have had a difficult time believing that it is true.  But of course many current members of Congress have spoken out about this, and that includes U.S. Representative Rick Nolan.  During a recent interview with CBS News, he explained that new members of Congress are expected to spend 30 hours a week “dialing for dollars”…

Rep. Rick Nolan: Well, both parties have told newly elected members of the Congress that they should spend 30 hours a week in the Republican and Democratic call centers across the street from the Congress, dialing for dollars.

Norah O’Donnell: Thirty hours a week?

Rep. Rick Nolan: Thirty hours is what they tell you you should spend. And it’s discouraging good people from running for public office. I could give you names of people who’ve said, “You know, I’d like to go to Washington and help fix problems, but I don’t want to go to Washington and become a mid-level telemarketer, dialing for dollars, for crying out loud.”

If you divide 30 hours a week by 7 days, that comes to more than 4 hours a day.

Is that how you want your representatives in Congress spending their time?

Not too long ago, U.S. Representative Ken Buck was interviewed by award-winning journalist Sharyl Attkisson, and he explained that a new Republican member of Congress would be expected to raise around $200,000 for the party, but that is just the base level.

In his recent book, Buck went on to share that committee chairmen are expected to raise far more than that.  The following comes from an article published by the Hill…

In his recently published tell-all book, Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck (R) exposed how these fundraising quotas have soared. Chairs of the so-called “A” committees — such as Appropriations, Financial Services, and Ways and Means — are now expected to raise $1.2 million for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). All the while, chairs of the so-called “B” committees — such as the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee — are expected to raise $875,000.

When you start learning how things really work in Washington, it makes perfect sense why Congress only has a 15 percent approval rating at this point.

No member of Congress should ever have to “buy” a spot on any committee.

Fortunately, there are a few members of Congress that have spoken out against this very corrupt system.  One of them was former U.S. Representative David Jolly…

It is a cult-like boiler room on Capitol Hill where sitting members of Congress, frankly I believe, are compromising the dignity of the office they hold by sitting in these sweatshop phone booths calling people asking them for money. And their only goal is to get $500 or $1,000 or $2,000 out of the person on the other end of the line. It’s shameful. It’s beneath the dignity of the office that our voters in our communities entrust us to serve.

This is why we should ask every single person running for Congress to take a pledge that they will not participate in this system.

I have publicly taken such a pledge, but not a single one of my six opponents has done so.

Could you imagine being elected to Congress and then spending 30 hours a week cold calling people like some sort of crooked telemarketer?  This is precisely what is happening, and it is absolutely disgusting.  Here is more from former U.S. Representative Jolly…

Simply by calling people, cold-calling a list that fundraisers put in front of you, you’re presented with their biography. So please call John. He’s married to Sally. His daughter, Emma, just graduated from high school. They gave $18,000 last year to different candidates. They can give you $1,000 too if you ask them to. And they put you on the phone. And it’s a script.

Since members of Congress are forbidden by law from making fundraising calls from their offices, they have to go somewhere else to make these calls.

Right across from the U.S. Capitol there are two very large call centers – one for Republicans and one for Democrats.  CBS News was able to get a hidden camera into one of these call centers, and it does not sound like a pleasant environment…

No photos exist of the inside of either the Democratic or Republican centers. But with the help of a staffer, we were able to get into the Republican center with a hidden camera.

About a dozen tiny offices, equipped with a phone and computer line a corridor. This is where members of Congress sit behind closed doors and plow through lists of donors dialing for dollars. Outside in the main hallway is a big board where the amount each member has raised for the party is posted for all to see and compare.

When I go to Washington I am going to introduce legislation to end this system.  Every member of Congress should be focusing on doing the job that they were sent there to do, but the current system will persist until we stand up and take action.

Like I have said so many times before, I am going to Washington to turn things upside down.  We are going to drain the swamp and clean up the corruption.

If you believe in what we are trying to do, please consider supporting us.  We are being supported by small grassroots donations from all over the country, and we believe that now is the time to take our government back.  If you would like to make a contribution to our campaign, here is how you can do it…

Donate By Credit Card Online: https://secure.anedot.com/michaelsnyderforcongress/donate

Donate By Paypal: https://donorbox.org/michael-snyder-for-congress

Donate By Check: Make your check out to “Michael Snyder For Congress” and send it to the following address…

Michael Snyder For Congress

PO Box 1136

Bonners Ferry, ID 83805

We plan to cause so much chaos in Washington, but we have got to win this Republican primary on May 15th first.  Right now we are in an extremely close race with a couple of other candidates, but we have all the momentum on our side.

We have a great plan for pulling ahead during these final two months, but we need your help.

Thanks again for helping us fight for the future of our country.  Together we got Donald Trump into the White House, and together we can take Congress back.

The post Dialing For Dollars: Members Of Congress Are Instructed To Spend 4 Hours A Day On The Telephone Raising Money appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

House Plots Changes to Law That Protects Politicians Accused of Sexual Harassment

Several new attempts are being made to reform a controversial law that prevents the public from knowing the identities of politicians accused of sexual misconduct.

(AP) — At least two new efforts are being launched to reform a law that shields the identities of politicians accused of workplace sexual harassment and forces the American taxpayer to foot the bill. The attempts at reforming the Congressional Accountability Act are part of a broader effort to combat allegations of rampant sexual assault and harassment among the elite of Hollywood and Washington D.C.

On Thursday the House Administration Committee held a hearing to explore the Congressional Accountability Act and how they might make the process of reporting sexual misconduct more transparent and responsive. The Washington Examiner reports that House Administration Committee Chairman Gregg Harper “intends to move legislation through the panel by late January that would reform the 1995 Congressional Accountability Act, which governs the way the Legislative Branch handles workplace claims, including sexual harassment.”

“My goal is that we would have all this resolved and have a markup at the end of January,” Harper told the Washington Examiner.

Chairman Harper and the House Ethics Committee are investigating past settlements conducted as part of the Congressional Accountability Act to determine whether lawmakers violated House rules or U.S. law. However, the Office of Compliance, which oversees the claims, denied the Committee access to the information.

“The OOC believes they are barred by law to give it, but if you change the law they’d be happy to give it to Ethics,” Harper told the Examiner. “So that is one of the things we should look at changing.”

The program created under the Congressional Accountability Act had not received much public attention until Representative Jackie Speier revealed to MSNBC that in the last ten years alone the U.S. House of Representatives has spent $15 million in taxpayer funds to settle sexual misconduct lawsuits. Speier, a Democrat from California, disclosed the amount during a recent interview on Meet the Press Daily with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd.

“We really need to reform the entire Office of Compliance process,” Speier said. “Right now it takes about 90 days for you to file a complaint, and before actually going through the mediation, you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement and then you are not represented by counsel, but the harasser is represented by the House of Representatives general counsel.”

Speier has since introduced her own bill to fight against workplace misconduct in D.C. Speier’s bill – known as the Member and Employee Training and Oversight on Congress Act, or the Me Too Congress Act – would address the lack of transparency surrounding the process for reporting sexual harassment or abuse. At Thursday’s hearing Representative Speier announced the legislation now has 110 co-sponsors. Speier noted that the avenue for reporting abuse should be changed. “I think we need to recognize that the House Ethics Committee or House Administration Committee is not the venue to which investigations should be sent when a complaint is filed of sexual harassment,” she stated.

If Speier’s claims are accurate and the American taxpayer has paid more than $15 million in ten years to cover up the sexual abuse and harassment at the hands of politicians, this issue should not be taken lightly. An unknown amount of men and women have been harassed or assaulted and made to be silent via taxpayer-funded payoffs. All the while the abusers are allowed to go free and continue to maintain a position of power. This helps contribute to a predatory culture where those in positions of power or influence are able to escape accountability for their crimes. We must put an end to this by holding everyone responsible for their actions. Whether they are celebrity actors or popular politicians, all people should be held to the same standard.

By Derrick Broze / Republished with permission / ActivistPost.com / Report a typo

This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.

The Gun Bill That Is Going Through Congress Could Significantly Increase The Number Of Americans Banned From Buying Guns

When news that a “concealed-carry reciprocity law” had been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, gun owners all over the nation rejoiced.  But what most people didn’t realize is that there had been a last minute change to the bill that could substantially increase the number of Americans that are banned from buying guns.  This poison pill completely ruins the bill, and it must be voted down.  What we need is a clean “concealed-carry reciprocity bill” that does not include “Fix-NICS” in it.

Let’s start at the beginning.  Last week, gun owners were elated when the House passed a bill that would enable them “to legally carry concealed weapons across state lines”…

Republicans rammed a bill through the House on Wednesday that would make it easier for gun owners to legally carry concealed weapons across state lines, the first significant action on guns in Congress since mass shootings in Nevada and Texas killed more than 80 people.

The House approved the bill, 231-198, largely along party lines. Six Democrats voted yes, while 14 Republicans voted no.

The measure would allow gun owners with a state-issued concealed-carry permit to carry a handgun in any state that allows concealed weapons. It now goes to the Senate.

It would be easy to assume that since virtually every single Republican voted for this bill that it must be a good thing.

But it turns out that a change was inserted into the bill at the last moment that many lawmakers never read.  According to Fox News, the bill “contained an 11th-hour change to help states and agencies enter such data as criminal and domestic-violence convictions into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System for gun purchases”.

A few member of the House immediately figured out what was going on and decided to vote against the bill.  One of them was U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert…

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) explained on Wednesday that he could not support national reciprocity because House Leadership added the gun control expansions of “Fix-NICS” to it.

“Fix-NICS” is a measure Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and John Cornyn (R-TX) support. It responds to the Air Force’s failure to report Devin Kelley’s criminal history by expanding the number of people who will be barred from gun possession going forward.

So exactly how many people could be “barred from gun possession going forward”?

Well, according to Gun Owners Of America, even people with “unpaid traffic tickets” could be banned from owning guns under this bill…

The goal of the Cornyn-Feinstein-Murphy-Schumer bill is to force every single potential NICS name to be sent to the FBI’s NICS system.

It was prompted by reports that the Air Force did not send the name of the Sutherland Springs shooter to NICS — even though he certainly could have gotten a firearm in a wide variety of ways, even if he had been in NICS, and even though his carnage was stopped by the real solution to violence … a good guy with a gun.

The problem is that, because of this isolated horror story, the Cornyn bill could add the names of millions of additional law-abiding Americans to NICS.

You already know of the 257,000 veterans who have lost their rights because of a bad experience in Iraq.

You already know that 95% of NICS denials are “false positives.”

And you probably also know that “Fix NICS” would require that the rolls of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and ObamaCare be trolled for recipients with PTSD, ADHD, or Alzheimer’s — that is, people who have had guardians appointed.

What you may not know is that the SECOND LARGEST CATEGORY of prohibited persons is “fugitives from justice” — and that a good portion of these are Americans who have UNPAID TRAFFIC TICKETS.

Needless to say, I would have voted against this bill, and as a member of CongressI will never compromise on the 2nd Amendment even a single inch.  If you believe in what we are trying to do, I hope that you will help us to win next May.

Even though Donald Trump is in the White House, the enemies of the 2nd Amendment are still trying to sneak gun control measures through Congress, and we need leaders in Washington that will tirelessly defend our rights.

The post The Gun Bill That Is Going Through Congress Could Significantly Increase The Number Of Americans Banned From Buying Guns appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

McAdams Warns US Empire Is "Too Fragile" For A Free Press

The US Congress yesterday revoked press credentials for the Russia-backed RT America television station, claiming RT"s new "foreign agent" status disqualified it from conducting journalism on Capitol Hill.

RPI Director Daniel McAdams appeared on RT"s The Ed Shultz Show to criticize the move on the grounds that the US government should not attempt to prevent Americans from viewing whatever media they choose.

The move is really an attempt by Washington"s neoconservatives to prevent any criticism of US interventionist foreign policy, he told RT:

Since 1997, 264 Cases Of Sexual Harassment In Congress Have Been Settled For A Total Of $17,250,854

We finally have the official numbers, and they aren’t pretty. Reid Wilson, a correspondent for the Hill, has posted to Twitter a year by year breakdown of sexual harassment settlements and awards that he received from the Congressional Office of Compliance.  I went ahead and added up each column, and what I discovered is that 264 cases of sexual harassment in Congress have been settled since 1997, and the total amount awarded in those settlements comes to a grand total of $17,250,854.

So where has the $17,250,854 come from to pay those settlements?

That money has come from the taxpayers of course.  That means that you and I have been paying to cover up the epidemic of sexual harassment that has been taking place on Capitol Hill.

When U.S. Representative Jackie Speier originally told us that more than 15 million dollars had been paid out to victims of sexual harassment in recent years, I was envisioning a few dozen cases at most.

I had no idea that the total number of cases would actually be well over 200.

If our leaders were serious about stopping this from happening, they would pass a law making it mandatory that all cases of sexual harassment in Congress be made public, and that members of Congress would be personally responsible for paying out any settlements.

If such a law was instituted, I guarantee you that sexual harassment on Capitol Hill would come to a screeching halt.

But they don’t want it to stop.  For many in Congress, having so many attractive young women around is one of the key benefits of the job.  I included the following quote from CNN in an article the other day, but I also believe that it fits just perfectly here…

In an environment with “so many young women,” said one ex-House aide, the men “have no self-control.” “Amongst ourselves, we know,” a former Senate staffer said of the lawmakers with the worst reputations. And sometimes, the sexual advances from members of Congress or senior aides are reciprocated in the hopes of advancing one’s career — what one political veteran bluntly referred to as a “sex trade on Capitol Hill.”

Do you want to stop this from happening?

It isn’t going to stop until we boot out the corrupt career politicians that are engaging in this type of behavior.  So I am asking you to support my campaignand other “grassroots deplorables” that are running for office all over the nation.

Morality really matters when it comes to serving in public office, and we are not going to send people that engage in sexually inappropriate behavior to Washington anymore.

And I am calling on Congress to immediately release the details of all of the 264 cases of sexual harassment that have been settled since 1997.  The American people have a right to know, and those that engaged in this type of behavior do not have a right to hide.

It is time to drain the swamp, and this would be a really good place to start.

The post Since 1997, 264 Cases Of Sexual Harassment In Congress Have Been Settled For A Total Of $17,250,854 appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

Another Reason To Drain The Swamp: Sexual Harassment Is Rampant In The Halls Of Congress

Did you know that the House of Representatives has paid out $15,000,000 to victims of sexual harassment in recent years?  I am going to share some things with you in this article that are deeply disturbing, but it is for a purpose.  The status quo is not acceptable in Washington, and once people truly understand how deep the corruption runs I believe that they will get motivated to finally drain the swamp once and for all.  So yes, I am going to share some things in this article that are truly disgusting, but the goal is to show you that it is time to take our government back from the corrupt career politicians that are completely and utterly out of control.

In recent days, CNN has interviewed dozens of people that worked on Capitol Hill, and almost every single one of them had stories of sexual harassment to share…

CNN spoke with more than 50 lawmakers, current and former Hill aides and political veterans who have worked in Congress, the majority of whom spoke anonymously to be candid and avoid potential repercussions. With few exceptions, every person said they have personally experienced sexual harassment on the Hill or know of others who have.

In an environment with “so many young women,” said one ex-House aide, the men “have no self-control.” “Amongst ourselves, we know,” a former Senate staffer said of the lawmakers with the worst reputations. And sometimes, the sexual advances from members of Congress or senior aides are reciprocated in the hopes of advancing one’s career — what one political veteran bluntly referred to as a “sex trade on Capitol Hill.”

The American people are not going to put up with this any longer.

We have no choice but to clean up our government, because the rest of the world is laughing at us.

On Tuesday, U.S. Representative Jackie Speier told a congressional hearing that she personally knows of two current members of Congress that have “engaged in sexual harassment”…

“In fact there are two members of Congress, Republican and Democrat, right now, who serve — who have…engaged in sexual harassment.”

Speier said one of the harassers has propositioned women with the comment, “Are you going to be a good girl?” Another has exposed his genitals, she said, and some victims have had “their private parts grabbed on the House floor.”

“All they ask in return as staff members is to be able to work in a hostile-free work environment. They want the system fixed and the perpetrators held accountable.”

And Speier was the one that revealed the fact that 15 million dollars have been paid out to victims of sexual harassment in the House in recent years.  The following comes from Breitbart…

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press Daily on Tuesday that the U.S. House of Representatives has paid $15 million to alleged victims of sexual harassment by its own members in recent years.

“We do know there is about $15 million that has been paid out by the House on behalf of harassers in the last ten to 15 years,” she said.

“15 million dollars has been paid out over sexual harassment claims,” Todd replied, somewhat shocked. “So, obviously more than one member of Congress.”

If members of Congress are engaged in this type of behavior, why don’t the American people know about it?

And why are those members of Congress still allowed to serve?

Representative Barbara Comstock also testified on Tuesday.  She said that one current member of Congress exposed his private parts to a female staffer when she delivered papers to his house…

Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) said at a House Administration Committee hearing on Tuesday that a sitting member of the U.S. Congress exposed himself to a young female staffer who delivered papers to his house–at his request.

We need to be told who this member of Congress is so that he can be removed from Congress immediately.

This kind of behavior is not acceptable from anyone in a civilized society – and that goes double for someone that is supposed to be one of the leaders of our nation.

Here are the exact words that Comstock used as she described this incident…

This member asked a staffer to bring them over some materials, to their residence. And the young staffer — it was a young woman — went there and was greeted with a member in a towel. It was a male, who then invited her in. And at that point, he decided to expose himself. She left, and then she quit her job. She left, she found another job.

Of course this sort of behavior is not just limited to members of Congress.  According to an ex-Secret Service agent, Vice-President Joe Biden was regularly engaged in “Weinstein-level” predatory behavior…

An ex-Secret Service agent is claiming that former Vice President Joe Biden engaged in “Weinstein-level” sexual assault and that he would walk around the VP residence late at night completely naked.

According to Big League Politics’ Cassandra Fairbanks, a Secret Service agent who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed that Biden “would mess with every single woman or teen,” and that a Christmas get-together at the VP’s house had to be canceled “because Biden would grope all of our wives and girlfriend’s asses.”

In fact, things were so bad that at one point a Secret Service agent almost got into a fight with Biden.  Here is more from Paul Joseph Watson…

During one alleged incident in 2009, Biden cupped the breast of a Secret Service agent’s girlfriend during a photo, prompting the agent to shove Biden and almost hit him. The agent was subsequently suspended for a week, according to the source.

Men would often stand in front of female agents and Navy women or create false pretenses to have them leave the room just to get them away from Biden, according to the agent.

When I am elected to Congress, I am going to make fighting this sort of predatory behavior a top priority.

We are supposed to serve as an example to the rest of the world, and instead we have become a bad joke.

Those that have been engaging in this sort of shameful behavior have got to go, because we simply are not going to put up with it anymore.

The post Another Reason To Drain The Swamp: Sexual Harassment Is Rampant In The Halls Of Congress appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

There Is No Such Thing As A Former Marine

Authored by Dan Caldwell via The Daily Caller,

“Thank you for your service,” that’s the purpose of Veterans Day, to tell those who wore the uniform that we appreciate them. Of course, the focus is on military service. But what often goes overlooked are veterans’ valuable contributions and service to the nation in civilian life.

Nearly 20 percent of our nation’s police officers are veterans. Close to 400,000 veterans own businesses that create opportunity and benefit their local communities. Tens of thousands have become teachers, transforming young lives by sharing their knowledge and devotion to duty.

Veterans also represent their neighbors and fellow citizens in state legislatures and the halls of Congress.  Even though less than 2 percent of Americans served in the military during Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, currently 14 percent of state legislators, on average, and more than18 percent of the U.S. Congress are veterans.  It’s worth noting that these are historically low numbers, but fewer Americans are joining the military today due to the smaller size of the military in the post-Cold War era. And the most recent generation of veterans is stepping up, last year, more than one-third of all veterans running for national office served after 2001.

Military service imparts valuable life lessons, as author JD Vance, who served as a Marine, puts it, “We think of the Marine Corps as a military outfit, and of course it is, but for me, the U.S. Marine Corps was a four-year crash course in character education.”

We are blessed that so many of our nation’s 18.5 million veterans use that education to continue to serve the country out of uniform.

For me, my character education began on November 13, 2005, when I stepped onto the yellow footprints at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. Over the next 13 weeks, I faced fear, exhaustion, and uncertainty. I was forced to push myself beyond all logical limits. Boot camp broke me down then built me back up better and stronger. The drill instructors had done their job. When I left, I was a Marine, indoctrinated in love of Corps and country.

After 4 years and a deployment to Iraq, I returned to civilian life, but like those before me, dedication to service and my commitment to our country didn’t end. Gen. John Kelly explains, “One day, you’ll get out of the Marine Corps; you’ll put your uniform up, but you’ll never not be a Marine.”

That’s why I joined Concerned Veterans for America. Our group is made up of veterans from all branches. We’ve served in conflicts spanning from World War II to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and now we have rallied to serve again as active citizens. We fight to preserve the freedom and prosperity we sacrificed to defend.

As veterans, we bring a unique voice to the public square. We know the price of freedom, and around the world, we’ve seen what happens to societies when it is absent. We understand how truly fragile freedom is.

I am grateful to all veterans who, through public service, activism, and volunteer efforts, make their voices heard and help the country they fought for to become even better and worthier of their sacrifices. During these divisive times, it’s comforting to know our country can depend on those who have proven themselves capable of selfless service.

So, this Veterans Day, let’s pause to thank veterans for their service to our nation both in and out of uniform.

*  *  *

Dan Caldwell is the executive director of Concerned Veterans for America. Caldwell served in the United States Marine Corps and is a veteran of the Iraq War.

Shock Survey: Less Than 1 Out Of Every 4 Republicans In Congress Support A Border Wall

It is time to flush the toilet in Washington D.C., because the professional politicians that we have been sending there just keep betraying us over and over again.  On Wednesday, I was absolutely stunned when I came across a brand new survey that was conducted by USA Today.  They asked all of the members of Congress whether they support a border wall or not, and less than one out of every 4 Republicans said that they did.  This is just another example of why the American people are so deeply frustrated with the Republican Party these days.  Most Republicans are spineless jellyfish that have been compromising for so long that they don’t really stand for anything anymore.

If President Trump had not promised to build a wall, he never would have won the Republican nomination in 2016, and he sure wouldn’t be the president of the United States today.  This is a point that Ann Coulter had made over and over again, and the fact that I strongly support building a wall is a big reason why she is supporting my campaign for Congress.  Conservatives all over the country want a wall, and that is why it is so disturbing to hear that most Republicans in Congress do not support building one…

President Trump has been adamant that he needs Congress to approve funding to start building his border wall, but Republicans on Capitol Hill are far less adamant about supporting it. When asked by the USA TODAY Network whether they support the president’s initial $1.6 billion budget request to begin construction, only 69 of the 292 Republicans on Capitol Hill said “yes.” Among the rest, three Republicans said they oppose the money, several evaded a direct answer, and the rest simply refused to respond to the question.

The USA TODAY Network asked the 534 members of the House and Senate whether they support the $1.6 billion down payment approved by the House and found fewer than 25% of Republicans willing to stand up for the plan.

Building a wall seems like such a no-brainer to me.  For decades we have had an immigration policy that is all mixed up.  We have made it exceedingly difficult to come in through the front door, but meanwhile we have been keeping the back door completely wide open.

Today, our system of legal immigration is a complete and total nightmare.  It is extremely confusing, it is very expensive, and it takes way too long.  I once helped someone through that process, and it was so convoluted that I could barely even understand it.

Meanwhile, we have kept the back door totally wide open and have allowed tens of millions of people to enter this country illegally.  So we are actually discouraging good people from coming into our nation legally, and meanwhile we have rolled out the red carpet for criminals, gang members, drug dealers and those that would like to take advantage of the system.

As I discuss in my latest book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters”, we need to make sure that everyone comes in through the front door.  It has been proposed that we can use “technology” and other methods to secure our borders, and I would love to see something that actually works.  But we do know that walls work, and we know that building a wall on the southern border would dramatically reduce illegal immigration and begin forcing people to come in through the front door.

I have previously written about the tremendous problems that illegal immigration is causing in communities all over the nation.  If we would just secure our borders, we could start significantly reducing levels of human trafficking, violent crime and gang membership, and so I don’t know why anyone would want to be opposed to doing that.

Unfortunately, when USA Today approached Republican members of Congress about a wall, most of them didn’t even want to take a clear stance at all…

The overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans refused to take a stance on the wall funding when asked by USA TODAY. Most simply declined to participate in the survey or refused to even respond to queries. Many others offered general positions about the importance of securing the border and requiring employers to verify the immigration status of their workers.

It is time for the era of politically-correct career politicians to end.

If a Republican running for Congress will not solidly commit to building a border wall, that individual does not deserve your vote.

You guys know where I stand, and I’m not moving.  I am committed to building the wall, and we need to elect others all over the nation that are also committed to building the wall.  I hope that you will help us, and I hope that as many of you as possible will get involved in our campaigns all around the country.

Individually, there is very little that we can get done, but collectively we can make a massive difference.

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President Trump Wants Tax Cuts, But Once Again The RINOs In Congress May Block His Agenda

It has become exceedingly clear that we need to try to remove as many establishment Republicans from Congress as we possibly can in 2018. Even though the Republicans are in control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, the “Make America Great Again” agenda is not being implemented, and the blame for that lies entirely with the RINOs (Republicans in name only). Obamacare still has not been repealed, the wall has not been built, and now there is talk that the RINOs plan to block Trump’s tax reform bill. It was expected that the Democrats would try to obstruct Trump’s agenda, but Trump’s biggest problem so far in his presidency has been his fellow Republicans. If they won’t go along with what he is trying to do, we will kick them out and put in people who will. 

Trump delivered a major speech in which he boldly declared that we have a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to implement tax reform.

And he is exactly right. The Republicans have not often had simultaneous control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, and so they should be attempting to push through as much of Trump’s agenda as possible.

During his speech, Trump outlined four basic principles that he intends to follow when it comes to tax reform. First of all, he believes that the tax code should be much simpler…

Here are my four principles for tax reform: First, we need a tax code that is simple, fair, and easy to understand. (Applause.) That means getting rid of the loopholes and complexity that primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans and special interests.

This is something that we should all be able to agree with. Right now the tax code is more than 2 million words long, and the regulations add another 7 million words. I once spent an entire year studying tax law, and at the end of that year I came to the conclusion that the best thing that we could do would be to throw the entire tax code in a shredder and start over.

In addition to simplifying things, Trump also wants to implement changes that will create more jobs for U.S. workers…

Second, we need a competitive tax code that creates more jobs and higher wages for Americans. It’s time to give American workers the pay raise that they’ve been looking for for many, many years.

One of the key things that we can do to reach that goal would be to cut the corporate tax rate. As Rand Paul recently noted, cutting the corporate tax rate to 15 percent would likely create about two million new jobs…

Cut the rate so it is competitive with other countries. (15% makes us even with Canada’s federal rate.) Cut the rate so that it can create jobs. Cut the rate to encourage people to start new businesses, hire more people and grow. According to a 2016 Tax Foundation analysis of then-candidate Donald Trump’s tax plan, comprehensive reform, including lowering the corporate rate to 15%, could create around 2 million new jobs.

Thirdly, President Trump wants to make sure that middle class families greatly benefit from any tax cuts…

The third principle for tax reform is a crucial one: tax relief for middle-class families. (Applause.) In a way — and I’ve been saying this for a long time — they’ve been sort of the forgotten people, but they’re not forgotten any longer. I can tell you that. (Applause.)

For years, I have been detailing the demise of the middle class in America. The middle class became a minority of the population for the first time ever in 2015, and each year it continues to shrink.

Cutting taxes on the middle class won’t solve our problems, but it would be a positive step in the right direction.

Lastly, Trump wants to repatriate trillions of dollars that are currently being held offshore by U.S. companies…

Fourth and finally, we want to bring back trillions of dollars in wealth that’s parked overseas. Because of our high tax rate and horrible, outdated, bureaucratic rules, large companies that do business overseas will often park their profits offshore to avoid paying a high United States tax if the money is brought back home. So they leave the money over there.

The amount of money we’re talking about is anywhere from $3 trillion to $5 trillion. Can you believe that? By making it less punitive for companies to bring back this money, and by making the process far less bureaucratic and difficult, we can return trillions and trillions of dollars to our economy and spur billions of dollars in new investments in our struggling communities and throughout our nation.

Personally, I would be in favor of giving companies a limited window to bring all of that money into the country for free. It would potentially be a tremendous boon for the economy, and hopefully President Trump will be able to get this done.

Unfortunately, the establishment Republicans in Congress seem absolutely determined to obstruct what Trump is trying to do every step of the way. This is a point that Rush Limbaugh made very succinctly on his program just the other day…

Limbaugh flayed Republican lawmakers for betraying the people who elected them.

“The Republicans have a chance to do everything they said they’d do,” he explained.

“They haven’t gotten one thing done legislatively. Tax cuts, the Democrats can’t stop. Folks, they have an opportunity do everything they have been promising to do. A once-in-a-career opportunity. They’re never gonna have this kind of power. And what are they doing? Nothing. In fact, it’s worse than nothing. It appears to outsiders that they are part of the effort to thwart and stop Trump. Do they think this kind of behavior is going to be rewarded with re-election? Do they think that the American voters are gonna blame all of this on Trump and re-elect Republicans and try to get rid of Trump?”

As we approach the mid-term elections in 2018, it is going to be very important for Republican voters to determine who is in the pro-Trump camp and who is in the anti-Trump camp. It simply is not good enough for someone to have an “R” next to their name anymore. We need to send good pro-Trump candidates to Washington, and that is one of the reasons why so many people are getting so excited about my campaign.

And the key is the Republican primaries next spring. Only a small minority of the population votes in primaries, and if we can get pro-Trump forces galvanized, we can kick out a whole bunch of these RINOs.

But if pro-Trump voters don’t support the pro-Trump candidates that are out there, when we get to November 2018 we won’t even have anyone to vote for. Instead, we will be stuck choosing between Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans.

If you have read my new book, then you already know how determined I am to implement the elements of the “Make America Great Again” agenda. If we do nothing, we are going to get more of the same, and that simply is not acceptable. For example, it is being reported that Americans now spend more on taxes than they do on food and clothing combined…

Americans on average spent more on taxes in 2016 than they did on food and clothing combined, according to data released this week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The same data also shows that in three years—from 2013 to 2016—the average tax bill for Americans increased 41.13 percent.

In 2016, according to BLS, “consumer units” (which include families, financially independent individuals, and people living in a single household who share expenses) spent more on average on federal, state and local taxes ($10,489) than they did on food ($7,203) and clothing ($1,803) combined ($9,006).

If you like the status quo, then feel free to do nothing.

But if you are sick and tired of the way that things are, please support President Trump and the pro-Trump candidates that are running for office all over the nation. It isn’t going to be easy, but if we work together I believe that we can do some truly remarkable things.

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Paul Craig Roberts Explains How We Know The So-Called "Civil War" Was Not Over Slavery

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

When I read Professor Thomas DiLorenzo’s article, the question that lept to mind was, “How come the South is said to have fought for slavery when the North wasn’t fighting against slavery?”

Two days before Lincoln’s inauguration as the 16th President, Congress, consisting only of the Northern states, passed overwhelmingly on March 2, 1861, the Corwin Amendment that gave constitutional protection to slavery. Lincoln endorsed the amendment in his inaugural address, saying “I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

Quite clearly, the North was not prepared to go to war in order to end slavery when on the very eve of war the US Congress and incoming president were in the process of making it unconstitutional to abolish slavery.

Here we have absolute total proof that the North wanted the South kept in the Union far more than the North wanted to abolish slavery.

If the South’s real concern was maintaining slavery, the South would not have turned down the constitutional protection of slavery offered them on a silver platter by Congress and the President. Clearly, for the South also the issue was not slavery.

The real issue between North and South could not be reconciled on the basis of accommodating slavery. The real issue was economic as DiLorenzo, Charles Beard and other historians have documented.

The North offered to preserve slavery irrevocably, but the North did not offer to give up the high tariffs and economic policies that the South saw as inimical to its interests.

Blaming the war on slavery was the way the northern court historians used morality to cover up Lincoln’s naked aggression and the war crimes of his generals.

Demonizing the enemy with moral language works for the victor. And it is still ongoing. We see in the destruction of statues the determination to shove remaining symbols of the Confederacy down the Memory Hole.

Today the ignorant morons, thoroughly brainwashed by Identity Politics, are demanding removal of memorials to Robert E. Lee, an alleged racist toward whom they express violent hatred. This presents a massive paradox. Robert E. Lee was the first person offered command of the Union armies. How can it be that a “Southern racist” was offered command of the Union Army if the Union was going to war to free black slaves?

Virginia did not secede until April 17, 1861, two days after Lincoln called up troops for the invasion of the South.

Surely there must be some hook somewhere that the dishonest court historians can use on which to hang an explanation that the war was about slavery. It is not an easy task. Only a small minority of southerners owned slaves. Slaves were brought to the New World by Europeans as a labor force long prior to the existence of the US and the Southern states in order that the abundant land could be exploited. For the South slavery was an inherited institution that pre-dated the South. Diaries and letters of soldiers fighting for the Confederacy and those fighting for the Union provide no evidence that the soldiers were fighting for or against slavery. Princeton historian, Pulitzer Prize winner, Lincoln Prize winner, president of the American Historical Association, and member of the editorial board of Encyclopedia Britannica, James M. McPherson, in his book based on the correspondence of one thousand soldiers from both sides, What They Fought For, 1861-1865, reports that they fought for two different understandings of the Constitution.

As for the Emancipation Proclamation, on the Union side, military officers were concerned that the Union troops would desert if the Emancipation Proclamation gave them the impression that they were being killed and maimed for the sake of blacks. That is why Lincoln stressed that the proclamation was a “war measure” to provoke an internal slave rebellion that would draw Southern troops off the front lines.

If we look carefully we can find a phony hook in the South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession (December 20, 1860) as long as we ignore the reasoning of the document. Lincoln’s election caused South Carolina to secede. During his campaign for president Lincoln used rhetoric aimed at the abolitionist vote. (Abolitionists did want slavery abolished for moral reasons, though it is sometimes hard to see their morality through their hate, but they never controlled the government.)

South Carolina saw in Lincoln’s election rhetoric intent to violate the US Constitution, which was a voluntary agreement, and which recognized each state as a free and independent state. After providing a history that supported South Carolina’s position, the document says that to remove all doubt about the sovereignty of states “an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.”

South Carolina saw slavery as the issue being used by the North to violate the sovereignty of states and to further centralize power in Washington. The secession document makes the case that the North, which controlled the US government, had broken the compact on which the Union rested and, therefore, had made the Union null and void. For example, South Carolina pointed to Article 4 of the US Constitution, which reads: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” Northern states had passed laws that nullified federal laws that upheld this article of the compact. Thus, the northern states had deliberately broken the compact on which the union was formed.

The obvious implication was that every aspect of states’ rights protected by the 10th Amendment could now be violated. And as time passed they were, so South Carolina’s reading of the situation was correct.

The secession document reads as a defense of the powers of states and not as a defense of slavery. Here is the document: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/south-carolina-declaration-of-causes-of-secession/

Read it and see what you decide.

A court historian, who is determined to focus attention away from the North’s destruction of the US Constitution and the war crimes that accompanied the Constitution’s destruction, will seize on South Carolina’s use of slavery as the example of the issue the North used to subvert the Constitution. The court historian’s reasoning is that as South Carolina makes a to-do about slavery, slavery must have been the cause of the war.

As South Carolina was the first to secede, its secession document probably was the model for other states. If so, this is the avenue by which court historians, that is, those who replace real history with fake history, turn the war into a war over slavery.

Once people become brainwashed, especially if it is by propaganda that serves power, they are more or less lost forever. It is extremely difficult to bring them to truth. Just look at the pain and suffering inflicted on historian David Irving for documenting the truth about the war crimes committed by the allies against the Germans. There is no doubt that he is correct, but the truth is unacceptable.

The same is the case with the War of Northern Aggression. Lies masquerading as history have been institutionalized for 150 years. An institutionalized lie is highly resistant to truth.

Education has so deteriorated in the US that many people can no longer tell the difference between an explanation and an excuse or justification. In the US denunciation of an orchestrated hate object is a safer path for a writer than explanation. Truth is the casualty.

That truth is so rare everywhere in the Western World is why the West is doomed. The United States, for example, has an entire population that is completely ignorant of its own history.

As George Orwell said, the best way to destroy a people is to destroy their history.

Nancy Pelosi Could Soon Be The Speaker Of The House, And That Should Freak You Out

Are you ready for the second coming of Speaker Pelosi? As a result of the recent Obamacare debacle, the American people are deeply frustrated with the Republicans in Congress. And having nowhere else to go, many voters are considering turning to the Democrats for answers. As you will see below, one recent survey found that only 37 percent of voters nationally say that they plan to support Republican candidates for Congress in 2018. If the 2018 mid-term elections were held at this moment, the Republicans would be in big trouble and it would be quite likely that the Democrats would take back control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

And I am not the only one that is warning of political doom on the horizon. Earlier today, an editorial by Newt Gingrich and Brad Anderson also warned of what could happen if the Republicans don’t get their act together…

Following Republicans’ failure to fix the country’s health care system, polls show Americans are increasingly flirting with Democratic governance in Congress next year. This means Republicans must change their game plan. The next six months must not be the same as the last six months.

To regain their legislative momentum and keep their majority, Republicans must clearly demonstrate they are fighting for the country’s hardworking taxpayers. This means passing a major tax cut by Thanksgiving — and making it retroactive to the start of this year.

I am not particularly optimistic that we will see major tax cuts by the end of this year, but hopefully I will be proven wrong.

If the Republicans in Congress continue to fumble the ball, we could see a historic wipeout in 2018. As I mentioned above, the polling numbers don’t look good for congressional Republicans at this point…

Democrats stand to win big in the 2018 midterm elections, according to a new poll – perhaps flipping enough seats to take over the House of Representatives.

Forty-four percent of registered voters say they would vote for a Democrat in their district if an election were held today. Just 37 percent said they would back a Republican.

And even in the best of times, this upcoming election would provide quite a challenge for the Republican Party. Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia recently explained why…

Midterm elections for first-term presidents are historically ruinous for the party that controls the White House.

By Sabato’s analysis, the president’s party has shed House seats in 36 of 39 midterms stretching back more than 150 years, with an average loss of 33 seats — well above the 24 pickups the Democrats need to take the chamber next year.

If something happens 36 out of 39 times, there is a very good chance that it will happen the next time too.

So even if President Trump was exceedingly popular right now the Republican Party would have an uphill climb in 2018. But the fact that his approval ratings have fallen so precipitously definitely spells trouble…

President Donald Trump has watched his ratings decline for months, but on Wednesday two respected polls showed that only a third of American voters view him favorably — a new low less than 200 days into his presidency

A new Quinnipiac University Poll has the president’s approval rating falling to 33 percent, while Gallup shows it at 36 percent. Quinnipiac’s measurement is the lowest in the poll’s tracking of the Trump administration thus far, and Gallup’s is the lowest three-day average it has registered.

I fully support President Trump, but I have to admit that those are horrible numbers. Of course the mainstream media is treating him exceedingly unfairly, and that takes a toll. But hopefully he can eventually overcome the constant media onslaught and regain the level of popularity that he enjoyed back during the campaign.

If you dig even deeper into the Quinnipiac poll, you find some numbers about Trump that are deeply, deeply alarming…

• 54% said they were embarrassed to have him as president


• 57% said they he was abusing the powers of his office


• 60% said they believed he was above the law


• 71% said Trump was not levelheaded


• 62% said Trump was not honest


• 63% said Trump did not have good leadership skills


• 59% said he did not care about average Americans


• 63% said he did not share their values

President Trump cannot fight this battle alone. So many conservatives out there decided that their job was done once Trump won the election, but the truth is that the battle is just getting started.

Right now, Democrats are raising millions upon millions of dollars for the mid-term elections and the liberal base is extremely energized.

If we do not match their enthusiasm and energy we are going to be facing a historic defeat.

And if the Democrats are able to take control of both the Senate and the House in 2018, it will just be a matter of time before Trump is impeached.

We desperately need to get Trump more friends in Congress, and so I am hoping that you all will stand with me and other pro-Trump candidates that are running for federal offices in 2018. In my new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters”, I explain what I hope to do once I am elected, and one of the things I hope to do is to put an end to the ridiculous investigations that are keeping Trump from being an effective president.

We have a once in a generation opportunity to fundamentally change the direction of this country, but if the Democrats take back control of Congress in 2018 that door will be slammed shut.

So hopefully we can get conservatives to awaken out of their slumber, because if nothing dramatically changes between now and the 2018 mid-term elections, the Democrats will likely win a huge victory and Nancy Pelosi will likely once again become the Speaker of the House.

Congressman Luis Gutierrez Calls Donald Trump A ‘Major Criminal’ That Must Be ‘Eliminated’

(image: Getty)

Is it proper for a sitting member of Congress to call for the president of the United States to be “eliminated”? Despite all of the chaos and all of the violence that we have seen so far, Democrats continue to stir up even more anger and even more hatred. Words have power, and our leaders need to be very careful about how they use them. Our nation is the most divided that it has been in my entire lifetime, and it isn’t going to take too much to push America into a state of full-blown civil unrest.

U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) is a very gifted public speaker. If he chose to use that gift for good, he could make a tremendous difference in this country. But instead, he is using his gift to encourage people to hate President Trump. During a recent appearance at Chicago’s Lincoln United Methodist Church on Saturday, Gutierrez actually referred to Trump as a “criminal” multiple times…

“The major criminal that exists in the United States of America is called Donald Trump [and] he lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Av at the White House,” Gutierrez stormed.

“Someone who takes health care away from 33 million people is a criminal,” he said.

But of course he didn’t stop there.

Gutierrez went on to tell the congregation that Trump must be “eliminated”as soon as possible…

He invited the congregation to “take action” and take back the Congress so that Trump could be put before the Senate in impeachment proceedings.

Gutierrez said Trump must be “eliminated… as the president of the United States of America.”

You can watch Gutierrez making these comments on video right here. Hopefully Gutierrez did not intend to incite his followers to violence with his remarks, but they are definitely rather chilling, especially considering what else we have learned lately.

Just recently, Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne revealed that a prominent member of Congress told him that “there is a plot on Capitol Hill to take the president out”, and that this plot would result in Trump being “removed suddenly from office”…

During an appearance on Revival Ministries International, Rodney Howard-Browne said he spent three hours “from 9:30 in the evening until 12:30am with one of the senior ranking members of Congress”.

The pastor said he related the same story on the CBN network but “they cut it out” and that he had decided “to go public with this because we have to.”

“He said there is a plot on Capitol Hill to take the president out, I said you mean by impeachment or by indictment – he said no, to take him out, he will be removed suddenly from office,” said Howard-Browne, before adding, “you can read between the lines”.

The Congressman, who the pastor revealed had been in office since 1996, went on to tell Howard-Browne “there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”

Earlier this week, I wrote about how members of Trump’s own party are stabbing him in the back. Many establishment Republicans hate Trump as much as the Democrats do, and they would not cry any tears if Trump was somehow removed from power.

We are at a critical moment in our history. For decades, the elite have had a hammerlock on our political system, and that is why nothing has ever seemed to change very much no matter which party was in power.

When Donald Trump came along, the American people realized that they finally had a chance to fight back against the establishment. And so even though he made mistakes, tens of millions of Americans stuck with Trump because he tapped into that fundamental hunger for liberty and freedom that we all have deep inside of us.

It literally was a miracle that Trump was able to overcome relentless attacks by the mainstream media and the political machines of both major political parties to become the president of the United States. But now the elite figure that if they can just figure out a way to get rid of him that things can go back to “normal”.

We cannot allow that to happen. This is our best shot at taking our government back, and so we need to do whatever we can to support Trump, and we also need to do whatever we can to get him a lot more friends in Congress in 2018.

If you are a supporter of Trump, I hope that you will stand with me as I run for Congress. In my district there is no incumbent running this time, and so the race is totally wide open. If you want someone that will push to have these ridiculous investigations into Trump and his administration shut down, then I am your guy.

If the Democrats end up taking control of Congress in 2018, impeachment proceedings will surely follow. So it is absolutely imperative that we do not let the Democrats take back control of Congress.

I know that I have been writing about politics a lot lately. But I am doing so because it is important. If we let this moment in our history slip away, and if the elite are successful in extinguishing the Trump revolution, we may never have an opportunity to turn our country around politically ever again.

We are literally in a battle for the soul of our nation, and if we are going to fight for the future of our country now is the time to do so.

Congress Makes Improved Relations with Russia Impossible

Unlike Obama’s frosty relations with Putin, Trump appears genuinely interested in getting along with his counterpart and improving bilateral ties with Russia.

It’s the only way to prevent confrontation. The alternative is possible conflict between the world’s dominant nuclear powers – the unthinkable risk of nuclear war, assuring losers, not winners, if launched, putting humanity’s survival up for grabs.

Congress and key administration members oppose improved bilateral relations, holding Trump hostage to their agenda, hamstringing his outreach, blocking any attempt on his part to lift illegally imposed sanctions, along with working cooperatively with Putin on key geopolitical issues.

On Saturday, GOP and undemocratic Democrat House and Senate leaders agreed on legislation, imposing harsh new sanctions on Russia over nothing – phony reasons, wanting adversarial relations continued unobstructed by Trump’s efforts to improve things.

Neocon Dem Senator Ben Cardin said “(a) nearly united Congress is poised to send President Putin a clear message on behalf of the American people and our allies, and we need President Trump to help us deliver that message.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said voting on the Russia, Iran and North Korea Sanctions Act is scheduled for July 25.

The measure is certain to pass both houses overwhelmingly, maybe by unanimous voice vote, preventing Trump’s ability to stop it by presidential veto if he chooses this option.

On any congressional legislation pertaining to Russia, he’s between a rock and a hard place, virtually without options to go his own way – other than stating his views, expressing a desire for improved bilateral relations.

Making this choice would further isolate him from Washington’s political establishment and hostile media.

Publicly opposing congressional action, along with going his own way on Russia, would make him more vulnerable to impeachment and removal from office than already.

In June, Senate members overwhelmingly passed the earlier version of the measure by a 98 – 2 vote. Doing so violated the Constitution’s “blue slip” clause, requiring legislation involving revenue raising to originate only in the House.

Negotiations between House and Senate leaders of both parties resolved the issue to move forward toward passing legislation – likely this week in both houses.

The measure targets Russia’s intelligence and defense apparatus, its energy, mining, railways and shipping industries, along with Russian officials wrongfully accused of corruption and human rights abuses.

It aims to hamper construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. If completed as planned, it’ll be the world’s longest underwater pipeline.

It’ll be able to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas, its capacity to be doubled by an additional line, the project scheduled for completion in 2019.

According to the Nord Stream 2 web site, it’ll “transport natural gas into the European Union to enhance security of supply, support climate goals and strengthen the internal energy market.”

Russia’s huge natural gas reserves and proximity to other European countries makes it “a natural partner for a new transportation route…”

Brussels and Berlin oppose congressional efforts to undermine the project. A European Commission statement said the measure “is driven primarily by domestic considerations.”

“As we have said repeatedly, it is important that any possible new measures are coordinated between international partners to maintain unity among partners on the sanctions.”

“We are concerned the measures discussed in the US Congress could have unintended consequences, not only when it comes to Transatlantic/G7 unity, but also on EU economic and energy security interests.”

Russia is being targeted for its nonexistent “aggression” in Ukraine and nonexistent US election hacking – baseless accusations to assure adversarial relations remain unchanged.

Given near unanimity in Washington against improving them, Trump is hamstrung in anything he might try to change things.

His choice is between going along or risking impeachment and removal from office by defying Congress.

He’s hostage to their deplorable agenda.

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