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For Wed, Dec. 13, 2017
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Billionaire Guo Wengui wants regime change in Beijing
Catherine TRIOMPHE AFP News
Billionaire Guo Wengui, who is seeking asylum in the United States after accusing officials in his native China of corruption, is photographed at his New York apartment on November 28, 2017From a luxury Manhattan apartment, Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui is plotting a "change of the regime" in Beijing and developing a new media platform with the aim of introducing democracy in the world's most populous country.
The fugitive real estate mogul settled in April in New York, on the 18th floor of a hotel facing Central Park, where he's now waiting with his wife for a decision on his claim for US political asylum.
"I want to try and to have rule of law, I want to try and have democracy, freedom, that's my ultimate goal... A change of the regime," he told AFP in a recent exclusive interview. He's set a timeline of three years.
For several months, Guo has been flooding social networks with searing accusations of corruption against China's rich and powerful.
Few Chinese tycoons choose dissent. But Guo, whose property was seized and two brothers imprisoned since he fled from China in 2014, says his campaign has been brewing for 28 years.
Amid the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters on Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, "my little brother died in front of me... I was detained for 22 months."
It was in prison that he decided to "wrestle with this system under the Communist party that is inhumane, not democratic, unlawful."
While some accuse the businessman, who is not shy about publicizing his ostentatious lifestyle, of hypocrisy in his allegations of corruption among China's political elite, Guo denies accusations that he himself is also guilty of graft.
"Why would I do this? I don't need the money, I have money," he said, ticking off possessions such as apartments in New York and London and a yacht, as well as "a wonderful family."
The fugitive real estate mogul settled in April in New York, on the 18th floor of a hotel facing Central Park, where he's now waiting with his wife for a decision on his claim for US political asylum.
"I want to try and to have rule of law, I want to try and have democracy, freedom, that's my ultimate goal... A change of the regime," he told AFP in a recent exclusive interview. He's set a timeline of three years.
For several months, Guo has been flooding social networks with searing accusations of corruption against China's rich and powerful.
Few Chinese tycoons choose dissent. But Guo, whose property was seized and two brothers imprisoned since he fled from China in 2014, says his campaign has been brewing for 28 years.
Amid the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters on Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, "my little brother died in front of me... I was detained for 22 months."
It was in prison that he decided to "wrestle with this system under the Communist party that is inhumane, not democratic, unlawful."
While some accuse the businessman, who is not shy about publicizing his ostentatious lifestyle, of hypocrisy in his allegations of corruption among China's political elite, Guo denies accusations that he himself is also guilty of graft.
"Why would I do this? I don't need the money, I have money," he said, ticking off possessions such as apartments in New York and London and a yacht, as well as "a wonderful family."
- Flee or be eliminated -
"But I am a Buddhist, I want to be kind to other people... I want to change the evil regime," said Guo, who gives his age as 47 despite uncertainty about his birthdate due to the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution in China at the time.
"All the successful businessmen in China, there are only two fates for them: one is to flee the country, the other is waiting to be eliminated."
He chose to go on the offensive, posting unsubstantiated yet politically sensitive allegations.
His Twitter account, which has nearly 480,000 followers, has been repeatedly blocked since China's Communist Party congress in October, he said.
Undeterred, Guo has been developing a new media platform that he intends to launch before the end of December to expose the flaws of China's Communist regime.
Guo has developed a relationship in the US that seems unexpected -- with Steve Bannon, US President Donald Trump's former strategist who has called for Washington to wage "economic war" with China.
"He is one of the best international political experts I have ever seen. Mr Bannon is one of the very few Westerners who really understands Asia," said Guo.
Guo said he has met ten times with Bannon, the one-time Goldman Sachs investment banker and head of influential ultraconservative outlet Breitbart News and that they have discussed his new platform, which he did not describe in detail.
"I have money, you know this, lots of money prepared for this," Guo said of the project.
"All the successful businessmen in China, there are only two fates for them: one is to flee the country, the other is waiting to be eliminated."
He chose to go on the offensive, posting unsubstantiated yet politically sensitive allegations.
His Twitter account, which has nearly 480,000 followers, has been repeatedly blocked since China's Communist Party congress in October, he said.
Undeterred, Guo has been developing a new media platform that he intends to launch before the end of December to expose the flaws of China's Communist regime.
Guo has developed a relationship in the US that seems unexpected -- with Steve Bannon, US President Donald Trump's former strategist who has called for Washington to wage "economic war" with China.
"He is one of the best international political experts I have ever seen. Mr Bannon is one of the very few Westerners who really understands Asia," said Guo.
Guo said he has met ten times with Bannon, the one-time Goldman Sachs investment banker and head of influential ultraconservative outlet Breitbart News and that they have discussed his new platform, which he did not describe in detail.
"I have money, you know this, lots of money prepared for this," Guo said of the project.
- Trump and Xi -
Guo, dressed all in black and smiling, spoke in English with AFP on the topic of democracy. Otherwise he spoke in Chinese through an interpreter.
With his little white dog Snow in his arms, Guo took reporters on a tour of his home, including a magnificent terrace with sprawling views of Central Park, and his office, where he has on display a photo of himself with the Dalai Lama.
Guo confirmed Wall Street Journal reports that he had been visited by Chinese government agents in his apartment in May.
He said the agents had one objective: "They are here to silence me... They want me to stop talking about the corrupt officials in the Chinese government."
"There are more than 100 hours of conversation I have on tape," he said. "For them, it was too big a threat!"
Guo said he thinks "very highly" of Trump, and is a member of the US leader's tony Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. But he nevertheless is critical of Trump's policies toward China.
"He is too focused on his own advantages, his own strengths," Guo said. "Politics is different from business."
As for Chinese President Xi Jinping, Guo called him "the most human, most emotional person out of all the (Chinese) officials."
He partly hopes that Xi would steer China to a Singapore-style governance model with "a kind of rule-of-law society under one party rule that is friendly to the Western world."
In the meantime, Guo keeps in touch with his elderly parents in Beijing and checks on his properties around the world via dozens of cameras that he monitors from his tablet.
Even if he is successful in dismantling the Chinese political structure, Guo, who boasts of constructing "among the most beautiful modern buildings" in China, pledges that he has no ambition of becoming a "Chinese Trump" one day.
"I like freedom, I like to travel, I like to enjoy life," he said. "I'd rather die than be a politician."
Guo, dressed all in black and smiling, spoke in English with AFP on the topic of democracy. Otherwise he spoke in Chinese through an interpreter.
With his little white dog Snow in his arms, Guo took reporters on a tour of his home, including a magnificent terrace with sprawling views of Central Park, and his office, where he has on display a photo of himself with the Dalai Lama.
Guo confirmed Wall Street Journal reports that he had been visited by Chinese government agents in his apartment in May.
He said the agents had one objective: "They are here to silence me... They want me to stop talking about the corrupt officials in the Chinese government."
"There are more than 100 hours of conversation I have on tape," he said. "For them, it was too big a threat!"
Guo said he thinks "very highly" of Trump, and is a member of the US leader's tony Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. But he nevertheless is critical of Trump's policies toward China.
"He is too focused on his own advantages, his own strengths," Guo said. "Politics is different from business."
As for Chinese President Xi Jinping, Guo called him "the most human, most emotional person out of all the (Chinese) officials."
He partly hopes that Xi would steer China to a Singapore-style governance model with "a kind of rule-of-law society under one party rule that is friendly to the Western world."
In the meantime, Guo keeps in touch with his elderly parents in Beijing and checks on his properties around the world via dozens of cameras that he monitors from his tablet.
Even if he is successful in dismantling the Chinese political structure, Guo, who boasts of constructing "among the most beautiful modern buildings" in China, pledges that he has no ambition of becoming a "Chinese Trump" one day.
"I like freedom, I like to travel, I like to enjoy life," he said. "I'd rather die than be a politician."
Commanding Lead: GOP Judge Roy Moore Storms out to Nine-Point Lead over Radical Democrat Doug Jones
by MICHAEL PATRICK LEAHY
Drew Angerer/Getty
A new Emerson Poll released on Monday shows that conservative Republican Roy Moore has increased his lead over liberal Democrat Doug Jones to 9 points, 53 percent to 44 percent, in tomorrow’s special election for the Alabama’s U.S. Senate seat once held by current Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Write-in candidate Lee Busby has the support of 4 percent of poll respondents.
The poll results were announced in this tweet early Monday morning:
Shocking new @EmersonCollege POLL: @realDonaldTrumpendorsement making huge impact as #RoyMoore is now in great position for Tuesday #ALSen election | DETAILS -> http://bit.ly/2z0KLzr
The poll of 600 very likely voters was conducted between December 7 and December 9 and has a 3.9 percent margin of error.
“A major event that might have contributed to Moore’s improved poll numbers is his endorsement by President Trump this past weekend. The President is more popular than either candidate with a 55%/40% favorable/unfavorable rating. Moore is at 45%/45% and Jones is at 43%/45%,” the Emerson College Polling Society said in a press release on Monday.
“Since the Emerson Poll of Nov. 12, a few days after allegations of sexual misconduct, Moore’s lead dropped from 10 points to 6 points Nov. 26 and to 3 points last week on Dec. 3,” the press release noted.
“What we’ve noticed is Moore’s favor abilities have really risen over the past three weeks,” Emerson College professor and polling director Spencer Kimball said in a podcast on Monday.
“Most likely it is this Trump endorsement. Trump is very favorable in Alabama . .. He carries some coattails. I would most likely give that the reason why Moore has been able to extend his lead up to 9,” the Emerson College professor said.
“Based on the polling…we’re 95 percent confident that Moore will win on election day,” Kimball stated, adding that “we’d be more confident of Moore winning by 15 percent than of Jones pulling off the upset.”
“It’s very difficult to see a pathway… for [Jones] to pull off the upset,” Kimball concluded.
A subsequent tweet by the Emerson College Polling Society later Monday morning noted that “All eyes (and ears) are on Alabama.”
All eyes (and ears) are on #Alabama not just here at Emerson, but all around the world. Huge race ...
The latest Real Clear Politics Average of Polls shows Moore with a 4.7 point lead with voting set to begin in Alabama in less than 24 hours.
$5 tickets are the latest sign that the NFL is in big trouble
Twin Design / Shutterstock.comEmbattled NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell seemed to have scored a major victory over critic and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones earlier this month when a committee of owners agreed to a five-year extension of Goodell’s current contract. However, the commissioner’s victory may be short-lived given the stagnation of some National Football League franchises.
A recently-released report detailed that tickets for Sunday’s game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Buffalo Bills were selling on the secondary market for under $5 per ticket — and vendor sites revealed that the game was not even close to a sell-out. This example is part of a greater trend of falling ticket prices, disaffected fan bases and growing public discontent with the league.
Dick Morris & Eileen McGann: Now the Deep State Has a Name–the Federal Bureau of Investigation
by DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Don’t fall for former FBI Director James Comey’s latest tweet claiming that “the FBI is and always will be independent.”
To the contrary, we now know that the FBI has been overtly biased in favor of Hillary Clinton and her associates and overly zealous in its investigation of Donald Trump and her associates.
The G-men have gone rogue.
In fact, recent reports suggest the FBI now serves as the command center of the Deep State, aptly housed in the J. Edgar Hoover Building. The iconic former director would undoubtedly approve of their questionable tactics.
Working hand in hand with the special counsel’s office, the FBI/Deep State is in high gear. Through constant leaks of confidential or embarrassing materials, unmasking classified information about Trump associates, stonewalling Congressional requests for testimony and information about FBI conduct, selective prosecutions, and the coordination and hiring of high-level and deeply-biased partisans, the Deep State follows its battle plan for impeachment and annihilation of Donald Trump and campaign aides.
It looks like the top echelon of the Deep State includes, at the very least, former FBI director James Comey, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, and FBI agents Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, as well as the many other overt Hillary supporters and Trump haters populating the Special Prosecutor’s Office and the FBI.
It started during the campaign. At the core of the FBI and the Justice Department, a small group was apparently obsessively dedicated to defeating Donald Trump and electing Hillary Clinton as president.
When the voters unexpectedly thwarted their plans, these deep-state holdovers switched their idee fixe to a well-orchestrated and more sinister campaign: to impeach Trump. Without any regard for the will of the electorate, these deep-state actors decided that they know best. To them, Trump and his supporters are amoral barbarians who should not allowed to be anywhere near their White House.
They want him gone – whatever it takes. And they are working 24/7 to make that happen.
There’s more: they want to whitewash Hillary’s potential criminal liability.
Since neither of these could be accomplished by ordinary orthodox law enforcement practices with fair and unbiased investigators and prosecutors, a new strategy emerged: cover up Hillary’s culpabilities and exaggerate any problems of the Trump team.
Recent disclosures show that the integrity of FBI has been severely and blatantly compromised by the active political partisanship of at least one top agent — evidencing conflicts of interest and meddling in potential criminal matters to protect Hillary Clinton.
Both Comey and Mueller showed astonishingly bad judgment in giving unbridled authority to FBI agent Peter Strzok, who led the investigations into whether there was a Trump/Russian collusion/illusion and whether Hillary Clinton should be prosecuted for sending classified information on her private email server.
Strzok and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, were part of a hotbed (no pun intended) of unabashed anti-Trump and pro/Hillary sentiment within the FBI, exchanging emails and messages — apparently still too inappropriate for Mueller to release — that shared their profound anti-Trump bias.
Page worked directly under Andrew McCabe, whose wife received over $600,000 in donations to her failed Congressional campaign directed by Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe, another conflict that has been ignored.
Page routinely participated in meetings about the Trump and Hillary investigations.
Strzok was influential in eliminating Hillary’s criminal culpability. He got rid of the problematic conclusion that her conduct involved potential criminal activity. After his fellow FBI experts (including Andrew McCabe) had drafted a memo concluding that Mrs. Clinton was guilty of “gross negligence” in handling the classified emails, Strzok led the effort to replace the fateful words with the more innocuous “extreme carelessness” (the language used in the final report and by Comey) so that Hillary could get away scot free.
“Gross negligence” is a term of art and the language used in the statute to determine what rises to the level of criminal activity.
Mueller kicked Strzok off the staff of the special counsel in August, relegating the top counterintelligence agent to FBI Siberia — the HR Department.
No explanation was given for this drastic act and Mueller has refused to give any details. Was it more than just anti-Trump pillow talk?
Strzok was all over the place. He participated in the interviews of Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, and Cheryl Mills at the behest of McCabe.
Strzok saw no problem when Hillary testified 39 times that she could not remember important details! Imagine if one of the Trump targets did the same.
Abedin and Mills both testified that they knew nothing about the secret server until it was disclosed in the press — even though their own emails contradicted them.
That was no problem for Strzok and the FBI either.
And it was Strzok who testified before Congress about the unreliable Steele dossier. Posing as a disinterested agent, he hid his pillow-talk trashing of Donald Trump.
As the Uranium One investigation produced evidence of collusion between the Clintons and Moscow, the FBI junta may have tried to deflect attention from this scandal to make out a case that it was Trump who was in collusion with Russia. Their chosen instrument, secretly funded by Hillary’s campaign, was a dossier that subsequently has been found to have been unverifiable and filled with contradictions, inaccurate information, and questionable, possibly fake sources.
But that was no problem for the FBI. After almost a year of trying to verify the claims in the dossier, it has utterly failed to do so.
An informant has charged Strzok with obstructing a probe into the dossier’s validity.
We don’t know exactly what Strzok’s role was in the FBI’s collaboration with ex British spook Christopher Steele, but given his position and assignments, there had to be some interaction.
Was he the one who offered $50,000 to Steele to get him to verify his alleged sources? (He never did verify them and has admitted that much of the dossier came from “unsolicited sources.”).
The FBI has refused to give any information about payments or offers of payments to Steele.
What was Strzok’s role in advising Comey to provide a summary of the dossier to President Obama, thereby assuring its leaking and publication?
There was another effort to protect the Clintons. The FBI kept information about the Uranium One deal secret by muzzling Special FBI agent, William Campbell, who had amassed evidence that the Clintons had taken suspicious payments — directly and through the Clinton Foundation — from Russian sources seeking to facilitate Russian acquisition of American uranium mines.
Deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, charged with supervising Campbell’s investigation, under the general control of then FBI Director Robert Mueller, refused to tell the public or even Congress about the findings and hid them from the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investments weighing whether to approve the sale of 20 percent of our uranium mines to Russia. His FBI bosses made Campbell agree not to disclose his findings and blocked his testifying about them to Congress.
And Strzok was involved in the Flynn investigation. To further the line of a Trump-Russian conspiracy to fix the election, the Deep State reached out to ensnare incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and make it seem as if he was involved. None other than Peter Strzok met with Flynn and asked him about his phone calls with the Russian ambassador. McCabe paved the way, telling Flynn that the interview would be a formality. He said that “some agents were heading over (to the White House).” Flynn thought it was part of the routine work of the FBI. It wasn’t until the interview began that Flynn apparently realized it was a formal interview and that he needed a lawyer. But he didn’t have one. What he didn’t realize was that he was being framed.
Strzok claimed that Flynn had lied to him. We have, of course, only Strzok’s word for it.
Comey claims that Trump asked him to back off. His proof: a letter he wrote to himself.
For half a year, the whole Deep State gang — Comey Mueller, Strzok, Page, Rosenstein — maneuvered to build a case against Trump and to shield Hillary.
It was, after all, Rosenstein who named Mueller as special counsel after Senator Al Franken (D-Minn) took time off from his escapades to ask Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearings if any member of the Trump campaign had dealt with the Russian ambassador. Not considering himself a part of the campaign, he answered “no.” But when the media showed that he had spoken to the Russians, he was obliged to recuse himself from the investigation. That cleared the way for his deputy, Rosenstein, to name Mueller.
The Deep State weaves a tangled web, but it is increasingly its own leaders — Comey and Mueller — and its foot soldier Strzok who are being ensnared in it.
We are entitled to a full explanation of what went on. Now.
Roy Moore’s Core Supporters In Alabama Don’t Care What You Think
As Alabama’s special Senate election draws near, pastors speak out about why they’re standing by Roy Moore in defiance of the GOP establishment.
By John Daniel Davidson
By John Daniel Davidson
Fannin Road Baptist Church sits across from an abandoned cow pasture on the west side of Montgomery, Alabama, in a poor neighborhood of sparse, dilapidated single-story homes near Maxwell Air Force Base. Pastor Jim Lester began what he calls a “missionary church” here in 1998, while he was still on active duty in the Air Force.
At 63, Lester has a military bearing and sports a closely cropped gray mustache, a bald head, and a distinct North Carolina drawl. Like most pastors of independent fundamentalist Baptist churches in Alabama, Lester doesn’t mince words about what he believes—or why he supports Roy Moore.
Lester was one of the 53 Alabama pastors who signed a letter endorsing the Republican Alabama Senate candidate back in August. A month ago, Moore’s wife, Kayla Moore, re-posted the letter on Facebook in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against her husband. Since then, Lester says he’s been contacted by close to a hundred reporters but hasn’t spoken out, until now.
“Roy Moore was a man who was willing to stand on his principles, even though it cost him his job as chief justice, cost him his livelihood,” Lester says, referring to Moore’s removal from the Alabama Supreme Court, first in 2003 and again in 2016. “That’s extreme.” But Lester is quick to clarify that his support for Moore goes beyond his belief that Moore is a man of principle.
“We take the Bible literally as God’s word,” he says. “And the problem with abortion is that we believe that it’s the taking of a human life, at any point.” Lester is referring to Democratic candidate Doug Jones and his support for abortion, which is all Lester needs to know about him. He quotes Proverbs chapter 6, which lists seven things that God hates. “You ever heard this?” he asks me. “You know what they are? Do you know what one of them is?” He quickly answers his own question: “The shedding of innocent blood. That is something God hates.”
Lester doesn’t believe the allegations against Moore are true. But he says that even if Moore were proven guilty of the worst of the accusations leveled against him—that he groped a 14-year-old when he was in his early thirties—abortion, or “the taking of a human life,” would still be a worse sin in the eyes of God. “It’s not about what Jim Lester thinks, it’s about what God thinks,” he says. “That directs my voting.”
Moore Supporters Are Motivated By Religious Convictions
This is more or less the view of a large swath of Moore supporters in Alabama, and especially the pastors of mostly small, independent churches who have publicly endorsed him. Pastor David Floyd of Marvyn Parkway Baptist Church in Opelika, who also signed the August letter, told me that Moore caught his attention back in 2000, when he was running for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and promised to install a monument to the Ten Commandments—then actually did it when he won the election. “If I thought Judge Moore was just another politician I wouldn’t support him.” Floyd tells me. “Over the years, I have found him to be a righteous man. I believe him.”
When we sit down to talk, the 63-year-old, white-haired pastor takes out a recording device, places it next to mine and says he’s going to tape our conversation. Floyd is wary of reporters after what he claims was an unfair and inaccurate representation of his remarks to a Washington Post reporter. This is his first time supporting a political campaign publicly, and he tells me he and his congregation have suffered “vicious attacks” from all over the country because of it, even some attacks here in their hometown. Outside his modest church, a large Roy Moore sign has been repeatedly knocked down. But Floyd doesn’t mind the abuse because to him Moore’s campaign is about more than politics, it’s about turning America back to God.
“When Roy Moore announced his campaign he said he wanted to do what Trump said, to make America great again,” Floyd says. “But then he said for America to ever be great again, she’s got to be moral again, and that’s how I feel. We’ve got to repent and turn back to God, and we’ve got a long way to go.”
Religious leaders like Floyd and Lester—and hundreds of thousands of Alabama voters who agree with them—are uncompromising in their sense of moral obligation at the voting booth. A 2014 Pew Research Center study found that 58 percent of Alabamans think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, and that the vast majority of this group are white, churchgoing evangelical Protestants who tend to vote Republican, consider themselves politically conservative, and oppose gay marriage.
But such surveys don’t capture the deep ambivalence such voters feel about partisan politics. If a candidate agrees with their views on abortion and gay marriage, then they will vote for that candidate. If not, they won’t. As it happens, Republican candidates often hold such views, so they tend to vote for Republicans. But many of these voters have little use for the GOP as such, and especially for what they view as a Republican establishment in Washington that’s lukewarm or ineffective on the issues they care about most (abortion and gay marriage).
They are especially disturbed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s concerted efforts to keep Moore out of the GOP conference. As Lester says of Moore’s opponents in the GOP, “They don’t want Moore in there because he would be an embarrassment. But what’s an embarrassment to me and what would be an embarrassment to them would be different things altogether.”
Politics, especially the increasingly pervasive politics of all-out culture war, is for these voters a straightforward extension of their religious convictions. The mainstream media paints these people as without principles—or worse, as hypocrites, given their support of Moore in the face of his alleged sexual misdeeds. But the opposite is true. They take their principles so seriously that they’re willing to make hard choices with their eyes wide open. In this case, they will not vote for Doug Jones because Jones supports abortion—no matter what Moore did.
Ask them about the accusations of sexual misconduct against Moore, and they will likely tell you they don’t believe them, for a handful of reasons. Moore’s offenses are said to have happened nearly 40 years ago, and although he ran in three statewide elections since then, the allegations never came up. Why not? Moore also twice gave up high elected office because of his convictions, once over refusing to remove the Ten Commandments statue and again in 2012 over refusing to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage in Obergefell.
As retired pastor Layton Sampson told me, Moore is “a man who doesn’t change his principles. He’s been a fixture here for a long time, and always did what he said he would do.” By standing on principle, his supporters say, Moore has shown himself to be a man of integrity, a man who won’t just say or do anything to win or keep office. If he says he didn’t do the things he’s accused of, he should be trusted.
Even non-religious supporters of Moore echo these sentiments. Warren Fuller and about a dozen of his friends, all retirees, gather most weekday mornings at the McDonald’s in downtown Auburn to drink coffee and talk politics. The 84-year-old retired commercial painter says all but one of his group—the “damn Democrat”—supports Moore, and that it doesn’t matter how many women come forward with accusations, he doesn’t believe them. He thinks they’re being put up to it.
A recent CBS/YouGov poll found that among voters who don’t believe the allegations against Moore, 91 percent say Democrats are behind them and 89 percent also say the media is behind them. Fuller says he doesn’t go to church but, like most people in Alabama, he believes in God and thinks Moore has been unfairly attacked for years. Unlike most politicians, who he says are only in office to enrich themselves, “Roy Moore won’t take a dime.”
Same People Who Misread 2016 Dismiss Alabama Voters
Whether you think the accusations against Moore are credible or not, these are not unreasonable arguments. They are also not necessarily borne of ignorance, bigotry, or populist fervor, as so many Washington pundits like to claim. Even if you aren’t convinced by his supporters’ arguments, they must be reckoned with and answered, not dismissed or scoffed at, precisely because they are so prevalent. That CBS/YouGov poll found that 71 percent of Alabama Republicans don’t believe the allegations against Moore, while just 17 percent say the accusations are true. The poll also found a majority of likely voters believe that other things matter more in this election than the accusations against Moore.
For many people outside Alabama, especially the Republican establishment and the mainstream media, this is a big problem. Their general consensus is that the allegations against Moore are credible, and that he is therefore unfit for office. Their lack of curiosity about why so many Alabamans nevertheless support Moore, and their instinct to dismiss his supporters out of hand, is one of the reasons America got Donald Trump last year—and why almost no one saw it coming.
The professional class that’s supposed to understand American voters never bothered to ask why Trump’s message might resonate with tens of millions of people, in part because they never bothered to ask those people what they cared about or treat their concerns as legitimate. For the most part, the mainstream media and Washington elites would rather pretend these people don’t exist, or dismiss them as backwater rubes and racists.
There is of course a kind of sanctimony in this indifference and condescension. Jim Lester was right: Moore is indeed an embarrassment to people like McConnell and certain prominent conservative columnists who think the people of Alabama should be less concerned with abortion and gay marriage. Just like they should’ve been less concerned last year with immigration and free trade. Don’t these people know what’s good for them?
As the polls now stand, Moore is ahead by about 4 points. That means the rubes of Alabama are poised to send Roy Moore to the U.S. Senate. They don’t seem to care what the media and the GOP establishment think. Many of them, however, care very much what God thinks, and they believe they know what they have to do.
John is a senior correspondent for The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter.
States Seek To Avoid Facing Little Sisters In Court While Challenging Their Legal Win
Six state attorneys general seek to force the Little Sisters to violate their consciences or pay millions in fines, all without having to face these religious caregivers in a court of law.
By Margot Cleveland
By Margot Cleveland
Beneath the shroud of the elderly’s wrinkled, withered skin, parchment thin from age, the Little Sisters of the Poor see Jesus. This vision animates the Little Sisters as they care for the elderly poor in homes throughout the United States and the world, daily confronting the pain wrought by disease and desolation.
But now the attorneys general of six states seek to force these religious caregivers to violate their consciences or pay millions of dollars in fines, and these powerful men want to do this without having to face the Little Sisters in a court of law.
The Little Sisters do not want to be in court either, but the choice was not theirs. Four years ago, the Obama administration forced the Little Sisters into litigation. It was either that, violate their conscience by facilitating health insurance payments for birth control, abortifacients, and sterilization procedures, or pay an annual fine of $2.5 million.
After taking two trips to the Supreme Court and reaching an impasse in negotiating an accommodation with the Obama administration, the Little Sisters finally received a reprieve when, on October 6, 2017, the Trump administration issued new regulations exempting the Little Sisters, and other individuals and entities with a religious objection, from the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate.
But within hours of the release of the new interim rules, the attorneys general of California, Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Virginia filed a lawsuit in a San Francisco federal court, challenging the Trump administration’s new religious-based exemption. The Pennsylvania attorney general filed a nearly identical complaint in federal district court in Philadelphia.
No Defending Yourselves in Court, Little Sisters
The Little Sisters sought to intervene in both cases to defend the religious-based exemption—something allowed under federal rules governing court procedures. Yet, in both cases, the attorneys general opposed the Little Sisters’ motion to intervene. It is much easier arguing for “women’s rights” in the abstract than making that argument when challenged by women pleading for their right to religious liberty.
Unfortunately, on Friday the Little Sisters lost in their attempt to intervene in the Pennsylvania case when Judge Wendy Beetlestone, a Barack Obama appointee, denied their motion to intervene. Beetlestone concluded the Little Sisters lacked an “interest” in the litigation sufficient to justify joining the Trump administration’s defense of the exemption.
That’s even though in issuing the new rules, the federal government expressly stated that it sought “to resolve the pending litigation and prevent future litigation from similar plaintiffs;” and even though Beetlestone acknowledged in her opinion that “an interest in relief granted by another court or by a settlement constitutes a sufficiently protectable legal interest to merit intervention as of right.”
Beetlestone’s exclusion of the Little Sisters from the litigation is further troubling given that they have a more direct interest in the outcome of the case than the Pennsylvania attorney general does. The Pennsylvania attorney general sued the Trump administration supposedly on behalf of the women of Pennsylvania whom might be harmed by the religious exemption, while the Little Sisters seek to vindicate their own interest—one of religious liberty.
The Court Case Is Moving Fast
The Little Sisters, who are represented by Becket, immediately filed an appeal with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. How quickly the federal appellate court rules, however, is unclear. But time is of the essence because, on Thursday, December 14, Beetlestone will hold a hearing on Pennsylvania’s motion for a preliminary injunction—which if granted would prevent the religious exemption from taking effect. A decision on the preliminary injunction motion is likely to follow shortly after the hearing, Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel at Becket, told me, because the Pennsylvania attorney general asked for a resolution before year’s end.
While pursuing their appeal in the Third Circuit, the Little Sisters will also be heading to federal court in San Francisco on December 1 to support their request to intervene in the tag-team legal challenge to the religious exemption brought by the attorneys general of California, Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Virginia. The Tuesday hearing will serve a two-fold purpose: the court will consider both the Little Sisters’ motion to intervene and the attorneys general’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
It seems unlikely the Little Sisters will fare any better before San Francisco federal judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr., also an Obama appointee, because, as Becket points out in their motion to intervene, the plaintiffs challenging the religious exemption have taken pains to game the judicial system: “[S]even other lawsuits have been filed nationwide. In only two of those lawsuits, including this one [in San Francisco], have the plaintiffs filed motions for preliminary injunctive relief. Plaintiffs appear to believe that there is a political aspect to this litigation, as they have not sought interim injunctive relief in any cases assigned to Republican-appointed judges.” So it is not just the Little Sisters the plaintiffs prefer to avoid in a court of law!
We will soon know if the attorneys general’s strategy worked, at least in the short-term. In the long-term, another trip to the Supreme Court appears inevitable, with or without the Little Sisters.
Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School as well as a former full-time faculty member and current adjunct professor for the college of business at the University of Notre Dame. Email her: MargotCleveland@nd.edu.
Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School as well as a former full-time faculty member and current adjunct professor for the college of business at the University of Notre Dame. Email her: MargotCleveland@nd.edu.
REPORT: Planned Parenthood Under Federal Investigation For Sale Of Fetal Tissue
By RYAN SAAVEDRA
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) launched a federal investigation into Planned Parenthood over their widely criticized practices and for selling fetal tissue.
DOJ Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Stephen Boyd officially requested original documents from the Senate Judiciary Committee to conduct the investigation, according to a letter first obtained by Fox News.
“The Department of Justice appreciates the offer of assistance in obtaining these materials, and would like to request the Committee provide unredacted copies of records contained in the report, in order to further the Department’s ability to conduct a thorough and comprehensive assessment of that report based on the full range of information available,” Boyd wrote in the letter.
Key facts from Fox News’ report include:
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The FBI was first to formally request the unredacted documents from the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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Top committee members Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) indicated they needed to receive a letter guaranteeing them the documents are for investigative purposes before they release them.
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The letter Fox News obtained is a “rare confirmation” by the DOJ of a federal investigation.
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Grassley “referred” Planned Parenthood and others to the FBI for investigation in the committee’s final report in 2016.
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The investigation comes in response to a 2015 undercover video by a pro-life activist that showed officials from Planned Parenthood and StemExpress talking about the sale of fetal tissue parts.
“Over two years ago, citizen journalists at The Center for Medical Progress first caught Planned Parenthood’s top abortion doctors in a series of undercover videos callously and flippantly negotiating the sale of tiny baby hearts, lungs, livers, and brains,” David Daleiden, leader of the pro-life Center for Medical Progress said Thursday. “It is time for public officials to finally hold Planned Parenthood and their criminal abortion enterprise accountable under the law.”
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Helen and Moe Lauzier
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