This is a weekly summary of news that the legacy media and Democrats have obfuscated for partisan political reasons. While their attention is almost exclusively on the impeachment farce, there was a lot of other important news that broke this week.

1. Let’s start off with some polling that is doubtless giving the Democrats fits:

Democratic leaders who had hoped the public would accept their reasoning for impeaching President Trump and join their call to remove him are facing the reality today that impeachment hasn’t hurt the president.

In its latest survey, Gallup even said that impeachment is “increasing support for the president,” just as it did for former President Bill Clinton 22 years ago.

Said Gallup: “As was the case for Clinton, the impeachment of Trump has not had a noticeably negative effect on his popular support. In fact, for both presidents, impeachment had the opposite effect of increasing their public approval.”

Read the rest here. These are not the droids you’re looking for, Democrats! LMAO. And to think this is with 93% anti-Trump stories since last September. What would the numbers be with any semblance of balanced and accurate reporting of President Trump’s accomplishments?

2. I thought the Democrats were “pro-woman”? Apparently other identify politics are more important to them these days.

Florida Republican Congressman Greg Steube was disgusted to tell Fox News that not a single Democrat voted in favor of a bill that would protect women’s sports from biological males who claim to be transgender women.

The Florida congressman recently introduced a bill that would have banned “schools from using Title IX federal funds to support women sports if biological men are allowed to compete with them,” Steube told Carlson.

Steube added that Democrats came down on the side of transgenders who “identify as a woman that day and want the ability to compete.”

“We are completely eroding what women sports are if we are going to allow biological men to compete with women in women’s collegiate activities,” the congressman added.

Read the rest here. It’s amazing to watch the situational ethics from Democrats Shifting sands in support of political advantage is their motto.

3. The Democrats and the legacy media don’t want to talk about the progress of John Durham’s criminal investigation, so it’s up to independent media to carry the news.

Department of Justice appointed federal prosecutor John Durham’s expanded criminal probe into the FBI’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s campaign is focusing on a slew of government documents that surfaced during the first several months of Trump’s presidency.

According to sources, the documents already uncovered by Horowitz and the alleged new documents discovered by Durham are significant. Those documents will expose the intent of those involved in the malfeasance at the FBI and the continued operation to spy Carter Page, a short-term Trump campaign volunteer. Further, Durham’s probe is focused on actions of former senior Obama Administration officials that targeted Trump and his team, according to numerous former and current government sources that spoke to SaraACarter.com.

Those being looked into by Durham are former CIA Director John Brennan, fired FBI Director James Comey, fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, among others. Durham’s team has already interviewed numerous personnel at the CIA and according to sources “those questioned are very nervous about the direction of Durham’s investigation.”

Durham is looking into the Intelligence Community Assessment on Russia, in which Brennan has stated that the CIA did not use former MI6 spy Christoper Steele’s debunked dossier. Horowitz discovered during his office’s investigation of the FBI FISA review that the uncorroborated dossier was used in obtaining the warrant to spy on Page. Horowitz’s explosive report also revealed that significant information on Page was omitted from the report and that other information was altered by FBI Attorney Kevin Clinesmith. Page had actually assisted the CIA in reporting on Russia – a significant fact that was omitted and changed in the application that was submitted to the secret court.

Read the rest here. A few summertime indictments would make a lot of people very happy – and others not so much.

4. From the Executive Summary of the Trial Memorandum of President Donald J. Trump, as released by his legal team come this blast:

The Articles of Impeachment now before the Senate are an affront to the Constitution and to our democratic institutions. The Articles themselves—and the rigged process that brought them here—are a brazenly political act by House Democrats that must be rejected. They debase the grave power of impeachment and disdain the solemn responsibility that power entails. Anyone having the most basic respect for the sovereign will of the American people would shudder at the enormity of casting a vote to impeach a duly elected President. By contrast, upon tallying their votes, House Democrats jeered until they were scolded into silence by the Speaker. The process that brought the articles here violated every precedent and every principle of fairness followed in impeachment inquiries for more than 150 years. Even so, all that House Democrats have succeeded in proving is that the President did absolutely nothing wrong.

After focus-group testing various charges for weeks, House Democrats settled on two flimsy Articles of Impeachment that allege no crime or violation of law whatsoever—much less “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” as required by the Constitution. They do not remotely approach the constitutional threshold for removing a President from office. The diluted standard asserted here would permanently weaken the Presidency and forever alter the balance among the branches of government in a manner that offends the constitutional design established by the Founders. House Democrats jettisoned all precedent and principle because their impeachment inquisition was never really about discovering the truth or conducting a fair investigation. Instead, House Democrats were determined from the outset to find some way—any way—to corrupt the extraordinary power of impeachment for use as a political tool to overturn the result of the 2016 election and to interfere in the 2020 election. All of this is a dangerous perversion of the Constitution that the Senate should swiftly and roundly condemn.

Read the rest here. The whole memorandum is a shot across the Democrats’ bow. They are going to pay an YUUUGE political price by pushing this farce in the Senate.

5. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortes makes another ridiculous public pronouncement.

During Blackout for Human Rights’ fifth annual MLK Now event, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said the Democratic Party is a “center-conservative” party. She cited the inability of Congress to vote on “Medicare for All” as the sole reason for this claim.

“The Democratic Party is not a left party, the Democratic Party is a center, or center-conservative party,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We can’t even get a floor vote on ‘Medicare for All,’ not even a floor vote that gets voted down. We can’t even get a vote on it, so this is not a left party. There are left members inside the Democratic Party that are working to try to make that shift happen.”

Read the rest here. That’s quite possibly the most insane statement she’s ever made. She simply can’t be serious, can she?

6. Joe Biden sent a campaign memo to the legacy media imploring them to “reject the allegations” of his son’s corruption in Ukraine, but independent journalist John Solomon is having none of it.

Biden’s memo argues there is no evidence that the former vice president’s or Hunter Biden’s conduct raised any concern, and that Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin’s investigation was “dormant” when the vice president forced the prosecutor to be fired in Ukraine.

The memo calls the allegation a “conspiracy theory” (and, in full disclosure, blames my reporting for the allegations surfacing last year.)

But the memo omits critical impeachment testimony and other evidence that paint a far different portrait than Biden’s there’s-nothing-to-talk-about-here rebuttal.

Here are the facts…

Fact: Joe Biden admitted to forcing Shokin’s firing in March 2016.

Fact: Shokin’s prosecutors were actively investigating Burisma when he was fired.

Fact: Burisma’s lawyers in 2016 were pressing U.S. and Ukrainian authorities to end the corruption investigations.

Fact: There is substantial evidence Joe Biden and his office knew about the Burisma probe and his son’s role as a board member.

Fact: Federal Ethics rules requires government officials to avoid taking policy actions affecting close relatives.

Fact: Multiple State Department officials testified the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine created the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Fact: Hunter Biden acknowledged he may have gotten his Burisma job solely because of his last name.

Fact: Ukraine law enforcement reopened the Burisma investigation in early 2019, well before President Trump mentioned the matter to Ukraine’s new president Vlodymyr Zelensky.

Read the rest here. One of the few honest journalists exposes the Democrat front-runner as a liar who is running scared.

7. Another poll is out showing the distrust that Americans have for the legacy media.

[T]here’s a survey that shows just how much confidence in the news media consumers have lost, a trend started decades ago but supercharged since the 2016 election. According to a survey done for SeniorList, a medical device firm focused on older Americans, 55% of Americans believe that the media is “corrupt.”  In addition, many, especially Republicans, believe that the media exaggerates stories while some Democrats believe reporters minimize issues, a sign that the political polarization in media has deepened.

Read the rest here. Thank God for the rise of independent journalism!

8. President Trump is solving two long-term problems affecting US national security: energy independence and immigration control.

As the election year progresses, more attention will be paid to the substantial settling of two of the greatest public-policy failings in the United States since the official end of racial segregation. For more than 70 years the U.S. was a sizeable importer of foreign oil, and for more than 25 years it was inundated with almost unsustainable numbers of mostly unskilled illegal immigrants, ultimately totaling more than 20 million people.

[T]he United States is now an oil exporter. It has been late in coming, but it is an admirable elimination of a strategic vulnerability; America has added more than a cubit to its geopolitical stature.

The Democrats have fought the Trump administration tooth and nail as it has sought to endow the country with a southern border. House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi opposed spending even one cent to strengthen the border, declared any wall there to be “an abomination,” and compared the border detention centers (which were set up in the Obama administration) to Nazi death camps. President Trump has managed to build substantial parts of the wall he promised his supporters, and has asserted such pressure on the government of Mexico that 27,000 soldiers of the Mexican army have been deployed in the approaches to the border, and the practice of Mexico facilitating the passage of large convoys of migrants from Central America through Mexico to the U.S. has stopped. For decades American politicians of both parties piously referred to “comprehensive immigration reform,” but this was just a euphemism for doing nothing.

The reduction, under this president, of illegal immigration by 75 percent has effectively ended a scandalous and cynical collusion of the bipartisan political leadership, which operated to the detriment of America’s national interest and penalized America’s most economically vulnerable citizens.

Read the rest here. These are real national security accomplishments! Being a net oil exporter will facilitate our exit from the Middle East, and finally controlling the border will shut down the flow of drugs and terrorists embedded among the flood of illegal aliens.

9. Victor Davis Hanson opines on the destruction of political norms in the Age of Trump

The frenetic opposition to Donald Trump by the Washington establishment, the new progressive, hard-left Democratic party, and in particular the veterans of the Obama administration has led to the ruination of a number of hallowed protocols and customs.

Impeachment…

Whistleblowers…

The FISA court…

In addition, the anti-Trump mob has now ended any idea that prior administrations should step aside, mostly stay quiet, and allow successors to fail or succeed on their merits.

All those Marquess of Queensberry Rules of post-presidential decorum abruptly ended in 2017. What superseded them was, at best, a kind of British-style, European shadow government, in which mostly ex-Obama officials became nonstop activist critics of almost everything Trump has done.

At worst, the endless opposition turned into a slow-motion sort of coup in which progressive, life-tenured bureaucrats leaked, obstructed, and connived to stop the daily operations of the administration — as they often proudly admitted to the media. The subtext was that the Obama-progressive-media complex would create enough momentum to abort Trump’s first term. Or was it that Trump represented such an existential danger to the administrative-state way of doing business that any means necessary were justified to end his presidency?

The parlance of the embittered Obama team is revealing. Eric Holder accused Attorney General Barr of being “unfit” for office. Clapper said Trump was a “Russian asset,” Brennan trumped that with “all roads with Trump lead to Putin.” Susan Rice said that America was “under attack” by the Trump team.

What is behind this radical departure from past practice? One factor is that Trump is a most un-McCain, un-Romney Republican who believes in don’t-tread-on-me, disproportionate retaliation. The result is that Trump answers with megatonnage to any insult to his person in a manner that the establishment believes does not befit a president — but which certainly frightens and enrages it. And one of the symptoms of the ensuing derangement syndrome is a 24/7 addiction to opposing Trump in any way possible, often to the ruination of all past custom, tradition, and practice, with the subtextual justification that “Trump did it first.”

Read the rest here. A great article filled with historical context! Yes, the Democrats are all about destruction if it serves their politics. Everything can be changed and politicized whenever it serves their purposes.

10. Sen. Chuck Grassley remains on the trial of Stefan Halper and his contract(s) with the DoD’s Office of Net Assessment while he was spying on the Trump campaign in 2016.

The Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Sen. Chuck Grassley sent a letter Wednesday to the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment’s director requesting detailed information on contracts provided to FBI informant Stefan Halper, who was spying on three of President Trump’s campaign aids during the 2016 election probe.

The expansive nature of Grassley’s investigation is significant and coincides – but is separate – with an ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice appointed prosecutor John Durham’s criminal probe into the matter

Durham’s criminal investigation into the FBI, CIA, as well as private entities connected to the bureau’s investigation into the Trump campaign and now debunked theory that it colluded with Russia, has also expanded to the Office of Net Assessment. Known by its acronym ONA, the secretive office is run by Director James Baker, who has been in the role since being appointed by the Obama Administration in 2015.

In the letter to Baker Grassley asks a litany of questions as to Halper’s role within ONA, his contracts, his foreign contacts and whether the FBI, or other agencies, used the ONA office to pay Halper for spying on Trump campaign personnel.

“Can ONA state for certain that Halper did not use taxpayer money provided by DoD to recruit, or attempt to recruit, sources for the FBI investigation into the now-debunked theory of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia,” Grassley asks Baker.

According to sources familiar with the matter he has also been questioned by Durham’s investigative team. Grassley has also been looking into the matter since early 2019, when he requested that the “DoD Inspector General (IG) review allegations of mismanagement by ONA contracts for political, improper or wasteful activities.” The Senator “later sought information about ONA contracting processes following a DoD IG audit of the program, which found that ONA could not provide sufficient documentation that Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. The Pentagon issued a corrective action plan for ONA in August.”

This is where Halper’s role with ONA “becomes highly suspicious and his contracts coincide with his spying on the Trump campaign,” said one former government official, familiar with the matter.  Halper was an integral part of the FBI’s investigation in 2016 into short-term Trump campaign volunteer, Carter Page and George Papadopolous.

Read the rest here. We need to hear much, much more of this in order to find out all there is to know about the Obama regime’s efforts to use taxpayer dollars to illegal spy on the Trump campaign in 2016.

11. We will end this week with an YUUUUGE disclosure from DoJ that the FISA warrants against Carter Page were not “properly predicated.”

The Department of Justice says that the FBI under disgraced former Director James Comey should have discontinued its secret surveillance on a member of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election because it had “insufficient predication to establish probable cause.”

“Thanks in large part to the work of the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, the Court has received notice of material misstatements and omissions in the applications filed by the government in the above-captioned dockets,” the letter stated. “DOJ assesses that with respect to the applications in Docket Numbers 17-375 and 17-679, ‘if not earlier, there was insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe that [Carter] Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.’”

Read the rest here. This disclosure could unravel everything about Crossfire Hurricane, as well as the Mueller investigation, and it could lead directly to some FBI and DoJ people from the Obama administration being indicted.

Here are this week’s “honorable mention” articles:

• 22,000 attend Richmond gun-rights rally; one arrest made [No violence despite the legacy media insisting that 2A advocates would incite violence. Wrong again!]
• Two deceptions at the heart of Democrats’ impeachment brief [They’re not going to get away with their claims, as the President’s legal team will make mincemeat the House Democrats’ case.]
• Howard Zinn: Fake Historian [A really important article about a Marxist whose American history book is used in many public schools.]
• Hillary Clinton on Bernie Sanders: “Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him” [Democrat internecine warfare. What she forgets is that the exact same words apply to her.]
• NARRATIVE FAIL: Minorities, LGBT Community, Women Show Up In Force At Pro-Gun Rally [That rally didn’t work out the way the legacy media and Democrat were hope it would.]
• A thousand EU financial firms plan to open UK offices after Brexit [Brexit is good for business!]
• Impeachment drives 1,000 GOP candidates to run for House [And the Democrat Establishment still think that impeachment is a winning political issue for them this year. They have no idea.]
• Watchdog group accuses Sanders-aligned group of campaign finance violations [The chances that Commies and foreigners are donating to Bernie? Extremely high.]
• Book Bombshell: Start-up Linked to Hunter Biden Bagged $3 Million from Government Program Run by Biden Adviser [The corruption can’t be hidden forever; Biden’s campaign is just about over.]

The Carter Page FISA applications were fraudulent and not properly predicated, the Democrats are further exposed in their efforts to destroy political and constitutional norms in America, another poll shows that Americans’ distrust for the legacy media is unabated, the Durham criminal investigation makes inexorable progress, and polls show increasing support for the President in the midst of the Democrats’ presentation of their case for impeachment at the Senate trial. Somehow, I didn’t see any good news for Democrats in this week’s summary, which is exactly why the legacy media bury these stories. Next week should be lit on a number of fronts, not the least of which will be the Senate impeachment trial. Stay tuned!

The end.