Liberal Gadfly David Brock Accused of Illegal Coordination w/ Clinton Campaign

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Liberal Gadfly David Brock Accused of Illegal Coordination w/ Clinton Campaign

(Mark Hemingway, RealClearInvestigations) David Brock, the onetime anti-Clinton journalist turned Hillary Clinton ally and aggressive promoter of Democratic media narratives in recent decades, faces legal actions and disclosures portraying his organizations as working so closely with the Clinton campaign in 2016 that they broke the law.

Hillary Clinton in 2016: A new lawsuit says groups founded by David Brock worked so closely together to support her that they broke the law./AP Photo
The conservative Patriots Foundation alleges in a lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that an improperly porous relationship among four Brock-founded organizations amounted to illegal coordination with the Clinton campaign in violation of Federal Election Commission regulations. The best known of the four groups is Media Matters for America, which highlights what it calls media bias from the right. The other three are the American Bridge 21st Century PAC; the American Bridge 21st Century Foundation; and the Correct the Record PAC.
“American Bridge 21st Century PAC claimed that it was independent of the Clinton campaign so that it could make independent expenditures,” the Patriots Foundation said in a statement provided to RealClearInvestigations. “American Bridge is run by the same people who run Media Matters and Correct the Record, however, which we know coordinated with the Clinton campaign.

“They all work from the same offices,” the statement continued, “Brock was paid by all of them, American Bridge and Correct the Record shared at least 6 employees, and Correct the Record made in-kind contributions to American Bridge PAC. American Bridge’s supposedly independent activity was just as coordinated as Media Matters’ and Correct the Record’s activity – meaning that American Bridge’s [expenditures] were really excessive and illegal contributions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”

Representatives for the organizations did not respond to requests for comment (Correct the Record is now inactive). Nor did Brock himself or the Clinton campaign.

This past April, the Patriots Foundation filed an FEC complaint against Brock’s organizations. Since the agency hasn’t acted on it within a requisite 120 days, the Patriots Foundation is now suing the FEC as allowed under campaign finance laws. The Patriots Foundation also filed complaints with the IRS last spring regarding Media Matters and the American Bridge Foundation, but there is no legal remedy to force the IRS’s hand in court as with the FEC.

The tactics of Media Matters are generally acknowledged as politically aggressive in a way many see at odds with the organization’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit tax status, which stipulates nonpartisanship. In 2008, the New York Times described Media Matters as a “nonprofit, highly partisan research organization.” The Patriots Foundation alleges that in 2016 Media Matters ceased merely appearing to be partisan — it acted openly as an arm of the Hillary Clinton campaign. A December 2016 report in the liberal-leaning magazine the New Republic, highlighted by the group, substantiates this assessment:

The organization [Media Matters] had long ceased to be a mere watchdog, having positioned itself at the center of a group of public relations and advocacy outfits whose mission was to help put Clinton in the White House. … In our numerous conversations with past Media Matters staff, there was a consensus that in the lead-up to Clinton’s announcement of her candidacy in 2015, the organization’s priority shifted away from the mission stated on its website — “comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation” — and towards running defense for Clinton. The former staffers we spoke to largely felt that this damaged Media Matters’ credibility and hurt the work it did in other areas. “The closer we got to the 2016 election the less it became about actually debunking conservative misinformation and more it became about just defending Hillary Clinton from every blogger in their mother’s basement,” one former staffer told us. This was, moreover, a repeat of what Media Matters did in 2008, when there was a rift between staffers and management over the favoring of Clinton in her race against then-Senator Barack Obama.

Media Matters staffers recounted internal fights over the group’s devotion to Clinton. Employees were ordered to critique NPR’s Terry Gross for asking Clinton some questions about why it took her so long to support same-sex marriage.

Terry Gross: The NPR interviewer drew Media Matters criticism for hard questions put to Hillary Clinton./npr.org
But the staff reportedly felt Gross’s questions were fair, and according to the New Republic, “nearly everyone we spoke to who worked there at the time felt that a similar article would not have been written about a different politician.” Media Matters’ research director, Jeremy Holden ended up writing the story because other staffers were unwilling to put their name on it. Holden did not respond to a request for comment.

Media Matters employees were also reportedly frustrated by the organization’s obsession with defending Clinton at the expense of other liberal causes.

“Former staffers pointed out several stories that fell within Media Matters’ ambit that should have been better covered. … On the site, there are 1,468 posts tagged with ‘Hillary Clinton’ as opposed to just 26 tagged ‘Bernie Sanders,’” according to the New Republic.

In addition to media reports, internal communications at the Clinton campaign further reveal that it was treating Media Matters as a campaign surrogate and coordinating with the group.

Internal communications at the Clinton campaign released by WikiLeaks reveal that the Brock groups Media Matters (MMFA) and Correct the Record (CTR) were treated as campaign surrogates./WikiLeaks
A campaign strategy memo released by WikiLeaks notes that the Clinton campaign reported using the Brock group to “muddy the waters” when it came to issues where Clinton was vulnerable by “working with MMFA to highlight examples of when the press won’t cover the same issues with Republicans.”
Another email released by WikiLeaks has Clinton’s press secretary, Nick Merrill, planning to push back on a Vanity Fair story about Clinton campaign vice chair Huma Abedin, which hadn’t been published yet, saying, “We have MMFA, CtR, and core surrogates lined up, which we can expand on tomorrow.” Media Matters published a piece criticizing the Vanity Fair story the following day.
Nick Merrill, left: In an email released by WikiLeaks, the Clinton press secretary described using Brock groups to attack unfavorable coverage./AP Photo
“CtR” in Merrill’s email refers to the Correct the Record PAC. The PAC has been dormant since the 2016 election cycle, but “coordinat[ed] directly with Clinton’s campaign,” Politico reported. The CTR PAC even took money directly from the Clinton campaign – during the 2016 election cycle CTR took in $8.5 million in donations, including a donation of $275,615 in 2015 from Hillary for America. From its inception, the PAC skirted rules that prevent such entities and campaigns from directly coordinating with campaigns by claiming all its activities were covered by an FEC exemption regarding public communications.

“Correct the Record believes it can avoid the coordination ban by relying on a 2006 Federal Election Commission regulation that declared that content posted online for free, such as blogs, is off limits from regulation,” notes a 2015 Washington Post report. “The ‘Internet exemption’ said that such free postings do not constitute campaign expenditures, allowing independent groups to consult with candidates about the content they post on their sites.”

The Patriots Foundation FEC complaint strongly disputes that the operations of the CTR PAC were defensible under this interpretation, noting that the PAC spent money on polling and other activities that don’t constitute communications.

Organizationally, there also appears to have been not much separation between CTR and Brock’s other PAC, American Bridge.

“During the 2016 election, Brock claimed that AB PAC remained independent of both the Clinton campaign and CTR PAC so that it could make independent expenditures in support of Clinton,” notes the Patriots Foundation FEC complaint. “However, he continued to collect a salary from both PACs, and disclosure reports show that the committees shared at least seven overlapping staff members at various times during 2016. Moreover, AB PAC reported making in-kind disbursements to CTR PAC in 2016.” (In addition to getting paid by both PACs, Brock drew a salary of $278,566 from Media Matters as well, 2017 tax records show.

Overall, the American Bridge Foundation was the largest donor to the AB PAC in the 2016 and 2018 election cycles. As a 501(c)4 nonprofit, the AB Foundation is not required to disclose its own donors. Other notable donors to the AB PAC include George Soros, who gave AB PAC $2 million between 2015 and 2016. Some of America’s biggest unions – the SEIU, AFL-CIO, NEA, AFT, and AFSCME – all made six-figure donations in the 2016 election cycle. And Win McCormack, the owner and publisher of the New Republic, gave $100,000 to the AB PAC five months before his publication ran the story on Media Matters’ troubles.

Not the First Time

The Patriots Foundation alleges that the legally required separation between the groups did not exist. The two organizations shared staff, office space, and equipment, but the AB Foundation stated in IRS filings the “two entities have entered into a cost-sharing agreement to allocate shared overhead costs so that neither entity is financially supporting the activities of the other.”

But other audited financial statements from the AB Foundation note they did “not have a formal agreement relating to the allocation of expenses between the two entities” and “allocations were made based on management and budget estimates.” Those estimates varied wildly. The AB Foundation gave the PAC some $2.9 million “for salary, rent, and expenses” in 2015; $720,000 in 2016; $4.5 million in 2017; and $3.3 million in 2018. In many of those years, the AB Foundation also claimed to owe AB PAC more than it paid, also by varying amounts.

This is not the first time one of Brock’s organizations has been challenged for running afoul of FEC regulations. Last year, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint regarding the Correct the Record PAC’s claim that it could coordinate with the Clinton campaign under the public Internet communications exemption. FEC attorneys agreed with the Campaign Legal Center but the FEC, which has been understaffed during the Trump administration, only had four of six members on the commission. The complaint was dismissed when the two GOP commissioners sided with the CTR PAC, leaving the commission deadlocked. The Campaign Legal Center is still litigating the matter.

The Patriots Foundation complaint is different in that it addresses the coordination across all of the Brock organizations, as well as the allegations American Bridge PAC inaccurately reported the operational costs it shares with the American Bridge Foundation.

The Patriots Foundation told RealClearInvestigations it is not seeking remedies from the FEC beyond what was outlined in its original complaint. That complaint asks the FEC to “elicit admission of the violations from each of the respondents, conduct a robust investigation to determine the scope of the alleged violations, bar respondents from continuing violative activities, and collect civil penalties in amounts commensurate with the gravity of these serious ongoing violations.”

The IRS action filed by the Patriots Foundation seeks to revoke the tax-exempt status of Media Matters and the AB PAC, and calls for both to be compelled to pay applicable taxes while improperly operating as tax exempt, plus applicable financial penalties, while referring both to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution…Original Source…

US Retail Sales Regain Pre-Virus Level

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US Retail Sales Regain Pre-Virus Level

(Headline USA) Americans increased their retail purchases by 1.2 percent in July, with solid gains in appliances and clothing helping restore sales to their level before the viral pandemic erupted in March.

Sales at retail stores and restaurants have now risen for three straight months, after plunges in March and April, when the pandemic shuttered businesses and paralyzed the economy.

Friday’s report showed sharp increases in sales at electronics and appliances stores, reflecting the needs of mostly higher-income people who are now working from home. Furniture sales were flat after a huge gain in June.

The problem now is that roughly 28 million laid-off workers are no longer receiving a $600-a-week federal unemployment check that they had received in addition to their state benefit but that lapsed last month.

In addition, a $1,200 stimulus check that was sent to many Americans in April and May likely won’t be repeated. Negotiations in Congress on a new economic relief package have collapsed in rancor and show no sign of restarting anytime soon.

Many retailers have said the supplemental unemployment aid had helped spur sales of clothes and other non-discretionary items in the spring and early summer.

“Uncertainty surrounding job and income prospects could weigh on consumer confidence and spending going forward, especially now that enhanced unemployment insurance measures which provided critical support to households have expired,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.

Spending on credit and debit cards has been essentially flat since mid-June, according to an index from JPMorgan Chase that tracks spending on 30 million of its card accounts, after a steady rise that began in mid-April when stimulus checks were first mailed.

Retail sales include only about one-third of all consumer spending. The rest involves services — from haircuts and gym memberships to movie tickets and hotel rooms — all of which were hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic and have yet to recover.

In the April-June quarter, consumer spending collapsed by a record amount, causing the economy to shrink at a previously unheard-of annual rate of 32.9%. Economists have forecast that growth is rebounding in the July-September quarter at a roughly 20% annual rate, though that pace would still leave the economy far below pre-pandemic levels.

The government’s figures mask a huge shakeout in the retail industry, with Americans pulling sharply back on in-person shopping and spending more online. More than 40 retailers have filed for bankruptcy protection this year, about half of them since the pandemic. That’s about double the number for all of 2019.

Many of these retailers had been ailing before the pandemic. But analysts envision another wave of retail bankruptcies in coming months that would include some companies that were financially healthy before the virus struck.

In recent weeks, Ann Taylor’s parent company declared bankruptcy. So did the Lord & Taylor department store chain and the discount store chain Stein Mart, which had been in business for 112 years.

Stein Mart cited the resurgence of coronavirus cases in Florida, Texas and California as a key factor in its bankruptcy filing. The company has many stores in those states, a fact that hurt customer traffic and drained its cash.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that would replace the now-lapsed $600 a week in federal jobless aid with $300 a week from a disaster relief fund.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

US Industrial Production Up 3%; Factory Output Up 3.4%

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US Industrial Production Up 3%; Factory Output Up 3.4%

(Headline USA) American industry continued to regain ground lost in the coronavirus recession last month, but production remains well below where it was before the pandemic struck.

The Federal Reserve reported Friday that industrial production — including output at factories, mines and utilities — climbed 3% in July after surging 5.7% in June.

Still, production remains 8.4% below its level in February before the outbreak began to spread rapidly in the United States.

Factory output rose 3.4% last month, pulled higher by a 28.3% gain in production of cars, trucks and auto parts.

Mining production ticked up 0.8%, snapping five straight months of decreases.

Utility output climbed 3.3% as hot weather forced many Americans to turn on the air conditioner.

Industry was running at 70.6% of capacity, up from its April low of 64.2% but well below its long-term (1972-2019) average 79.8%.

The coronavirus, the lockdowns meant to contain it, and the wariness of consumers and businesses in a health crisis hammered American industry this spring.

Overall output retreated at a 43.2% annual rate from April through June, biggest drop since the demobilization that followed World War II.

Industrial production has now risen three straight months as the U.S. economy began to reopen after being locked down in the spring.

But a resurgence of coronavirus infections has raised doubts about whether the economy’s comeback is sustainable.

“The level of activity is still subdued,” Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a research report. “Output was boosted by a fuller reopening in July but weak demand and virus outbreaks that can interrupt activity remain a threat going forward.”

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

Ron Johnson: Certain GOP Sens. (Romney) Blocking Probes of Obama Admin.

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Ron Johnson: Certain GOP Sens. (Romney) Blocking Probes of Obama Admin.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., suggested on Wednesday that some Republican members on his committee disagree with his decision to pursue an investigation into Obama-Gate and presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, was given broad subpoena authority earlier this summer.

The two major focal points in his probes are why the FBI began looking into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and whether Hunter Biden abused his father’s position to score business deals in Ukraine.

Both of them involve Democrats’ efforts to use the deep-state federal bureaucracy to undermine President Donald Trump—up to and including impeachment.

Johnson has considered subpoenaing former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, and former CIA Director John Brennan.

But with the controversies now seeming to be in the rear-view mirror after years of media sensationalism, Johnson admitted that not everyone in his party agreed that the investigations were necessary, and some may be preventing him from issuing the subpoenas.

“I wasn’t going to name names. There are legitimate concerns, and, again, I was happy to try to obtain these documents on a voluntary basis,” Johnson said, according to The Hill.

At least two Senate Republicans have vocally condemned Johnson’s investigations: Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Rob Portman, R-Ohio.

Romney—the only GOP senator to support Trump’s partisan impeachment—claimed Johnson’s committee has “more urgent priorities” it should focus on.

Portman agreed, arguing that Johnson’s subpoenas could distract Republicans from “the other things we have on our plate right now.”

Although Johnson declined to name names, several reports have signaled that it is Romney, once again, who is likely siding with Democrat committee members to deadlock the votes on any additional measures.

Sen. Jim Lankford, R-Okla., took to Twitter to denounce a report by Fox News’s Lou Dobbs that he, too, may be trying to thwart Johnson’s efforts.

Other Republicans have urged the chairman to “do everything I could to obtain the testimony and documents,” Johnson said, noting that his committee thus far had done its best to complete the work voluntarily, while avoiding the threat of subpoenas.

According to the authority his committee gave him when they approved the probes, Johnson has the power to do issue subpoenas without bringing them before a full committee vote.

But he claimed during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday that he does still “need approval” from his fellow GOP committee members or he may risk losing their support elsewhere.

“I had a devil of a time just getting the subpoena authority that I got,” Johnson explained, noting that he didn’t want to push the envelope too quickly because there were “a number of my committee members that were highly concerned about how this looks politically.”

During the interview, Hewitt contested this claim and accused Johnson of deliberately throwing his colleagues under the bus.

In a statement, Johnson’s office clarified that he is “committed to running a thorough investigation into abuses by the Obama administration toward the Trump campaign,” but argued that he must do so the right way.

“Committee members want Chairman Johnson to attempt to get voluntary compliance, and also to be fully prepared for interviews by obtaining necessary documents, before compelling testimony,” Johnson’s spokesperson said.

Still, Johnson’s office said he is eager to see this investigation through one way or the other.

“Chairman Johnson has been working for months to gather documents and information from witnesses on a voluntary basis, but will subpoena witnesses when necessary – and as he has mentioned, his patience is wearing thin,” his spokesperson said.

Johnson’s probe is separate from a parallel criminal investigation being overseen in the Justice Department by special prosecutor John Durham, which also has interviewed some of the top players involved in the Russia hoax.

A report from Durham—along with possible indictments—is expected before Labor Day, although some have suggested that the proximity to the November election might also lead to claims of political abuse.

Liberty Headlines’ Ben Sellers contributed to this report.

WATCH: Whitmer Cronies Admit Seeking Partisan Advice in Michigan No-Bid Contract

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WATCH: Whitmer Cronies Admit Seeking Partisan Advice in Michigan No-Bid Contract

No longer in the running for a vice presidential nod, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer‘s corrupt, partisan bureaucrats admitted that they had solicited advice from a far-left operative about a no-bid contract to conduct coronavirus contact tracing.

Whitmer was savaged by media and GOP opponents in the state legislature over the scandal.

She was quickly forced to withdraw the $194,000 contract with Michael Kolehouse, whose so-called nonprofit, Great Lakes Community Engagement, doubled as a political canvassing operation.

“When it was brought to my attention, I told them to cancel it,” she claimed.

However, the director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Robert Gordon, admitted in testimony Thursday that MDHHS has actively sought advice from Ed Duggan, a well-connected political operative within the state who is currently working as political director for the Biden campaign’s Michigan chapter.

Andrea Taverna, a senior adviser for Whitmer who has refused to cooperate with the legislative probe, made contact with Duggan during a process of reaching out to “stake holders,” Gordon admitted.

“I think she thought that he would know organizations that would have the requisite—it was the view of the team at this point that field organizing experience would be highly relevant and that he would know folks who had that experience,” Gordon said.

“… Having said that, that also meant looking in a pool of entities with political affiliations—which, in retrospect, we should have avoided.”

The testimony, in response to a question from Matt Hall, chairman of the state’s Joint Select Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, appeared to contradict Gordon’s earlier claim that “the staff involved were not political animals and did not have the political experience to know the platform in use was also used for political campaigns.”

It also contradicted Whitmer’s April denial of the department’s partisan dealings, when she claimed, according to MLive.com, “I do know the [MDHHS] does not have a political bone in their theoretical body.”

A conservative watchdog group, Michigan Rising Action, condemned the outrageous abuse of power and subsequent attempt at a cover-up.

“It’s clear that Gov. Whitmer’s administration specifically sought out a political vendor through a political operative for a no-bid contact tracing contract and then claimed the process wasn’t political,” said Tori Sachs, executive director of Michigan Rising Action.

The fallout from the scandal came at a crucial point for Whitmer, who was being vetted as a potential running mate for presumptive Democrat nominee Joe Biden after giving the official response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address earlier this year.

Already, though, her rising star had begun to fade amid backlash from Michiganders over her callous and totalitarian lockdown restrictions.

Many criticized the hypocrisy of measures that, for instance, classified marijuana dispensaries to stay open while forcing churches closed.

Whitmer also was humiliated after her husband ignored prohibitions on unnecessary travel to take a boating trip during the lockdown’s peak.

But the overt partisanship of her contract-tracing arrangement was enough to convince many that her mandates were not only poorly conceived but also politically motivated.

Biden ultimately ruled out Whitmer by pledging to pick a woman of color. He announced this week that he had selected California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate.

Uber Plans to Pull Calif. Operations over Contract-Worker Regulations

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Uber Plans to Pull Calif. Operations over Contract-Worker Regulations

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on Wednesday that the ride-hailing service would temporarily suspend its app in California if the state continues to try to force the company to classify its drivers as employees instead of contractors.

Khosrowshahi’s announced the potential move just days after a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled that Uber and Lyft must comply with the California legislature’s bill enforcing more stringent restrictions on employee classifications.

Both companies said the will appeal the ruling, which was stayed for 10 days.

Uber and Lyft also plan to support a measure that will appear on the November ballot exempting gig companies from California’s regulations.

“We think we comply by the laws, but if the court finds that we’re not and they don’t give us a stay to get to November, then we’ll have to essentially shut down Uber until November when the voters decide,” Khosrowshahi told MSNBC.

He noted how unfortunate this loss would be for California, which is Uber’s largest market in the country.

“It would be really unfortunate at a historic time of unemployment in California,” he said.

“It would put vast swaths of our drivers out of work,” he continued. “It would take away transportation for hundreds of thousands of Californians.”

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, however, doesn’t seem to care about the possibility of unintended consequences including economic and political fallout.

He filed a lawsuit against Uber and Lyft earlier this year, alleging that they were harming their drivers by not designating them as employees, thereby depriving them of traditional benefits, such as health insurance and workers’ compensation.

But Khosrowshahi argued that most Uber drivers prefer to be labeled as contractors because it gives them the flexibility to set their own hours.

Regardless, Khosrowshahi said California shouldn’t expect Uber to be in the state much longer unless the court grants a stay.

“If the court doesn’t reconsider, then in California, it’s hard to believe we’ll be able to switch our model to full-time employment quickly,” he told MSNBC.

Serial Rape-Enabler Kamala Harris Turned Blind Eye to SF’s Catholic Sex-Abuse

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Serial Rape-Enabler Kamala Harris Turned Blind Eye to SF’s Catholic Sex-Abuse

By accepting a spot on the ticket with presumptive Democrat nominee Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., sent a devastating blow to rape and abuse survivors everywhere.

Harris had stated previously that she believed Biden victim Tara Reade‘s accusations against the then-Delaware senator about an assault in the early 1990s.

Media and others on the left, after paying reluctant lip service to the claims, have sought to tamp down on the narrative.

But Biden isn’t the only one with an alarming pattern of hurting victims among the many skeletons in his closet.

Harris, it seems, is a serial rape enabler who previously refused to prosecute cases involving child sex-abuse in a Catholic diocese that offered financial support during her climb up the political ladder.

Conservative investigative journalist Peter Schweizer first exposed some of Harris’s scandalous malpractice while serving as San Francisco‘s district attorney in his book Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite.

During a podcast for “Breitbart News Daily,” Schweizer outlined the “stunning” case that Harrris laid active cover for the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

“Between 2004 and 2011, she did not prosecute a single case of priests’ sexual abuse–period,” Schweizer told Breitbart.

“To put that in the context of how stunning that is, if you look at the top 50 metropolitan areas in the United States at that time, all 50 prosecuted at least one case, the sole exception being Kamala Harris in San Francisco,” he continued.

To make matters worse, she pulled the plug on a plan by her predecessor, former DA Terence Hallinan, to publicly release files on clergy sex-abusers.

That included “hundreds of pages of complaints that had been made about priests in the area” and “the names of 40 current and former priests who had been accused of molestations by people in that archdiocese,” Schweizer said.

The decision did not go over well with the victims and their supporters, he noted.

“The victims’ rights groups snapped,” Schweizer said. “Some of the other groups went absolutely ballistic, and you can understand why.”

Although the plan had been to redact the names of victims, Harris claimed that sealing the records was intended to protect them, Schweizer added.

“The victims call that outrageous and wrong,” he said. “They used language that I couldn’t use on radio.”

He also laid out the financial incentives for Harris’s action, such as the support from a prestigious Jesuit school, St. Ignatius.

The school in the city’s suburban Sunset district had ties to then-Gov. Jerry Brown and the oil-rich Getty family, who were major backers of Harris’s political ambition.

“The bottom line is [Harris] has a terrible, atrocious record on this specific issue,” Schweizer said, “and it’s a little bit baffling because she proclaims to be somebody who’s a victim’s advocate, but she has this horrible record of covering up and failing to prosecute these crimes.”

Corrupt WHO Advises Against Dentist Visits Until COVID Passes

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Corrupt WHO Advises Against Dentist Visits Until COVID Passes

The World Health Organization continues to assert itself as the premier global health expert on the Wuhan coronavirus, despite engaging in mind-boggling corruption that helped launch the pandemic.

On Wednesday, the United Nations-based health authority issued its newest guidance, this time declaring that people should not go to the dentist.

The WHO said that preventative oral hygiene and non-emergency dental care should be off-limits until there is a “sufficient reduction in COVID-19 transmission rates.”

Instead, the international health bureaucracy said that dentists and patients should have online appointments and remote screenings. It further directed dentists and oral health care professionals to use social media as a substitute for in-person communication whenever possible.

The guidance is laughable except for the influence the WHO wields over deferential government agencies, media organizations and the health care industry.

If anything—President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw notwithstanding— the WHO’s influence has grown since it was proven to have deliberately lied to protect China‘s communist party in the early months of the virus outbreak.

The WHO backed Chinese authorities on Jan. 14 in saying that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.”

The assertion was absolutely false, as the city of Wuhan was engulfed with human-to-human transmissions at the time.

The shrewd dishonesty led to untold economic and human suffering on multiple continents as many governments looked to the WHO to help them prepare for a pandemic virus.

During a Feb. 24 press conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised “China’s bold approach” to the pandemic and said China had “changed the course” of the spread of the disease. That was also a lie.

During a Feb. 27 press conference Tedros advisor Bruce Aylward said, “If I had COVID-19, I’d want to be treated in China.” But to-date, no one knows the real numbers of infections and deaths in the close-lipped country of 1.3 billion people.

China also lobbied the U.N. to elect Tedros to head the WHO. Tedros was previously the health minister for the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, a violent Marxist regime.

In response to the WHO’s new anti-dentistry guidelines, the American Dental Association issued a statement saying it “respectfully yet strongly” disagreed.

“Oral health is integral to overall health. Dentistry is essential health care,” ADA President Dr. Chad P. Gehani said.

“Dentistry is essential health care because of its role in evaluating, diagnosing, preventing or treating oral diseases, which can affect systemic health,” he added.

Gehani also cited ADA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines allowing dentists and oral health professionals to operate while using strict safety protocols.

“Millions of patients have safely visited their dentists in the past few months for the full range of dental services,” he said.

But with the WHO’s outsize ability to affect public policy, and the news media’s willingness to parrot the organization’s diktats, the dental industry may soon experience existential scrutiny.

WATCH: Protesters Surround ICE to Prevent Officers From Detaining Illegals

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WATCH: Protesters Surround ICE to Prevent Officers From Detaining Illegals

Federal officers were forced to disperse a crowd of rioters in Bend, Oregon, on Wednesday night after protesters surrounded Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles in an attempt to block them from detaining two illegal immigrants.

Nearly 300 protesters surrounded the vehicles on Wednesday afternoon and remained there until nightfall, according to the Bend Bulletin.

The protesters refused to leave the area despite multiple requests from ICE agents and federal officers.

The crowd then began to turn violent, according to officials, so federal officers acted quickly to disperse the crowd and escort the illegal immigrants off of the bus and onto another vehicle.

The illegal immigrants arrested by ICE in Bend had “a history of violent criminal behavior,” according to Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary for Homeland Security.

ICE has not confirmed the identities of the two illegal immigrants, but locals said their names were Josué Arturo Cruz Sanchez and Marco Zeferino.

“While ICE respects the rights of people to voice their opinion peacefully, that does not include illegally interfering with their federal law enforcement duties,” Cuccinelli said in a statement.

He criticized the protesters for trying to prevent ICE from carrying out its mission, which is “to arrest criminal aliens presenting a danger to public safety and take them off the street.”

Protesters accused federal officers of using unnecessary force against them, but the Bend Police Department said in a statement that federal agents left the area as soon as ICE’s bus had been secured.

“The attendees of the First Amendment event appear to have dispersed peacefully,” police said.

Nevada Gov. Fines Casino for Hosting a Church Worship Service

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Nevada Gov. Fines Casino for Hosting a Church Worship Service

When harsh Wuhan virus restrictions target churches and schools but allow for radical political protests that involve rioting, looting and attacks on police, then law-abiding people are eventually going to revolt.

In Nevada, that meant holding a church service.

Earlier this month a large group of Christians gathered for a worship service at one of the only places they could—a casino.

It was a direct challenge to Nevada’s Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak and his oppressive executive order limiting gatherings to 50 people at houses of worship.

Making the event even more defiant, the group called itself “Evangelicals for Trump.”

Ralph Reed, chairman of the Freedom and Faith Coalition, said it was a “packed house.”

Yet, even while flouting Sisolak’s authoritarian and unconstitutional fiats, participants took seriously the health concerns surrounding the virus; video shows worshippers wearing masks and social-distancing.

In response, Sisolak blasted the service and has now fined the Las Vegas Ahern Hotel for hosting it.

“I was deeply disheartened and dismayed to see the callous and dangerous behavior displayed last night in Las Vegas at a campaign event for President Trump,” Sisolak tweeted, while avoiding the issue of religious liberty.

“I am equally dismayed that the campaign and business defied the State of Nevada emergency directive which limits public gatherings to 50 people or fewer,” he wrote.

The event, officially called “Evangelicals for Trump: Praise, Prayer and Patriotism,” exposed the arbitrary nature of Sisolak’s order.

Churches cannot have more than 50 people, but casinos can host as many people as they want as long as they do not exceed 50 percent total capacity.

Taking those restrictions into account, the Ahern Casino allowed Evangelicals for Trump to hold the large worship service in compliance with the casino’s capacity limits and strict safety protocols. But Sisolak pounced anyway.

Sisolak’s order was also challenged at the U.S. Supreme Court in July. The courts four conservative justices all side with religious groups.

However, its perennial swing-jurist, George W. Bush-appointed Chief Justice John Roberts, broke with constitutional norms to back the court’s liberal wing.

In a stinging dissent, Trump-appointee Neil Gorsuch wrote: “In Nevada, it seems, it is better to be in entertainment than religion. Maybe that is nothing new. But the First Amendment prohibits such obvious discrimination against the exercise of religion.”

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